All Over Again - Chapter 5: Chapter 5

By the time noon had come around on the third day of the first week of school, Ruth was overwhelmed.
The overwhelmed where fingers found solace in yanking and pulling at the roots of one's hair, and chests fell into a rapid, uneven rhythm as every part of one's heart fell into the pit of despair, sinking at the bottom of your stomach. Where the self-doubt of being able to keep up with such a vigorous schedule seemed almost impossible to do, as one could only sit there and dwell in the panic. Staring unseeingly into the six syllabi that lay in front of her, Ruth was frozen in it. One hand twirled habitually in the comfort of her wild curls, and with the other, she was nimbly picking at the rust peeling along the metal picnic table. The words on each page blurred together into one pile of stress that was now pounding in her head. She could usually use her writing as an outlet, but she was too deep into her anxiety right now.
Jana and Terry had tried to cheer her up after the second day of classes and while Ruth forced smiles and weak laughter with them, they were unsuccessful in drawing her away from the worry this semester brought her. Jana even made frybread tacos with their Uncle Rickey's recipe, and it still didn't draw her out of the weird funk she was in. This was common for the first week of school, especially with Ruth's anxiousness. Even now her mind was moving in and out of focus, the sounds in her ears hollowing out as she tried desperately to breathe.
Ruth shoved her face into her hands and struggled to draw in a normal breath. She couldn't have a repeat of last semester with her grades. She needed to stay on top of it this year because she didn't have a choice if she wanted to make her mom proud and go off to an elite school in New York. Koi had gone through a lot of connections with his company to get Ruth there, and the least she could do as a thank you to her father was continue to get good grades and make her way into NYU. She owed this to her parents.
The thought of seeing the disappointment on her mother's face made her stomach churn and the urge to throw up grew even greater.
"Someone's having a rough day," a deep voice observed from behind her.
Caught off guard by the familiarity of the tone, and the idea of someone talking directly to her when she wasn't in class, she removed her hands from her face and whirled around in her seat. Her heart leapt into her throat and the rest of her chest tightened.
There, leaning against the wall of the science building next to her table, wearing blue jeans and a black t-shirt, was the man Ruth had slowly forgotten about. She had been too busy focusing on getting organized for this semester and attending her classes that she didn't have time to think about the cute guy at the liquor store. Raffo Leflore.
His hair was beautifully woven over his shoulder into a sheen braid and the wisps of the front of his hair hung around his cool eyes that were just as emotionless as she remembered them being. The cigarette in his hand made her nose crinkle, but she was too busy focusing on him speaking to her that she didn't even voice it out loud like what she usually would do. Smoking and drinking were two common evils on the Rez, so she couldn't verbally blame him, especially when she didn't know him that well to do so.
So instead, she drew her focus back up to his mocha-shaded eyes, and blinked up at him in confusion. Was he really talking to her? The beautiful man who paid for her broken drink and the one that came after? Is he speaking to her again?
"You," she breathed. When his eyebrow rose higher up on his forehead than the other, she realized what she had uttered, and suddenly cringed in embarrassment. "I-I mean, you go to school here?"
Ruth already knew that he went to the same community college as her, but she wasn't going to admit that out loud. She'd rather stick her hand in a boiling pot of hot oil than do something so catastrophic like that.
"I guess I do." Inhale. Exhale. Blow. "And it looks like I'm getting the easier start."
Her eyes fell back down to her scattered papers, taking in all six once more as her stomach clenched again. "Thanks for the reminder."
"No problem," he breezed, and she turned back around to watch him shrug his way off the wall. His already tall height had gained another few inches after straightening up from his slouch.
Ruth, oddly, and suddenly, not wanting him to leave, quickly spoke again. "How were you able to land such an easy start?"
He shoved the end of the cigarette against the ashtray on top of the garbage can and looked up at her with a half-hearted shrug. "Economics and going for a minor in Native American studies. Not really an easy start, but I know how to manage my time."
"A major and a minor? Sounds intense," Ruth murmured, impressed.
"Maybe. But like I said, I know how to manage my time."
"Oh? Are you hinting that I'm stressing because I don't know how to manage my time?" She asked, crossing her arms playfully. He tilted his head to the side and crossed his arms mockingly.
"Am I wrong?" he questioned, a teasing edge around his words.
"Yes! . . . Well . . . it depends on what you mean by 'managing my time'," she admitted, lips twitching in amusement.
A crooked smile twisted his soft lips, bringing about the first sign of light in his glowing eyes, snuffing out the darkness and highlighting all of his beautifully hard features. Ruth's poor heart fluttered at the sight.
"I'm Ruth, by the way. Ruth Marjorie Semple. Not sure if you caught that at the liquor store," Ruth said, hinting that she remembered exactly who he was.
"I don't remember you ever mentioning your name, actually. I think I would have remembered it," he replied smoothly. He shoved his hands in his pockets after brief silence. "Raffo Nashoba Leflore."
