As if to distract me from whatever Jasper is doing and, well, everything else, I start to see Gage everywhere.

At school, at The Ash, at a couple of parties that Brie convinces me to go to. I even see him once at my favorite café, Coffee & Cake, that Ruby and I used to frequent.

Days pass by in blurs, and as corny as it sounds, Gage is a splash of color in an my otherwise gray world. If I believed in the strings of fate, I’d think they were pulling us closer together.

As if we’re meant to get to know one another. Or that could be my loneliness talking, hoping, yearning for someone to see me.

It doesn’t take long before I start running with him at The Ash. I know he slows his pace for me, but it doesn’t seem to bother him that I’m slow, or that I take multiple breaks. He doesn’t comment on my labored breathing and patiently gives me tips.

At school, we pass each other, sometimes we nod, wave, acknowledge that fledgling beginning of… something.

But we don’t really talk other than that first long conversation about running. If I was asked what he likes besides running, I wouldn’t know.

It should be weird that I’ve spent plenty of time with him now, enough that I should know more about him. I’ve gone running with him every morning for a week now. I sat and stargazed with him at a small little bonfire party. We have one another’s phone numbers, but I haven’t had another conversation with him.

That changes on a day that Brie doesn’t show up to school. I usually eat with Brie and her boyfriend, Leroy, in the cafeteria, but sometimes I go to the library and read during lunch. Leroy can be a little too loud at times. He’s nice enough, but sometimes I want to eat in peace.

If I’d known she wasn’t at school I probably would’ve gone to the library, but I end up in the cafeteria alone this time, not seeing her anywhere.

I think about heading to the library, but I’ve already got a tray of food and food in the library is strictly prohibited. Plus, we’re technically not supposed to leave the cafeteria during lunch. I generally get away with it because I head straight to the library, and I’m one of the librarian’s favorites since I help with cataloguing in my spare time. But chances are I’ll get in trouble if I try to leave now.

I stand awkwardly, searching for an empty table, for a face I recognize even though I really don’t want to sit with any of Ruby’s friends and those are the only people I know.

My eyes catch on Gage and I amend my earlier thought. I know at least one other person besides Ruby’s friends now. He sees me and waves me over, and I find myself slowly edging his way.

He motions for me to sit without a word, and I like that, that it’s not a big deal. He doesn’t ask if I want to sit, leaving me to make the choice, and he doesn’t command me to sit—he simply waves to an empty seat. The choice is still mine, but it’s done in such a way as if we’ve done it before.

His friends don’t make a big deal about it either, they don’t even introduce themselves or ask me who I am, and while some might think that’s rude, I appreciate it. I like that they continue their conversations as if I wasn’t a stranger. As if I’m a part of their group.

They aren’t as loud as Ruby’s friends, but they’re lively. There’s a palpable energy through the air around them as they laugh and talk. And to be honest, I don’t always mind the loudness of Ruby’s friends, it’s more of the fact that it’s hard to be around them without Ruby. Hard not to be angry at them. To hate them like I hate her.

There’s four people at the table other than Gage. Three other boys and a girl. One of the boys and the girl have mirrored faces, indicating that they’re probably twins. They both have nose rings and share the same pale skin, but it’s not those similarities that have me trying not to stare.

The girl appears bald, no eyebrows or anything, she’s got a tie-dyed scarf tied around her head and dangly feather earrings. The boys head is buzzed close to the scalp, but I can still see a small bit of hair enough to know it would be black.

Gold and silver rings glitter on the girl’s fingers, drawing my eyes to her hands. Holding hands with her as they eat is a dark-skinned boy who also has a buzzed head. The final boy has ringlets of black hair trailing past his shoulders, light brown skin, and features that make me think he’s probably mixed. His eyes are dark brown, hidden by thick square-rimmed glasses.

He’s reading a book as he eats and keeps accidently dropping his food back on his tray.

I’m only half paying attention to what everyone is talking about, some plans to do something. It should feel like I don’t belong, as if I’ve arrived in the middle of movie that I don’t know the plots or characters of, but I don’t mind it.

