my tears ricochet

✧

The funny thing about anger is that it is always there. Or at least, that was how Rue felt lately. With every passing hour, rage burned in her blood, leaving behind a strange buzz at her fingertips and letting her turn to fire.

Anger usually hides the presence of deeper and less comfortable emotions like sadness or guilt. Rue had been well aware of that. Dr. Monroe spent three days explaining to Rue that the new feeling she had been dealing with wasn't exactly new—it was a defence mechanism she had created amidst her trauma.

They were walls, tall and strong brick walls Rue had built around herself, around her heart which was locked in a golden chest, to shield it from anything else that might be harmful to the already broken and fragile thing.

Not many had a key to the said chest. But unfortunately, Max Mayfield still kept her key. She could easily break through the walls Rue spent months building, and open the chest to the hidden treasure.

She stares at her reflection in the mirror, spotting the sorrow in her own bloodshot eyes. Rue forces herself to stop crying, and she tries to smile as she puts down the hairbrush on the counter by the sink. In her smile, she sees her father: Bob Newby.

Rue rubs her hands over her face, letting out a soft groan as she does so. Her chest aches with agony, a feeling she had not felt in a long while. Who would have thought all it took was one phone call to ruin the stability Rue had built over the past months?

Did she deserve it? All the hell she gave her?

Maybe it was better when Max ignored Rue.

Anger couldn't save Rue now. At least not when it has pathetically turned to sorrow within seconds. Rue felt like that same sensitive girl she used to be in Hawkins. It made her sick, and she wanted to kill that girl once and for all because she couldn't handle the pain she always brought with her.

"Help me make the most of freedom and of pleasure, nothing ever lasts forever," Rue tries to sing or hum and hopes it can bring her some—any comfort. The last thing she wants is to walk out of the bathroom and run into Will or Jonathan or El and have them see her like this. Rue ran her fingers through her hair, where the dark pink had now faded to a softer pink after showering. Well, more like standing under the running water for a good twenty minutes and processing what the fuck just happened. "Everybody wants to rule the world..."

Max Mayfield had some nerve to call Rue after three months. Three months of no letters, no messages, no phone call. Max had removed herself from Rue's life— she ignored every letter Rue sent, letting her bombard the landline with voicemails (that she probably never listened to), thinking Max might pick up. Spoiler alert: she never did.

Until that morning, of course.

It was bright and early, the sun had just begun to shine over the mountainside in Lenora Hills, and Rue had been packing her things in her room to move into El's bedroom so Mike would stay in hers when he visited later that morning. The white lace curtains billowed along with the warm breeze, doing little to nothing to obstruct the streams of sun rays from pouring into the room through the window.

The piercing ring of the house phone made Rue flinch. She froze in the middle of hiding all of her plush animals in her closet - the last thing she wanted was Mike Wheeler to walk in and mock her for still sleeping with stuffed animals over spring break. Of course, Rue would respond with sharp knives in her words, but she promised El that she would be civil with him for the week. However, she still planned on hitting Mike Wheeler with the handles of her knife-sharp remarks.

Rue let the phone ring, believing it was probably telemarketers who liked to call early in the morning. The warm sunlight settled on Rue's pale purple bed sheets, and the family of squirrels by her window had finally begun to run by her windowsill. The phone rang six times before stopping, and Rue returned to her work.

Not after a minute did the phone ring again. It felt as if it rang louder than before, an urgent matter disguised within every loud shrill.

After successfully hiding her stuffed animals and spearing Mr. Blushly—the pink teddy bear that had never left his home in Rue's bed since she moved into the house—Rue heard a thump against her wall. Three more thumps followed before Will Byers yelled, "Pick up the phone! I'm trying to sleep!"

"Get it yourself!" Rue shouted back, and she threw a shoe at the wall, mocking the same thumps he had created.

Will didn't answer, and the phone continued to ring. Rue groaned and got up to her feet, a strain on her back. The carpeted floors were soft and warm underneath her feet as Rue stepped out of her room. She glared at Will's shut door while walking past it. He was technically closer to the phone, and if it had bothered him so much, why couldn't he pick it up himself? She mentally cursed him.

