AN: Only two or three chapters left!

Ruthie barely remembered the rest of the New York trip. They only had two days left, and she spent most of it in dry-eyed silence, only speaking when spoken to. The Broadway play, Central Park, the museums, everything had been robbed of its joy, though Pepsi, Linda and Gordon tried to cheer her up.

She told Ms. Pomerantz the exact truth about where Elliott was, saying that he'd found his passport and an old credit card and returned to England for an important audition. She knew that it didn't even really matter; what were they going to do, extradite him from England back to the US? Only the students knew the rest of the story, with more or less accuracy depending on how well they knew Ruthie.

"What?" Ruthie heard Joanna's tittering laugh when they were on the plane back to California, partially because Joanna was sitting right in front of her, but mainly because Joanna had the most annoying laugh in the world. Joanna sat up and turned around in her seat so she was facing Ruthie, and Pepsi, who was sitting right next to her.

"Ruthie Grimaldi, I just heard the whole story about our hunky Englishman, and I just can't believe it!" Joanna pressed her barely covered breasts against the head rest, creating an even larger cleavage than usual, probably for the benefit of the boys who were watching. "Did he really just screw you in his apartment and then just leave you for his big audition in London, England?" Joanna made her eyes very big and round, again, for her male admirers. "Did he really pull a fuck and duck on you? Hm?"

Pepsi spoke before Ruthie could even open her mouth. "I don't know where you're getting your info, but Ruthie didn't sleep with him first, Joanna bigmouth."

Joanna digested this news quickly and readjusted her aim. "You mean he didn't even toss you a quick fuck first? He just left you high and dry? He couldn't even be bothered?" She looked down at Ruthie, her face a parody of sympathy. "Aww, no wonder you've been so down in the dumps. Poor Ruthie."

"Oh, make up your mind, you miserable cunt, either they fucked and it's sad, or they didn't and it's sad, you can't have it both ways," Pepsi snapped, putting an arm around Ruthie. "Just turn around and flash your boobs at the front half of the plane for a while, hm? I feel like I'm being stared at by one of those goldfish with the protruding eyeballs."

And this made everyone around them laugh, even Ruthie, who leaned over and pecked Pepsi on the cheek. "I love you, Pepicita," she declared.

"Love you back, idiot," Pepsi declared, popping the tab on a can of soda and taking a long drink.

Gordon and Linda, who were sitting on the other side of the aisle, were laughing as well, and Ruthie reflected that this would've been so much worse without her friends around her.

Explaining to Ms. Piper at school the next day was no fun for sure.

"He what? When is he coming back?" Ms. Piper asked, her face white as paper.

"I'm sorry, I don't know, he didn't say," Ruthie was forced to admit. She was glad horrid Joanna wasn't around to hear this conversation.

"What about the play? Did he say anything about it?"

Ruthie shook her head.

"But I'm sure he'll be back before performances, Ms. Piper. He's a professional, he'd never screw up the production like that," Ruthie tried to reassure her teacher.

"Well, that's a nice opinion, but we start tech today, we have run throughs all week," Ms. Piper replied, sounding desperate. "Did he say anything at all?"

Again, Ruthie had to shake her head.

"It all happened really fast," she explained.

"Has he texted or anything since then?"

"No, but I don't think he has an international texting plan," Ruthie said. "So I don't think he could, even if he wanted to, you know?"

"Right, great," Ms. Piper replied, now merely sounding despondent. "I don't know what to do. Should I cancel the show? Or what? I mean, we can't do Les Mis without Marius, you know? And he's on another continent. Jesus Christ," she muttered.

"I really, really don't think he'd screw the play," Ruthie said, and she meant it. "So I think the best thing is to have someone stand in and read his lines for this week, and just count on him to be back for curtain on opening night, honest."

Ms. Piper looked doubtfully at Ruthie. "How well do you know him, anyway? You just met him this year, right?"

Ruthie nodded. "But I do know him, Ms. P. Honest, he'd never screw up a show. He just wouldn't."

She fervently hoped it was true.

All through the run-through, Ruthie held it together. Even listening to Neill VanDerWeide read through Elliott's parts didn't faze her. She was strong all through the meeting afterward, when Ms. Piper gave everyone her notes, and a little pep talk about how she was sure Elliott would be back by show time. She heard the snickers of the girls, and felt them looking at her, and told herself she was fine.

"I think Ruthie scared him away somehow when we were in New York," she heard Joanna say to someone as they were leaving the auditorium. She was taking a deep breath to laugh it off, when suddenly she saw her hand reach out and turn Joanna, who was walking in front of her, around.

"What the--" Joanna began. She got no farther.