The girl throws a fry at the boy that’s reading, bangles clinking on her wrist as it moves. They all tease him about how he keeps dropping his food. He finally sets his book down and starts focusing on the food in front of him. Grumbling under his breath.

“Okay, so imagine if water dripping went tick-tock instead of drip-drop and clocks went drip-drop instead of tick-tock?” The boy twin asks.

“I think I would go insane,” the girl says.

“Dude, how do you even think of some of this stuff?” The boy with the book asks.

“Or what if they all went beep beeeep beep beep beeep—"

The girl throws one of her fries at her twin and he catches it, dips it in what appears to be a mix of every sauce packet available, and eats it.

I start to tune them out. I stare at my spaghetti, twirling it on my fork, round and round. I don’t want to eat it. There’s this heaviness in my stomach. Conversation swirls around me, a pleasant background murmur.

“Hey, Gage, did you invite Vi?” The girl asks suddenly. It surprises me less that she knows my name and more that she calls me by a nickname.

I’m sure they all know who I am; it’s impossible not to be known as Ruby’s sister, but I appreciate that not a single one of them have brought up Ruby or even given me a look of pity.

Gage looks up from his food and turns to me then looks back at the girl and shrugs.

“I can.”

“Dude, you are like so bad at this,” the girl says.

“V, you’re being rude,” her twin tells her. ‘V’ must be her name... or nickname?

“Oh, come on, we’re all being rude. You don’t talk about plans in front of someone if you aren’t going to invite them.” 

They were talking about plans? Oh, that thing from before about something they were doing that I was only half paying attention to.

“She’s going to go on and on if someone doesn’t stop her,” the boy with the books says. “I’ll invite you. We’re going camping this weekend if you want to join us.”

This weekend, as in two days from now.

All of them turn to stare at me. I make eye contact with Gage, trying to figure out what he might want.

“It might be hard for her to get parental permission last minute,” V’s twin says. “You know how strict Wade’s parents are, hers could be the same.”

“Yeah, I need a two-week notice to get them to agree with anything, and they always need to know who I’m with, where I’ll be, every detail,” the boy next to V says—he must be Wade.

“There’s going to be adult supervision and everything,” V tells me. “Our parents are going to be there, so you can tell your parents that. And we wouldn’t be the only girls, our little sister, June, and Langston’s older sister, Alice, are going to be there too.”

By process of elimination, I’m guessing the boy with the book is Langston. I listen to the girl ramble about everything instead of actually saying anything. She tells me they even have extra sleeping bags if I might need one and I would only need to bring a swimsuit and a couple days’ worth of clothes.

“The campsite even has bathrooms with showers and everything, so that’s like a non-issue if you were worried,” V continues.

I wish my parents would be worried about me going on a trip last minute, but honestly, if I didn’t ask them, I doubt they would actually notice me being gone.

They were never really strict before Ruby died, although I didn’t do a lot, but they never had a problem with Ruby and Jasper going out places, staying overnight, really anything. Most of the time, if Ruby was over at Brie’s too late, it was understood that she would stay over.

One would think Ruby’s death would’ve turned them into tyrants, terrified of letting Jasper and me out of their sights, but most of the time, it’s almost as if they’re so busy doing whatever it is they’re doing that they forget they have other kids. And Jasper’s an adult now, so it’s not like they could really control him.

I don’t know if that’s their way of coping. But they’ve left me alone so often in the past month that I might as well have lost them along with Ruby.

The only person who might’ve noticed would have been Jasper, but since he’s gone somewhere, Butters would be the only one who’d actually miss me.

“You don’t have to feel obligated or anything,” V says when I’m still silent.

What would Ruby do in this situation? The thought pops up unexpectedly and I quickly chase it away. But I know what Ruby would do. She’d say yes, and in the same breath, she’d tell me to get out of the house and live a little.

Ruby had a bad habit of going along with everything, especially if it involved an adventure. She went on and on about her trip to Myrtle Beach with Brie’s family.

And there was the camping and white-water-rafting trip with Samson and his church group. The haunted house lock-in hosted in a local school to drum up interest for a new haunted city tour organization with all of her friends.

The art camp she went to with Kenneth when they were younger. Skiing with Hailey’s family one winter break. And there was a road trip last summer to Florida with Kenneth, Samson, and Brie for a wedding, with Leroy’s older brother driving.

