Chapter Text
The first time it happens, she’s a little annoyed at herself for how she behaves – but hey, to be fair, it catches her off guard.
It’s the last week of August, and because Lexi keeps forgetting to look for jobs to apply to, she’s spent the whole day the same way she’s spent basically the rest of the summer that came before it – with her nose buried in a book, so she can lose herself in another world and not have to dwell too much on her own.
Cassie’s at McKay’s when the doorbell rings and their mom is dozing on the armchair across from the couch Lexi’s curled up on, so naturally, Lexi’s the one who has to answer the door. With a sigh and a quick resentful glance at her mom’s three-quarters empty wine glass, she sticks her bookmark in, shuts her book, and gets up from the couch.
The door opens with a squeak to reveal the last person she expected to see.
Rue, Rue fucking Bennett, her Childhood Best Friend™, is standing on her front porch for the first time since the end of school. She’s got on that signature maroon hoodie of hers over a green tye-dye alien t-shirt with her usual sweatpants and converse. She’s shifting a little awkwardly side-to-side on her feet with her hands clasped in front of her.
Lexi wishes she could hate the way that even now, after so long and everything that’s happened (and not happened) in between, her stomach still flips when she sees her oldest friend. A small spark of hope ignites in her chest.
“Rue?” Lexi asks.
(Just to be sure, of course. Definitely not because her brain has slightly short-circuited at the situation she’s found herself in.)
“Uhh… hey,” says Rue, an uncomfortable and obviously forced smile flashing briefly across her face.
Something seems off with her. Or… something seems normal. It’s subtle, because Rue’s had a ton of (read: too much) experience hiding it, but Lexi has known her long enough to be able to tell. Her words are the tiniest bit slurred, her eyes are slightly unfocused, and Lexi thinks, Oh, no.
She’s high as a kite. Back from rehab for barely days, and high as a fucking kite.
The spark of hope is abruptly crushed. Lexi’s heart, which had perked up initially, immediately starts to sink again. She does her best to keep her voice level when she replies. “Hey. Um… how are you?”
(She’s only half-certain she succeeds.)
“I’m good,” Rue assures her quickly, and they both ignore how hollow it rings. “Listen, I, uh… I need to ask a favor.”
The sinking feeling magnifies. Lexi knows that not only will it be something she won’t like, she knows she won’t be able to say no. She never has.
Not to Rue.
She swallows her sigh and asks apprehensively, “What is it?”
“…You’re not gonna like it.”
Rue leans down and whispers in Lexi’s ear.
And, yep. There it is. By this point, Lexi can practically feel her heart in her socks.
She raises her head to look Rue in the eyes. “Are you serious?” she asks, trying to keep the hopelessness from her tone off of her face.
(This time she knows she fails.)
Rue just gives her a pleading look. In that moment, Lexi’s hit with the knowledge that she wouldn’t be here asking if this wasn’t a big deal, which is kind of a blessing and a curse. She’s honestly not sure what’s worse – that Rue is at her house, asking her to pee in a bottle so she can beat a drug test, or the fact that if she didn’t need Lexi to pee in a bottle to beat a drug test, she wouldn’t be at her house at all. She’s also not quite sure what it says about her that she’s just glad she gets to see and talk to Rue again in person, even if it means… having to deal with this, all the bullshit that constantly accompanies her.
What she does know is that there’s logically no way in hell she should agree to this, but she’s always been helpless against that face.
Damn you, Bennett.
She wordlessly turns and heads up the stairs. As she goes, she hears Rue offer a feeble, even moderately guilty, “Thank you.”
When Lexi gets to the upstairs bathroom and shuts the door, she leans back against it for an extra second and just tries to breathe. She stares blankly up at the ceiling and blinks to force back the tears. She wishes this wasn’t her life, wishes that her brain could just finally convince her heart to stop feeling the way she does about Rue when it’s so obvious the other girl will never think about her the same way. Probably doesn’t even think of Lexi as a friend, anymore.
She rubs her eyes with her hand and sniffs, shaking her head at herself. She steps over to the cabinet and roots around until she finds an empty medicine bottle – one of those ones with the droppers on the lid – and takes it to the toilet. While she’s sitting there, peeing into that stupid bottle, her traitorous mind drifts inevitably back to Rue.
She doesn’t know if it’s a strength or a weakness that every time Lexi looks at her, all she sees are the good things, the good times. It doesn’t matter how many times she finds Rue wasted out of her mind (it’d be easier to count the occasions when she wasn’t high), doesn’t matter how many times Rue snaps at her when the drugs are messing with her emotions.
She can’t help but always think of Rue as the girl who celebrated every birthday together with her; the girl who taught her how to roller skate; the girl who cried in her arms when her dad died, and later held Lexi as she broke down when her own dad left for good; the girl who helped her get ready for the only dance she was ever asked to and even did her best to teach her how to French kiss when Lexi asked, even if she was sneaking a Xanax from her pocket every few minutes when she thought Lexi wasn’t looking (she was); the girl who so often made her feel more loved than her own family, and just as often made her feel more helpless and worthless than her family every could.
But most of all… Rue was the only one who ever saw her. For that alone, she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to let go of Rue or her feelings for her, no matter how much worse her drug problem gets (and could it really get worse than a near-fatal OD?) or how distant she becomes.
On her way out of the bathroom with the full bottle, Lexi grabs a random stick of old trashy eyeliner from the back of one of their drawers. Then she sighs, steels herself, and heads back downstairs.
Apparently her mom’s woken up, because she can hear her asking Rue about rehab and just generally being her usual insensitive self. She intentionally steps a little harder on the stairs to make enough sound for them to both know she’s there. Rue looks up at her when she hears and gives Lexi a tiny smile that’s the subtlest bit less forced than usual, and damnit if it doesn’t make her stomach do another little flip.
She slips Rue the pee bottle behind her back, out of her mother’s sight, then walks around to stand in front of her. “Here’s that eyeliner you asked for,” she says loudly.
“Thanks, Lexi,” says Rue. Even though Lexi knows she really does mean it, it just… doesn’t feel the same. Still, she manages a small smile in return.
“No problem,” Lexi says. “Are you, uh, are you going to McKay’s party?”
“Oh, uh, yeah, I think,” Rue says. “Are you?”
“Um, probably, yeah. I don’t know.”
“Ah… cool. I’ll, uh, see you there then I guess.”
“Yeah… see you then. Bye, Rue.”
“Later.”
Rue gives one more smile that's half a grimace, awkwardly turns and walks away from the house.
“…It was good to see you again,” Lexi murmurs under her breath as she watches Rue go. Her heart is heavy when she shuts the door behind her.