Chapter Text
It's something of a tradition, one which she thinks her mother doesn't even notice, but Rue does, she always notices.
White Castle. It's like an impulse. When shit's gotten beyond fucked up but she hasn't the means to yet do anything about it, she makes the twenty minute drive and pulls into the parking lot that's always empty because there's a perfectly good McDonald's across the street.
I fucking hate White Castle, Rue thinks, staring blankly at a scrape on her knee as her mom puts in the order. The burgers are too small, like someone's hoarding the ingredients for themselves. It's been like that for years, though, so it must be a management thing, screwing over the customers 'til they get pissed and abandon them for Big Macs and Shamrock Shakes.
"Rue", her mother calls from up front, voice pointed, eyes piercing, like she knows, she just knows that Rue isn't paying attention. Well, good for her, because she wasn't. "What do you want?"
I wanna go home and watch shitty vine compilations for fifteen hours. "Hash browns", she murmurs, meeting her glare in the mirror with a steely look of her own. "And a sweet tea. No ice."
Gia looks up from where she's sitting beside her, her finger holding her place in the book she's reading. The Fault Between Our Stars, for the billionth time in a row. The thought makes Rue smile because, not long ago, that used to be her, devouring book after book, multiple times over, until she wanted to write tragedies of her own.
Unfortunately for Rue, the biggest tragedy she could imagine was her life, and she could never string a story together the way she wanted to. She gave Gia the books she wanted, sold the ones she didn't, and burned what remained in a bonfire at a party on Jefferson Street sometime last spring.
She doesn't do much reading anymore.
Gia must realize Rue's looking, because her eyes dart back down to her book, lingering on one paragraph for too long before the reading becomes natural again.
"Six small burgers", her mother's saying up front into the speaker. "Uh, hash browns, and an iced tea."
Rue just sighs and leans her head into the leather of the seat, turning her head to stare at the concrete wall beside her. There are vines there, dead as the winter that's befallen them, crawling up and over the wall like it's some sort of conquest. If she stares hard enough, crosses her eyes, the vines blur over to abso-fucking-lutely nothing because it's just vines on concrete, there isn't anything to see.
Her mom pulls up, and a man with a tattoo that screams, "Funyuns!" along the side of his neck holds out a hand, pulling it inside the window when she drops the money into it. Then they're pulling up again, and the car is still, silent aside from the shitty 80s music playing on the radio and the punk rock music emitting from Gia's earbuds. They were a present from their mom. Rue has the same set, but they're lost somewhere in her room with the other countless pairs of earbuds and headphones she's lost and broken over the years.
The hash browns are too hot when she gets them, but she eats them anyway, letting them sizzle and burn at her tongue until Gia offers her a bottle of water. Then she just sits there, watching as the sky opens and unleashes a torrent of water down upon them like they've personally offended it with their shitty eating habits and discordant family dynamics.
There's a weird smell to the car. Oranges, Gia's new perfume, the one Rue snatched out of a Marshall's and slipped her for her birthday; incense, her mother, from that fancy beauty supply that opened up a few weeks back; and then there's Rue. Rue, who just smells like must on top of deodorant because it's been a few weeks since she's had the energy to drag her ass into a shower and she's starting to smell kind of ripe. It's all coming together in a weird, almost suffocating rotating column of scents, one that has Rue pulling at the switch to roll down her window. But the window's locked, child safety, of course, so she just settles for the little crack in the drop top.
White Castle. Shit's fucked up, enough to warrant a not-so-subtle intervention, which means talk of rehab is probably on the horizon. "Third time's the charm, right?", she remembers asking, lips twisted into a snarl, the last time mom dropped her off outside the clinic.
And then she thinks, I'm seventeen, and I've been in rehab three times. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she figures that should probably bother her, should probably scare her. But at the front of her mind, she's thinking about the twitching of her fingers and the pack of Malboros in her bra. She could light up right now but with the White Castle and everything, it's probably not a good idea.
Her mom pulls up to the library. Gia tugs her earbuds free, says goodbye to them both, and then crawls out and starts up the path to the building. Studying, no doubt. She's always been a smart kid, always involved in two or three clubs at once on top of maintaining a decent GPA. Meanwhile, Rue is just barely getting through her classes, let alone attending electives that'll make or break her academic career. It's amazing that she hasn't been held back yet, but her teachers are always sympathetic and let her pass as long as she attends Office Hours.
She doesn't deserve the extra help, but she'll never refuse it. Truth be told, she actually kinda likes school. She just can't get in the way they need her to, can't wriggle her way into the pyramid dynamics of it all, can't find or pave a way through like everyone else seems to be able to.
"Dr. Hardy and I were talking again", her mom says, all casual and nonchalant when what she means to say is she spent all of last night crying on the phone about what a freak her daughter is. "We've found another facility."
Rue purses her lips. Another facility? She's gotten used to the song and dance, knows all the steps, all the breaks, all the fissures that just need a little oiling for her to slither through and emerge free on the other side. But that's only because her mom's been adamant on sending her back to the same place. "Familiar environments", she'd said the second time, struggling to keep the emotion out of her voice. "I heard they help with the...healing process."
So much for healing.
"It's a new place", her mom continues, voice dripping with artificial cheerfulness. "Really lowkey, really real. I think it'll do you some good."
Rue's chest constricts, and her mother's voice fades to static, lost to the inner, chaotic rumblings of her mind. Because fuck. Her mom doesn't know it, but the old facility, St. Hopkins, was really lax, damn near neglectful in their rehabilitation. It was stupid easy to get drugs from there, especially since most of the staff itself was too busy lighting up to really manage their patients.
But that's all over now. Because her mom's got that look in her eye, and it's making Rue uncomfortable. Like that time when she got high on PCP and thought she could do a hundred pushups in a row after months of avoiding weight lifting in gym class; she got charlie horses in her arms after just four and spent the whole day crying and trying to stretch them out.
"Ninety days", her mother says, like that's somehow supposed to make it better. "You leave next week."
Well, that's kind of better. School doesn't end for another two weeks, but finals are already over, with the remaining days more a formality than anything else. But even still, rehab. And worse yet, a rehab that just might actually do its job.
"It'll be great", her mom says before turning on the radio and draining out whatever response Rue might've had to that.
Rue reaches into her bra, pulls out a cigarette and a lighter, and lights up. Maybe I'll choke on the fumes, she thinks, closing her eyes and pretending that she's somewhere else, somewhere better.
Someone better.