All Over Again - Chapter 59: Chapter 59

Oklahoma, 2019 (Past)
Ruth realized two things after she turned around at the excitement in Terry's voice.
1. Raffo didn't have a car.
2. She didn't recognize the car in front of her.
She didn't get the chance to tell her cousins that it wasn't Raffo's truck pulling in and she didn't know who the car belonged to. For the answer to the second question was easy after a dark-haired girl popped out of the passenger side of the car.
Emily's face brightened at the sight of Ruth and she gave her a wave, excitement for their new journey spilling out of her expression. Another woman who closely resembled Emily got out of the car as well and helped her unload her luggage from the trunk. Ruth would have waved back if she wasn't swimming in a foggy mind of confusion. Something bad tugged in the pit of her stomach as she glanced at the time on her phone and saw it was 7:35, with no missed calls and no text messages saying he was going to be late.
Raffo wouldn't be late; not when he knew what time her flight was.
Not when he promised her he'd be there. That was—fuck, that was why they didn't say goodbye the previous night. Their goodbye was supposed to be at the airport. So where the hell was he? Was he stuck in traffic?
Even Terry and Jana were silent.
"Hey!" Emily beamed, rolling her luggage over to where they all stood stiffly.
"Hey," Ruth gave her the best smile she could muster, though even that was hard as she tried desperately not to freak out.
Em frowned. "What's wrong—?"
"Emily!" the woman with flawless black hair and unblemished skin called out, interrupting Emily's question with her impatience. "You have to check your bags in while I park the car. You can socialize later."
She rolled her eyes at her mother's snapping and gave Ruth a sympathetic look, as if apologizing for not getting to ask her what was wrong. "Are you ready to go?"
"In a minute. I want to say goodbye to my family," Ruth said, her voice tight. "I'll meet you inside."
Emily nodded and rolled away with her two large suitcases. Ruth looked back out at the empty road after Emily's mom drove off, and she swore if Uncle Rickey didn't have his hand on her shoulder right then, she'd be swaying from how disoriented she truly was.
"I don't understand," Terry spoke up, her tone uncertain. "Have you heard from him?"
"N-not since this morning," Ruth stuttered, her chest tightening. She willed her fingers to stop shaking as she hastily opened her phone and pressed Raffo's name, hitting the call button almost immediately with the hope that he would pick up and he was just running behind.
There was no ring.
"The number you are calling is temporarily out of service."
Ruth's heart sunk to the pit of her stomach and panic swelled like a hot iron throughout her body. She quickly removed the phone from her ear and tried again, only that time, she got the endless beeping, like a phone was off the hook. When she pulled back her phone and tried to send a text, no longer was there the option for the phone's message to turn blue, nor did it send. It kept failing and coming up in error.
"H—his phone isn't working," Ruth said, frantically. She looked up at her wide-eyed family, frightened. "Nothing's going through! What if something's wrong? What if—what if his stepdad did something horrible to him? T-Terry I can't--"
"Hey," Terry interrupted firmly, grasping Ruth's hands in hers. "Don't think like that, I'm sure everything is okay. Maybe you just don't get good service over here?"
A phone went off.
Ruth quickly looked down at hers, hoping the sound came from hers even though the ping came from somewhere behind her. Of course, there was nothing on her phone, so she looked at Uncle Rickey and Jana. Jana nudged her phone out of her back pocket and looked at the screen, her eyebrows furrowed.
"It's . . . Eddie," Jana murmured in confusion, opening up her phone almost instantly. Her lips pursed in concentration, eyes skimming over whatever message Eddie had sent while Ruth was practically hyperventilating. Somehow, she just knew it was about Raffo.
It didn't help that Jana paled significantly and Ruth thought the absolute worst.
"WHAT?" Ruth exploded, unable to stay in the dark any longer. Her nerves were shot and she didn't have the patience to wait. "What did Eddie say?"
Jana hesitated.
"He—um—said that . . . Fuck, Raffo's not coming," Jana struggled in a hoarse whisper. Her eyes flickered up, swollen with fresh, empathetic tears for her cousin whose world was falling beneath her feet. "He's not coming."
Ruth's heart stopped, her breath stilling. The confusion and panic made her want to pass out or throw up, either sound plausible.
"What do you mean he's not coming?" she whispered harshly, grabbing the phone out of Jana's hand and drawing it up to her blurring gaze. She had to blink away the stinging in her eyes and the pinch in her nose to focus on the words that would forever stay tattooed in her memory. The words would forever be imprinted on her mind for the rest of her life.
Eddie Bobeddie: Hey, J, I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, and I'm so fucking sorry to do this, but Raffo wanted me to tell you to tell Ruth that he's not going to the airport. He...he doesn't want to be with her anymore now that she's moving and he doesn't think it's gonna work. I don't think he was playing around, he looked really serious and I don't think anything was going on that I know of. He wasn't gonna have me say anything, but we both decided Ruth has the right to know, and she shouldn't bother with trying to contact him. I think he was planning on blocking her or some shit. I don't know what the fuck is up with him, but that's all I know. I'm really sorry. He's not here anymore and didn't tell me anything more than that, but tell Ruth I'm sorry.
