The Notorious R(uth) B(arakat) G(rimaldi)

Chapter 39: Discord

Ruthie, too, sat back. "You'd really go," she said in a flat voice.

Elliott looked at her, brows furrowed. "I can't believe you'd question that," he finally said. "Wouldn't you, if you had a chance at a lead on Broadway?"

Ruthie shook her head. "I'd never leave you," she said with certainty. "I wouldn't want to leave you."

"I'm not leaving you," Elliott said, putting a hand on her arm. "I mean, we wouldn't be breaking up or anything, you must know that? Performances won't be until late summer, you could come visit me, yeah?"

Ruthie shook his hand off her arm and blinked savagely, trying not to cry. "Elliott, you'll be on another continent. If that's not leaving me, I don't know what is! You'll be with what's her name every day--"

"This has nothing to do with Daph, so you can leave her right out of this," Elliott said, his voice getting steely. "It's work, I'm a professional, that's all."

"Daph?" Ruthie repeated. "You have a nickname for her?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Elliott said, running his hand through his hair. "It's just the shortened form of her name, not a nickname! You, however, I have nicknames for, don't I? Jelly Bean, darling, love, I call you all those things, because I love you and you're dear to me, don't you see?" Ruthie could hear the frustration in his voice.

"All I see is that I couldn't be away from you for even one day, and you're talking about being away from me, far away, for who knows how long?"

Their loud voices brought Amal Clooney from where she'd been sleeping on the stairs. She looked with concern from one human's face to the other. Voices were not raised in this house.

"Well, none of this matters, does it, because my grandparents will never let me go," Elliott concluded, hoping to shut the argument down.

"That's not the point!" And now Ruthie started crying, unable to blink the tears away any longer. "The point is that you're seriously considering going, you want to go! Whether you actually go or not is immaterial, irrelevant!"

"You're not serious!" Elliott shouted back, rising from the couch. "You're upset because I want to do a play, a play that could launch me in England as a real actor? Ruthie, grow the fuck up! I'm not breaking up with you, and I'm probably not even going, so what the bloody blue blazes are we arguing about?"

"Don't you dare tell me to grow up, don't you dare!" Ruthie, too, rose, causing Amal Clooney to back up a few steps. "I'm being a grown up here, putting my relationship with you first, just like an adult would. You're the one who's acting like a child, wanting to throw us away at the first opportunity at a part in a play!"

Elliott stared at her for a beat before turning away.

"This is bollocks," he threw over his shoulder. "I'm going home, we're getting nothing accomplished shouting at each other like this."

"Elliott, wait, don't leave, please," Ruthie implored. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry I lost my temper, please, just stay and we'll talk it out like adults."

Elliott turned to look at her, his hand on the knob of her front door. "We can't talk it out like adults, Ruthie, because there's only one adult here, as far as I can see."

He opened the door and stepped out into the cool, spring night.

Ruthie wasn't about to run out into the street calling for him, so she did the next best thing.

She threw herself down on the couch and proceeded to weep stormily into the cushions. Amal Clooney came and put her snout under Ruthie's folded arms, snuffling anxiously at her human, who was making the most miserable sounds as she cried. Ruthie reached out as she turned, and Amal Clooney jumped up on the couch to snuggle into Ruthie's side and offer what comfort she could, the way good dogs had since the beginning of time.

Ruthie finally fell asleep on the couch while cuddling her dog, and that's where her dads found her when they returned home a couple of hours later. Clarence the cat had also joined them, curling up behind Ruthie's bent knees.

"Hey, Rosebud, what are you doing down here?" her Pop asked.

"Elliott and I had a fight," she explained, a hitch in her breath.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," he responded, smoothing her hair from her forehead. "Come on, grab up, okay?"

Her dad went upstairs ahead of them to turn her bed down as her pop carried her up to bed, something that hadn't happened in years.

"Thanks, you guys," Ruthie murmured from her bed, looking so much like a younger version of herself that it made her parents' throats tight. "You're the best parents ever, and I love you."

"We love you, too, Ruthie, so much," her dad assured her, kissing her forehead.

🎭💥🎭💥🎭💥🎭💥🎭💥🎭

The next day, Ruthie left earlier than usual, in case Elliott assumed he could just call for her and walk her to school like nothing was wrong. She walked to school, feeling awful, but hoping she looked okay. She didn't want anyone telling Elliott she looked upset in any way.

He couldn't treat her this way. She was right, she was putting them first, and she still couldn't get over how casually Elliott spoke of leaving her, of leaving them, to go back to England to work with his ex, the beautiful and older Daphne.

Daph.

Just hearing the offhand way Elliott had thrown the nickname in her face made her blood boil. She figured she'd let him stew for a couple of days, then take him back and forgive him. In the meantime, she'd have to rehearse with him, and she knew everyone would be gossiping about them. She was very high-profile at school, and people she barely knew were deeply interested in her social life, Ruthie knew.

She got a text from him during the break.

You going to avoid me all day?

Ruthie resolutely put her phone away without answering.

At lunch she went to sit with Pepsi, Linda, and Gordon, where she sketched out the facts about the argument she'd had with her boyfriend.

"I wouldn't worry too much, Ruthie," Pepsi said in a comforting voice. "He can't go, his grandparents won't let him."

"That's not the point, Maria," Ruthie answered hotly, using Pepsi's real name to show the seriousness of her words.

"What's the point, then?" Linda asked.

"That he wants to go!" Ruthie was indignant, the words practically exploding out of her. "How could he want to leave me?"

"It's not him leaving you so much as it's just him wanting to do the play, though," Gordon said. "You can't hold that against him, can you?"

"What?" Ruthie's voice was disbelieving. "Of course I can hold it against him, Gordon! I'd never do that to him."

"He's coming," Linda murmured, lifting her chin in Elliott's direction.

Ruthie quickly rose, though Elliott arrived before she could leave.

"You can't just pretend I don't exist anymore," he said, grasping her elbow.

"Let go of me!" Ruthie said through clenched teeth, yanking her elbow from his hand. "You don't want to be with me, so just leave, please."

Elliott looked at her as her friends looked on uncomfortably.

"This is what you want?" he asked, his voice low.

Ruthie just nodded and sat down again.

"Right then, fine." Elliott turned and walked away.

Ruthie looked at her friends. "Did he go? Is he gone?"

They nodded at her.

Ruthie burst into tears. "I can't believe he just left," she said, pounding her fist on the table.

"But that's what you told him to do," Pepsi said, sounding confused.

"Pepsi, be quiet," Linda murmured.

"Are you broken up? Did you guys just break up?" Pepsi continued.

Ruthie shrugged, wiping her eyes.

"I don't know." She looked around at her friends.

"I don't know."