𝐑𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 | 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐢𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐬

𝟐𝟒 | 𝐅𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬

When we left the house, I just started walking. I couldn't stop.

"Ruth!" Luke called. "Ruth, stop!"

I came to a halt and turned around to face him. "What?"

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," I shrugged.

"Yeah, well, from experience, when girls say 'I'm fine' they never actually mean it ... "

"Well, I am!" I said a little louder than I meant to. "I can move on just as quickly as they did!"

"Ruth, it's been twenty-five years," Luke reminded me. "You haven't had that long to process everything."

"I met you guys, I ate a hot dog, I died, I became a ghost, my friend died, my mom doesn't love me and apparently I have a brother," I listed. "There. Processed."

Luke gave me a pitying look - the kind that would make a puppy cry. I couldn't stand it anymore.

"Weren't we supposed to be meeting Alex's ghost friend?" I asked.

"Yeah, but Ruth - "

I vanished before he could say anything further.

———

We arrived at a park down by the coast. The sun was shining and the waves were shimmering brightly. Happy families strolled along the coast wall as if the world didn't completely suck.

"Hey, where were you guys?" Reggie asked. "We've been watching Willie skate around this whole time. Dude's insane!"

"Yo, Willie!" Alex called.

Willie skated over and kicked up his board as he came to a stop.

"You already met Reggie," Alex explained. "This is Luke and this is Ruth."

"Hey!" Willie beamed, holding out his fist for a fist bump. "You must be the lovebirds."

I side-eyed Alex.

"It must've slipped out," Alex held his hands up in surrender.

"So," Willie moved on. "You guys here to learn some tricks?"

With a flick of his wrist, Willie managed to set off the alarms on the cops' bikes, allowing the skaters they were lecturing to make a run for it.

"Do it again! Do it again!" Reggie pleaded.

"Actually," Luke turned to Willie. "We were thinking a little bigger."

Luke explained that they wanted to confront Bobby for stealing from them.

"Alright, is this, uh, old friend of yours a lifer?" Willie asked, as if what he was saying made total sense.

"Oh," Alex interjected. "That's fancy ghost lingo for the living. Little something I picked up."

"Ah! Then yeah!" Reggie exclaimed. "He's a lifer. Too much of a fancy-pants for street dogs."

"But we're all dead and he's still alive, so ... "

"Touchy subject, Ruth," Reggie rolled his eyes.

Willie apologised and explained that he wasn't capable of talking to lifers. Apparently, it took an extremely powerful ghost to be able to do that. Turns out, Willie knew just the guy that could help. The guys were more than eager to meet this ghost and agreed to meet Willie again later that same evening. Once the details were laid out, we went our separate ways.

———

"So, what are we going to say to Bobby?" Luke asked as we arrived in the studio.

"I think starting with 'Hey' would be a good idea," I suggested as I fell back into the sofa.

Reggie nodded. "Yeah, and get all up in his face!"

"Guys, this is serious!" Luke exclaimed. "We need him to pay for what he did to us!"

"You're gonna ask for our cut of the royalties?" Alex asked. "Luke, we're dead. What are we gonna do with the money?"

Luke let out a frustrated huff and disappeared.

Before I could even exhale, Reggie and Alex were sitting either side of me.

"So ... " Reggie began, placing his chin in his palms. "Where did he take you?"

"Was it romantic?" Alex added teasingly.

"What on earth are you guys talking about?"

Alex sat back into the sofa. "You guys were gone a long time."

"We assumed you went on a date or something," Reggie shrugged.

"Ugh!" I stood up from the couch, frustrated, and turned around to face them. "Guys, this has to stop!"

"What? We were just - "

"No!" I cut Alex off. "The two of you need to leave this whole lovebirds thing alone because if you don't, I might explode!"

Reggie and Alex sat there in shock. Neither of them said a word as they absorbed my rage. What had started as a white lie had become a very touchy subject indeed. I continued my rant.

"Joking about it at first, when Julie came up with the whole thing, was one thing," I explained. "But joking about it now that I've realised my feelings for Luke, well, it's just driving me insane because I know that deep down, he will never like me back!"

"What?" Luke asked from behind me.

"Go away, Luke!" I exclaimed. "This is a private - Oh, wait ... "

"You have feelings for me?" Luke asked.

Luke stood there, with that puppy-killing look of pity in his eyes and a pen and paper in his hands. We were supposed to be planning what they'd say to Bobby when they finally get the chance to confront him, and there I was, casually admitting I had feelings for him through an unhealthy amount of suppressed anger.

I shook my head. "Just forget it."

I left before anyone could say anything. I knew better than to go to the roof, I was too easily found there. Instead, I went home.

———

When I arrived in the treehouse, I gave one of the chairs a kick and broke the woodworm-ridden leg.

"Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" I hissed at myself.

I sat in the empty corner Luke and I were in only hours ago as single tears started streaming down my face. I couldn't quite figure out if they were sad tears or tears of anger, but they continued to flow in slow, wet, drops. I was sick and tired of feeling so much all at once. There was a point in my life where I didn't feel anything, but it was like it had all caught up to me at once - all of those unprocessed feelings and emotions.

I reached behind the wooden chair to retrieve my notebook. It had been over twenty-five years since I had used it. Needless to say a lot had happened in twenty-five years. Luke was right, I hadn't had a lot of time to process everything that had happened. But I wasn't a very patient person. So, I decided to process it all at once. I pulled the pen out of the ring binders and started to write.

"Sunset Curve were playing in the Orpheum and there was no way on earth I was going to miss it ... "