Something inside of Ruth broke eternally that day.
No . . . it was more than broken.
Something within Ruth fucking shattered. Into a million little pieces that had no business ever coming together again.
A heart-wrenching wail ripped free from her throat as her shaking body fell forward against Terry, who barely caught her into her arms. The harshest, broken sobs of distraught pushed out of her aching chest, which never stopped squeezing her heart until it was a crumpled heap of dust. Of what once was. Suddenly, her soul lacked energy and if Terry weren't helping hold her up, she swore she would have dissipated into nothing. There was no way she could possibly be here with the uncontrollable pain coursing through her shaking body.
Hot tears that flow like lava streak down her cheeks. Something deep inside of her felt undeniably cold, and she didn't know how to warm it up anymore. There was only one person who could do it, and he was fucking ghosting her because he didn't want her anymore.
And he didn't even have the guts to say it to her face.
"I got you, Ruth," Terry choked, squeezing the life out of her. "I'm so sorry."
"Why would he do this to me?" Ruth sobbed, her body ripped open for the world to see her public suffering. "I didn't even—I didn't—I, I—"
"It's not your fault, Ruthie," Jana promised, hugging the side of her. "I promise you it's not."
A part of Ruth Marjorie Semple died that day.
And she wasn't exaggerating. A part of her was lost, and like all of those in pain, that part had no intention of coming back. It was just as excruciating as the pain she felt when she lost her grandfather, and she realized very quickly that losing someone you loved in any sense of the word, was painful. And that moment was no different.
Not only did she mourn her grandfather and now Raffo, but she mourned herself. She mourned the girl she knew that was going to be forever changed. The girl that was foolish enough to fall in love and believe every word he told her.
"I have to see him. I have to find him," Ruth begged to no one in particular, but the girls quickly shook their head.
"You can't, Ruth! You have to get on that plane," Terry argued.
"Finding Raffo is only going to hurt you more. His answer will be no different, and the fact that he ghosted you like this . . . he doesn't deserve you putting a pause on your education for him. You don't deserve that," Jana, for the first time in a long time, agreed with Terry. Though her own cheeks were soaked with tears, and her broken heart was sprawled across her face, she knew it was best to for Ruth to let go.
Ruth looked to her last source of reason, her eyes wide and pleading. Her lips trembled and Uncle Rickey's face fell. "P-please Uncle Rickey. I have to go to him."
"I don't think he wants that, Ruth," Uncle Rickey struggled, his jaw clenched in his own underlying rage. "He's not worth chasing after, not when he treats you like this."
"But he could be—!"
"Eddie told you, he's not in any sort of trouble, Ruth. I think your cousins are right. You need to get on that plane and not let him take this away from you too," he said, sternly. "Your parents are going to be in New York, and you have a friend who is counting on you now. You have to go."
Her face crumbled. She hated to admit it, but she didn't know what to do without Raffo. The month apart nearly killed her, and now, with how he ended things it was just . . . how did one become okay again? When the 'what if's' are going puzzle her and not knowing what happened was going to forever plague her memory? She couldn't leave. Not like that.
But they were all right. She couldn't stay, especially not when people were depending on her. She had to go.
And it was the most excruciating decision she had ever made for herself. If there was an equivalent to being left at the altar, that was surely it.
New York, 2022 (Present Day)
"Wait, I thought you told me you and Raffo broke up the night before we left?" Emily said, her eyes searching Ruth's. "The night you guys met up?"
Ruth swallowed thickly and shook her head. "No," she admitted. "I only told you that because I was too embarrassed and devastated to admit the truth."
Emily frowned, shaking her head. "That's so fucked up. You shouldn't have felt embarrassed for something shitty that he did to you."
"I know . . . but I guess I always worried that it didn't make any sense to other people," Ruth laughed dryly. "Everyone would have told me to get over someone who treated me that way in the end. Or that we weren't together for very long for me to pine over a guy like that. I loved him, and I suppose only people who've been hurt by someone they loved understands that."
"I can see that," Emily agreed. "I wish you didn't bottle it up this whole time, though. I could have helped you somehow."
"No," she said, shaking her head. "Only I could bring myself out of that hole and that's okay. And I'm glad that I did, because I really am ready to move on from that part of my life. With you, this time."
Emily's smile was worth the sappy tone at the end of her speech. She wasted no time in moving towards Ruth and drew her in for a soft kiss on the lips, her taste exploding with the spice of minty toothpaste. There weren't sparks in the kiss like there was with Raffo, but there was warmth and comfortability that time, and it was something Ruth could live with. It was something Ruth deserved after all the time she had wasted on someone she thought really cared about her. The years of pining, the 'what if's', the tears, the pain, the desperation of it all. Emily was there for all of it, and Ruth had to admit she was excited to give her a chance, and fall in love again. She had it in her, even if the old part of her couldn't be revived.
Ruth was terrified to put herself out there again, especially with how bad it was the last time, but she believed in herself now. She could really do this.
And Ruth really wanted to.
Even if somewhere, in the back of her mind, she really wondered what happened those three years ago.