"Nashoba," she tested. "You're Choctaw?"
"Choctaw/Chickasaw," he nodded, tilting his head as his gaze roams over her curiously. "You recognized my middle name?"
"Yeah, I'm Choctaw too, but I'm biracial. My mom's Black."
There was a pause. Something about her face made his lips pucker in thought, his eyes calculating once again as if mentally telling something to himself that she couldn't catch. She nervously tucked a curl behind her ear, her cheeks warm at the attention.
"Cool," was all he said. He looked up to glance at someone over Ruth's shoulder, and when she slowly looked behind her as well, she noticed the girl she ran into at the coffee shop days ago was standing there, waving at him in her pastel yellow outfit. The bright smile sprawled across her face highlighted her beauty even more, as she practically glowed at the sight of Raffo looking up at her. In her hands were two coffees.
What was even more appalling, was the gentle half-smile that he gave back to the girl, something that Ruth hadn't seen him do before in the short time that they've known each other. This girl obviously meant a great deal to him, and he to her somehow. Was this that girl Jana had told Ruth about? The friend that had dated him? Mirana was her name, Ruth thought. Right?
"Chi pisa la chike, Ruth Marjorie Semple," Raffo murmured, offering one last nod in her direction. His eyes were still soft from Mirana when they fell upon Ruth next, and that familiar flutter for a stranger she didn't know builds up in the pit of her stomach again. The tightness in her chest refused to ease, especially hearing him talk in their language. There's a bond that they share there, and by the strange way the girl glanced at Ruth, she knew it was special.
"See you around, Raffo Nashoba Leflore," she smiled, noticing the corner of his lip curve at the sound of his full name.
And there it was again.
That see you around.
See you around.
Ruth's fingers twitched towards her pencil, aching to know what to say, what to write. She knew she shouldn't take part in the writing contest going around school. She knew her focus would only be on the writing prompt if she did, and not on school, which it should be. It had to be. With writing, she had a horrible habit of being a one-track-mind. Nothing else mattered to her when she got this way, and she couldn't afford to do that to herself. She promised herself no tunnel vision with writing this semester.
So with more frustration than necessary, she closed her writing notebook and tried her best to focus on her assignment for the night. Graduate and then focus on the other stuff if she wanted. She can't jeopardize graduation.
Thankfully, it didn't take her long to complete. It was just a one page introduction about who she was, what she's hoping to do with her life after her time at community college is over, and what she wants most out of life. Pretty deep questions for a statistics class, but she supposed it came with the territory.
Jana and Terry were bickering in the kitchen per usual while she finished typing up her assignment on the couch. It wasn't very hard to do, even with their loud voices in the background, and she thought critically about each question.
Who she was and where she came from was the easiest to answer. Her name was Ruth Semple, she was born in Oklahoma but raised in Northern California; she had no siblings, but had cousins she adored instead, she loved to read in her free time, and she was Black and Native American. Everything else after was a bumpy, complicated landslide.
"Are you done yet?" Jana groaned, draping herself dramatically onto the couch. "I'm bored and Terry won't let me help with the cooking."
"You almost burned down our apartment last night when you helped," Terry called out.
"But I didn't!"
"You didn't yet. And you'll never be given the chance to try again."
Jana pouted, but didn't question Terry anymore, as she refused to budge on the matter. Instead, she propped her chin onto the hilt of her hand and looked up at Ruth in boredom, watching as she shut everything down and closed her laptop. But not after noticing the strange flag on the keyboard that she had never seen before.
"What flag is that?" Jana asked, frowning in confusion. Her eyes squinted as if that would somehow trigger her unexplained knowledge of the tri-colored banner, though it didn't help at all. She had never seen a fuchsia, lilac, and cobalt blue colored flag before, so her interest in it was expected.
Ruth quickly followed her line of sight. "Oh, it's the bisexual pride flag."
"They have a flag for people like you? I thought there was a rainbow one that covers all of you?"
Ruth's lips curled inward, the remark bothering her just a little. "It's to increase more visibility of being bisexual inside and outside of the LGBT+ community. I think it's kind of cool to have our own flag, actually."
Jana glanced back down at the flag and reached out a brown hand to subtly run the tip of her finger over the smooth sticker. "It's pretty."
Ruth verbally agreed. She gently closed her laptop once Jana moved her hand and looked up to Terry calling their names. Just as she usually did, she tried to block off the sting of loneliness, of feeling like she didn't completely belong with everyone else by her cousin's comment.
People like you.
She winced at the phrase. She was still a person like anyone else, no matter her sexuality. Couldn't Jana had phrased it another way? It's not like she was an alien, but for some reason, that's exactly how she felt in that conversation. She knew her cousin wasn't trying to be malicious. That Jana was genuinely curious about the flag and what it means to be bisexual when she, herself, was heterosexual, but that didn't mean the words said didn't bother her so.
And they ate at her for the rest of the night.