✓ Her Mixtape, Stranger Things

xlii. my tears ricochet

She felt herself freeze, and she hesitated before putting the phone up to her ear again. "Hello?"

"Rue, thank God," said someone with a relieved sigh. Terror grips Rue by her throat as she recalls the owner of that ever-so-sweet voice. Her voice was raspier than Rue remembered, but that could have just been because it was through the phone. It was her. Her. Her. And this was real. Real. Real. Rue pinched herself to make sure of it.

"Max?" Waves of emotions flow through Rue's veins before it settles into disbelief and heartbreak- because that was what Max had done. She broke Rue's heart, even if she might not have meant to do so. Heartbreak was heartbreak; even if only one heart was left ruined, it took four bloody hands to break it.

One or the other was going to suffer regardless. The heart never broke evenly.

Rue blamed herself for it as much as she blamed Max. She thought of herself as foolish to think that distance really did make the heart grow fonder only to realize that it made your heart grow cold with thorns sprouting around it.

Sometimes she wished she stayed.

"It's me," Max confirmed. "It's been a while, huh?"

Rue had never wanted anything more than to explode. "What is wrong with you?" She spits out before she can think of a reasonable thing to say. "It's been a while? Yeah, no shit. It's been three months—"

"Come on, that's not fair."

"Fair?" She scoffs, "I was worried something happened to you... or that you did something or... I was fucking worried and I had every right to be." Rue argued, however, with every hesitant pause she made, she wanted to say more. She wanted to scream it, say it. Say it. Say it.

Rue let out a slow breath, "You're not ready for a relationship, okay fine. I respect that. You said you wanted to stay friends, but last time I checked, friends actually spoke to each other. They didn't leave you hanging for three fucking months, espeically on their birthday. The only reason I knew you were still alive was because Lucas sent me a letter—"

"Lucas is sending you letters?"

Rue nearly screams, "That's not the point."

"Okay? I didn't call you to fight."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Rue throws her head back against the wall with a quiet thud, and tears stung in her eyes, "Please, Max. What do you have to say to me?"

"I... I don't think I can say it over the phone."

Rue scoffs again.

"...Do you think you can catch the next flight to Indianapolis?"

"What?"

"Something happened. Here at home. And I have a theory, but it can be wrong. This can be so much easier if you're here because... you know."

"No. I don't know."

"Rue, stop being so difficult, alright?"

"Max, stop being so insensitive, alright?"

"God, what is up with you?" Max raises her voice, clearly pissed off. "I'm trying to tell you something serious, and all you can do is throw around insults and act clueless. Like, who even are you?"

Rue had to bite her tongue to stop herself from saying something she would have regretted. "I'm just trying to wrap my head around the fact you ghost me for three months, and then all of a sudden you ask me to book the first flight to Indianapolis with no context whatsoever as if I can put my entire life here on hold just for you."