Rue heard him gasp dramatically through the door, "That's so mean!" Will shouted, but he never walked out of his room to fight. "I'm telling mom! ...Later."

Rue let herself snicker as she leaned on the wall before putting the phone up to her ear. Her fingers curled around the Trimline telephone's cord, "Hey, this is the Byers."

The long beats of silence from the other side of the call confused her. "Anyone there?" Rue called. She grew slightly irritated when she received no response for the second time. Rue assumed it might have been Angela and her goons prank calling again, although they hadn't done so in weeks.

"Okay...?" Rue narrowed her brows. As she was about to put the phone back down, she heard someone call her from the line.

"...Rue? Is that you?"

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."

"Okay. Fine. I understand but seriously, Rue—"

"Do you even miss me?" Rue asks helplessly, like a child almost. Desperate. Hoping that maybe, maybe she wasn't the only one who missed her with every bone in her body. Rue prayed to every star in the night sky that Max missed her as much as she had.

The facade of anger had disappeared, slipping between her fingers as water would. No matter how badly Rue wanted to stay angry, stay rageful, stay rash, stay careless, she couldn't. Max had a key of her own, and she brought down everything Rue had worked to build, stripping her bare and revealing Rue's true colours. Her miserable, sensitive colours.

Rue felt thirteen all over again.

"Because I missed you. It's pathetic, I know. And I try to forget about you, maybe even hate you, but I can't. I could never hate you. And it just hurts even more knowing why I can't hate you... because I..." Say it. Say it. Say it. "I missed you. I miss you, Max."

Max stays silent on the other side of the call, and with every second that passes, Rue feels her heart crawl into her throat, becoming harder to breathe. All she could think was that all those summer days had been nothing but a fragment of her imagination.

She doesn't miss me. She doesn't miss me.

"Can we please not do this over the phone?" Max finally spoke, "Just... try to get the flight, okay? Call me or Dustin once you get it. Come home, we can fight here, if you want. I'll ask Steve or Nancy to pick you up—"

Rue never let her finish. She slammed the phone back into its place, ending the call as she did so. Her lips trembled, and she slid down the wall until she was on the floor. Muffled sobs escape her lips as she embraces her knees and curls herself into a ball.

Max didn't even miss her.

As if the last three months of healing never happened, Rue felt a heavy ache in her chest. The relapse of heartbreak began, and she held her hands to her chest, fearing that her heart might spill out.

"Rue?" a soft, gentle voice called. Rue brought her head up from between her knees and found Joyce kneeling before her. The look on her face was one of motherly worry, "Sweetie, what's wrong?"

Rue suddenly felt very aware of whatever scene she had caused, and embarrassment seemed to have replaced her heartache once she realized she had woken Joyce up. Rue wiped her eyes and let Joyce help her stand.

As Rue reached her full height, in the corner of her eye she spotted El peeking her head out her door, which was usually open three inches. She had a brush jammed in her nest of hair, which had grown out so much in the previous year, and she looked out her bedroom with the same wide, curious eyes she had when Rue first met her. Joyce must have noticed Eleven as well and led Rue to the bathroom. "Why don't we- why don't you shower, alright? A nice warm shower that will help you calm down."

There's a room where the light won't find you.

Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down.

When they do, I'll be right behind you.

When Rue was thirteen years old, she had lost her mother and father in the short span of six months. Emilia Davis died as a result of injuries sustained in a car accident, while Bob Newby was mauled by alternate-dimensional dogs. They had both taken their last breaths before her eyes, one death, more gruesome than the last.

Joyce Byers had always been there at Rue's lowest. She was there when Bob was killed, and Rue returned the favour when Hopper died, too. Joyce had turned into the mother Rue had lost, filling the empty shoes perfectly.

When Rue was thirteen years old, Joyce Byers promised she would always love her. And she told Rue, "you know you can talk to me." Two years later—almost three—she reminded Rue of those same words. "Talk to me, baby," Joyce said softly after stepping into the bathroom once Rue had finished. "You know you can talk to me."

Rue sighed and sat at the edge of the bathtub. Her wet hair tucked behind her ears as she helplessly looked up at Joyce, who leaned on the counter by the sink. Joyce was a small woman, yet she managed to have a big heart. She rested her chin on the palm of her hands, raising her brows until they hid underneath her bangs, "How are we feeling?"

