You showed up at Rue's house again, mascara streaked down your face, reeking of tequila. Your boyfriend Nate (if you could even call him that) had done something this time. Didn’t matter what; the cycle was predictable enough to script. Rue had long stopped asking for details.

The knock on her window was your signature: frantic, uneven, just shy of a demand. Rue opened it without a word, the hinges protesting like they, too, were tired of this routine. You climbed in, clumsy and graceless, and collapsed onto her bed with the kind of melodrama that belonged on a CW show.

"Thanks," you muttered into her pillow, your voice muffled but thick with exhaustion. Your skin smelled faintly of his cologne—sharp, synthetic, nauseating. Rue wrinkled her nose but didn’t comment.

Instead, she lit one up and flopped into the chair across from you. Here’s the thing: Rue knew she should be angry. Furious, even. Nate treated you like crap, but you always went back to him. Like a bad penny. Or herpes. Yet, every time you showed up at her window with tear-streaked cheeks and trembling hands, Rue let you in. Because Rue? She’d been in love with you since the eighth grade when you laughed so hard at one of her terrible jokes that chocolate milk shot out of your nose.

You rolled over, your face blotchy but still annoyingly pretty in that effortless way. “I just—I thought he loved me.”

Rue took a long drag, the ember glowing like the resentment she refused to acknowledge. Maybe because you’re scared of admitting that he’s a placeholder. For something you’re too much of a coward to want. But she didn’t say that.

Instead, she shrugged. “Yeah, Nate sucks.”

Because what was the point? You’d cry, crash, and eventually crawl back to him. And Rue? Rue would be right here, catching your pieces every time you fell apart.