“Eleventh, right?”
“Tenth.” She muted it and sat at her desk beside a bowl of barbecue chips and a couple of cans of root beer—two of my favorite things. She opened the drawer and pulled out a pack of red licorice. Also a favorite.
She gracelessly ripped open the package. “Want one?”
“No thanks.” I sat on the edge of the bed. What was she doing? Were we going to talk about Jessica? Or maybe we were going to pretend that she never happened?
“I’ve numbered the triangles,” Ruthie said through a mouthful of licorice. “That way we can do a pattern on each one that will come together when it’s folded.”
“Ruthie?”
“Or we can leave them plain.” She rolled up another piece of licorice and stuffed it in her mouth. “And they can color them after. I was going to bring a box of markers.”
“We’re not going to talk about it?”
Ruthie’s expression was blank. She chewed and chewed. She held out the package of licorice. “Want one?”
So we were not going to talk about it.
I took a piece and nibbled on it. “Thanks.”
We cut strips of paper—not talking at all—and Ruthie demonstrated how to fold them and glue them, and how to work the hexaflexagon so that it showed one surface, then another, then a third. Ruthie’s fingers seemed unusually nimble.
When we’d made enough, she put them in an envelope and stood up.
“You should probably go now.”
“I could stay,” I said. “We could watch a movie or something?”
Ruthie patted her thighs, something she did when she was particularly nervous. “I can’t.”
“Okay.” Confused, I picked up my bag. Ruthie was still patting her thighs, and then all of a sudden she was coming at me.
“Ruthie—”
She pushed me against the wall with such force that one of her science-fair trophies toppled off the shelf above and landed on the bed. “Ruthie, stop!” I put up my hands, but Ruthie leaned in, and then I was pressing up against Ruthie’s breasts through her shirt and they were enormous and squishy and Ruthie’s face was in mine and her mouth was open and wet and she smelled of barbecue chips and licorice and she was kissing me with such ferocity that I could not breathe.
And I couldn’t speak, because Ruthie’s mouth was on mine and she was sliding her face back and forth, as if that were kissing, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t at all. I tried to push her away, but Ruthie planted her hands on either side of my shoulders and kept slobbering on me until I finally ducked down under her arm and was free.
“What the hell are you doing?” I clutched my bag to my chest.
Ruthie sank to the floor. “You picked her.”
“It wasn’t about picking!”
“You were supposed to pick me.”
“I didn’t pick anyone!” I could hardly speak. I was breathless, and shocked, and had no idea what to say. I backed away. “I never liked you that way. Never.”
“Of course you didn’t.” Ruthie put her head in her hands and started to sob.
Part of me wanted to kneel beside her and put my arms around her and tell her it was okay. But then I felt bile rising in my throat and I ran up the stairs instead, stopping short when I saw Ruthie’s mom at the kitchen counter, chopping vegetables, as if everything were absolutely normal.
“All done, dear?”
I could only nod, and then I rushed out the front door and down the steps and onto the sidewalk. I stood still for a moment, totally stunned. And then I ran, and I kept running, all the way across town to my mom’s office, where I sat on the curb by the car and waited, my breath hot in my chest, my pulse bounding. When I saw Mom walking across the parking lot, I started to cry. “What is it, baby? What happened at Ruthie’s? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
I was fine. I was fine, right? Everything was fine?
I didn’t tell my mom.
I didn’t tell Dan.
I didn’t tell Dad, or Claire.
I didn’t tell anyone. Until I told Salix.
—
“What she did to you was sexual assault.” Salix’s jaw tensed. “Damn right she should be apologizing. Just because she’s a girl doesn’t mean she can get away with forcing herself on you.”
“You know, after it happened, I didn’t know what to think. I thought maybe it was my fault. I asked myself, What if it was a guy? And I knew the answer: I’d tell. But I was confused. And I still am. I felt sorry for her.”
“Would you feel sorry for your assailant if it was a guy?”
“Assailant? That’s a bit harsh.”
“What she did was harsh. Just because she’s a girl doesn’t make it any less harsh.”
“But she’s not just a girl,” I said. “She’s Ruthie. She’s my weird and socially tragic and totally harmless best friend. She was confused. She was trying. She thought that because Jessica was gone and we both—”
“There’s no excuse.” Salix’s expression was grim. “Are you going to write her back?”
“Of course.” I didn’t even hesitate. Of course I’d write her back. Ruthie was the gigantic ogre that had forced me against the wall, but she was also my oldest friend, and I wasn’t willing to break up with her.
“I hope she behaves better with her new girlfriend.”
“It’s good that she told her, right?”
Salix nodded. “That part is a very good thing.”
“If I thought for one second that Ruthie was dangerous, I wouldn’t write her back. I trust her.” I pulled Salix to the couch and sat in her lap. I draped my arms around her neck and kissed her. “I have good instincts. I knew you were a good thing. A very good thing.”
It took a couple of days to write Ruthie back—eight long pages about everything that had happened since that afternoon. I walked up to the post office and mailed the letter, and as I came out of the post office, there was Dad.
“I followed you.”
“Drunk, junkie, and stalker?”
“Ouch.” He put his arm around me. “Walk with me.”
“To where?”
“The Legion,” he said. “For a meeting.”
“I suppose that’s a good thing.”
“I’m looking forward to this one.” He dropped his arm. “The one I go to on the way home from work is so boring. Boring stories. Boring people. Everyone is so tense. And so boring. Promise me that you’ll never be boring, Maeve.”
“I’d rather be boring than a drunk.”
“Fair enough.”
We walked south, joining the early-evening bustle on the sidewalk. The restaurant patios were full of people and pitchers of sangria and plates of sweet potato fries. The shops were open later during the summer, so doors were open and people browsed and music leaked out onto the street.
“I’ve kept my word,” Dad said. “I’ve gone to a meeting every single day.”
“Good for you.”
We walked along in silence for a while, and then he took my hand.
“Where’s the painting, Maeve?”
I wished that I knew. I wished that I could bring it back. I wished that I had left it on the wall.
“I threw it in the alley.” My voice caught. “Someone took it. I’m sorry.”
“Okay.” He nodded and nodded. “Thanks for telling me.”
“It was mean. What you said about it.”