"Stupid," Rue grumbled as she tugged at the ends of her hair, watching the temporary pink dye stain her fingertips. After the long and very well-needed shower, Rue had time to think, and she recalled practically every meeting she had with her therapist. A part of her wished she had stopped to listen to what Max wanted to say instead of acting out irrationally. "I feel pretty stupid."

Joyce sighed, and she dropped her hand from under her chin. "You're not stupid, Rue," she declared. She watched as Rue shrugged while looking down at her feet, letting Joyce's words linger in the air. Joyce glanced at the medicine cabinet before her, "Did you take your meds?"

"No," She mumbled.

Joyce pulled open the mirror cabinet and reached inside. She checked the labels of two bottles, "Woah, Doctor Monroe is prescribing you the hard stuff?" Joyce tried to joke, shaking the small pill bottle in her hand, "Xanax, phew!"

Rue couldn't help the snorted laugh that came out of her. She wiped her eyes again with the heel of her palms as the cheesy joke reminded her of her dad.

"Are you sure you're supposed to take these together?" Joyce asked, handing Rue the two pill bottles before turning to fill a cup with water from the sink. "Seems like too much for your age."

"It's not so bad," Rue said, popping the bottles open and pouring the prescribed amount onto her hand. "They help, I guess."

Joyce handed her the cup of water, "Yeah, I'm probably just overthinking again." She smiled as she saw Rue take her medicine before being given everything back. Rue shifted in her seat while Joyce returned it to its proper place.

"I feel like I overreacted," Rue said abruptly.

Joyce froze from where she stood. She shut the cabinet, catching a glimpse of her reflection before she turned to Rue again. She saw how torn the girl was within herself, having an inner battle of what she believed and how she should or shouldn't have reacted. Joyce sat on the toilet seat and reached for Rue's shaking hand. She grasped it gently, "Max was more than just your best friend."

"But she wasn't my soulmate," The glass case finally cracked. There were web-like lines that spread apart, leaving hundreds of hexagonal mirrors behind, each one reflecting every feeling Rue felt.

When Rue looked at Joyce, there was an expression on her face that she couldn't understand. She saw, however, lost in the depths of Rue's green eyes, how tired and heartsick she was. Joyce had known that look all too well- she had seen it on herself before.

"It's not like I believe in that soulmate crap, anyway. It's a metaphor." Rue shrugged, "And I'm not mad about her breaking up with me. I don't care about that. She wasn't ready for a relationship after... What happened. I feel like that's fair."

"She did lose her brother..." Joyce agreed.

"He was a total jerk," Rue nearly scoffed, "But she still cared for him. Max had also lost her stepdad and a lot of money. The last thing she told me before... um... She said she and her mom had just moved into a trailer park. After Christmas, she stopped talking about the little details. Anyways... a bit after new years she broke it off with me."

"A bit after new years?"

"Between New Year and my birthday." Rue never realized her knee had been bouncing until Joyce placed her other hand on it to stop it.

"I know what it feels like to hurt. But this was a different type of hurt. It wasn't the same as it felt when I lost my parents or anything like that. It just... hurts. I can't explain it. Maybe it was similar. If I'm honest, it hurt more when she stopped replying to my letters. When she stopped picking up the phone. I felt like I lost her. Really lost her. Max disappeared from my life for months, and even though that hurt too, it didn't compare to the realization that she never wanted to speak to me again. I probably did something wrong. Too clingy. Not clingy enough. I don't know. I asked what happened but she... she never wrote back. And now she calls me telling me that I need to go back to Hawkins as soon as possible. It's ridiculous."

Joyce had held onto every word she said. Rue waited patiently to let the gears in Joyce's head spin until she understood. Truly understood. These days it felt like only two people understood what Rue was going through, Joyce and weed.

"She wants you... to go to Hawkins?" Joyce asked carefully, and she squeezed Rue's hand thrice.

Rue nodded, "Yes."

Joyce sat up. "I think you should go."

Bewildered, Rue blinked at her. "What?" Maybe she was wrong about Joyce being the only one who understood.