As if in slow motion, Ruthie felt her hand pull back, then swing forward. She watched her palm connect with Joanna's face, then she heard a brisk slapping noise as she watched a bright red palm print appear on Joanna's cheek.

"Oh my god, you little bitch!" Joanna's hand went to her cheek as tears filled her eyes.

"You shut up, just shut up!" Ruthie shouted in Joanna's face. "I didn't do anything to him I didn't do anything!"

"I was only joking!" Joanna shouted back, even as a couple of her girlfriends pulled her away.

Linda and Gordon were pulling Ruthie away, too, and they got Ruthie into Gordo's car quickly. He silently drove her home, and walked her into her house.

"Rosebud? Everything okay?" Her pop asked.

"Yeah, I'm okay, but Gordo and I are just going up to my room for a while, okay?" she called as they went up the stairs.

"Okay, but what about dinner?"

"We'll forage later, if that's okay?"

"Okay."

Ruthie closed the door behind them and locked it, a first as far as Gordon could remember. Then she went to the bed and lay down, feeling her tears overtake her once more as she finally gave into the strain of acting like everything was normal all day.

Gordon turned the lamp on.

"Oh god, Gordo, please, I look awful, please turn it off," Ruthie implored, so Gordon obligingly shut it off, leaving the room bathed in darkness once more.

"Um, do you want me to go?" he asked politely from where he stood next to her desk.

"No, please don't go, I don't want to be alone," Ruthie begged, and the tone of her voice was so forlorn and hopeless that it hurt Gordon't soft heart.

"Come sit here," she asked, so he felt his way and sat cautiously on the edge of the bed, reaching out to hold her hand in the dark.

"You're such a good friend to me," Ruthie said, her voice soft.

"We're good friends to each other," Gordon assured her.

They remained in silence for a while before Ruthie started crying again.

"Shh, please don't cry, Ruthie, please, please," Gordon asked, leaning forward to stroke her hair.

"That feels nice," she murmured, pulling him to lie down next to her.

He tensed up as he stretched out, but couldn't help laughing when she blew her nose, loudly, into a tissue she grabbed from a box on the table next to the bed.

"Why can't all guys be as nice and uncomplicated as you?" she asked, pulling his arm around her.

"Nice and uncomplicated is just code for boring," Gordon replied, and Ruthie could hear how scathingly he said these words.

"No! Gordon, no! You're the nicest, the absolute best, solid as a rock person, oh my god, you must know that--" Ruthie leaned in and kissed him.

"I'm tired of having my heart stomped on," she said, her words ending in a sob. "I'm tired of feeling worthless, useless, stupid, and ugly." She leaned in and kissed Gordon again. "I want to feel beautiful again."

"Ruthie, you are beautiful," Gordon told her sincerely. "You're the most beautiful girl in the world, don't you know that?" He leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. He hovered there after, and Ruthie knew he was inhaling the scent of her hair, her skin. "Whoever winds up with you will be the luckiest guy in the whole world."

Ruthie sighed against Gordon's neck, and hooked her leg over his, pulling them closer to each other. "Kiss me, Gordon," she whispered. "Kiss me. For real. No more screwing around."

She leaned in and found his mouth, by touch and guess, and pressed her mouth to his. She could immediately feel him flutter to life against her stomach, which made her smile. His hands grasped convulsively at her back and into her hair.

Ruthie opened her mouth to him, and breathed in the lovely, clean smell of Gordo, her childhood friend.

After a few minutes, Ruthie reached up to unbutton her blouse, but Gordon reached out a hand and stopped her.

"Ruthie," he began. She could hear joy and desire in his voice, and she could feel him, hard as granite between them, but there was also something else. Disappointment? Sorrow?

"What?"

"I just think that, while it's okay to want more, and deserve more, and to settle for less, I don't think it's optimum, you know? I think sometimes it's okay to hold out for what you deserve, and not just settle for what's available at the moment. You might like it in the short term, but you'll really regret it some day, and the sooner a person realizes what they're worth, the happier they'll be? Something like that, I think."

And now Ruthie could hear the humor in his voice.

"Oh, Gordon," she said, pulling away from him a little. "You're so nice to say those things to me, but you sell yourself short. I don't think I'll ever regret you, no matter what you think."

Gordon let out a slow breath.

"Wow," he said, and his voice was so soft Ruthie could barely hear it. "You're so conceited, Ruthie. I love you so much, but you're so conceited."

Ruthie was so shocked she sat straight up in the dark, nearly whacking Gordon in the chin with her head.

What?

Gordon leaned in and pressed another kiss to Ruthie's forehead.

"I wasn't talking about you, beautiful, beautiful, Ruthie, I was talking about me."