Ruby would say yes because she loved to try something new and have fun.

She always said one day she was going to travel everywhere at least once and had even mapped out the places she wanted to go first. All through the states for various reasons, from seeing famous landmarks to trying local food.

Jasper is avoiding me, Harvey’s been silent, Brie awkwardly spends time with me, I haven’t heard from Kenneth, and Samson… well, I’m avoiding him. None of my family is talking to me, not even my grandparents. No one… cares.

“You don’t really know us or anything, so it’s understandable if you have reservations. But it will be fun if you want to join. There’s a really beautiful trail near the camp that we can run,” Gage adds.

And he’s right. I don’t know them—I met four of them today. I don’t even really know their names, but I can hear Ruby in the back of my head telling me to live a little. Telling me that I don’t know them yet.

There are all sorts of ways this could go terrible.

But… these people want to spend time with me. It might not be a big deal for them. They could treat everyone they meet this way, but the lonely part of me craves the company they’re offering.

I never would’ve thought of myself as a lonely person before, but now there’s this void that Ruby used to fill, and that empty space craves attention.

“Oh, you are so not hogging her for yourself the whole time to run,” V spits the word run out as if it’s something disgusting. “Please don’t tell me he’s converted you to his weird running addiction.” She sounds horrified by the prospect.

“I don’t think my parents would care,” I finally say. “And I kind of like running.”

“Yes! I so need another girl my age to come along, even if I totally am going to have to stop you from running off,” V pulls out her phone and passes it to me. “Give me your number and I’ll text you a list of everything you need.” She rattles off question after question.

“Don’t give her your number. It’s a trap, she’ll never stop texting you,” her twin says. She throws another fry at him and then the two of them start bickering over who texts the most.

“Wade, it’s totally G that texts more than me, isn’t it?” So G is her twins name, nickname?

“I’m Switzerland here,” he responds.

Switzerland, neutral. That’s kind of cute.

“Langston?”

He turns back to his book and mutters something about not arguing with girls.

“Gage?” She turns to him.

“Oh yeah, ask the guy who doesn’t know how to text,” G says.

“Okay, whatever! I am so going to remember this,” she sticks her tongue out at everyone.

“Okay, so, rides? Do you have a car? Will you need a ride?”

“Umm… no car yet. I just have a permit.” And I hate driving.

“Gage can drive you then.”

“You can’t just decide something like that,” G argues.

“What? We’re riding with Mom and Dad and already have Wade and June riding with us.”

“There’s still one extra seat. And you can’t volunteer someone else’s vehicle.”

“Yeah, but that’s a lot of people, and besides, she knows Gage the best, G.”

She kind of reminds me of Ruby with the way she takes charge. She’s expressive and bubbly, definitely a total extrovert the same way Ruby was.

“What about Langston and Alice? She could ride with them,” G suggests.

“Now who’s volunteering someone else’s vehicle,” V says.

“I’m just saying she has options.”

“She doesn’t know them, now does she?” V rolls her eyes at G.

“You can just ask her what she would like to do as if she, you know, is sitting right there, like she is,” Langston reminds V. He turns to me. “There’s a seat available in three different vehicles. Take your pick.”

“It would probably be easiest for me; we live close to one another anyway.” Gage concedes. “You can text me your address.”

Everyone turns to look at him – one of the boy’s mouths drops open, and then they all turn to stare at me. The girl gets this wide grin on her face that gives me a jolt of pain because of how much it makes me think of Ruby.

“Oh my gosh, how did I not know that? Well, that works out then!” V claps her hands together as if everything has been decided now and her brother rolls his eyes. 

“She’ll ride with Gage.” V has this glint in her eyes that screams mischief. “And you already have her number? For how long? Why have you been hiding her from us?”

“He was probably afraid you’d try to steal her away,” Langston chimes in, getting another fry thrown at him.

“Or totally scare her off,” G adds.

Wade starts laughing and V turns to him.

“Don’t encourage them. I am not scary.”

All three boys exchange a look and burst into laughter while V pouts.

“Gage, I’m not scary, right?” V asks, turning to him since he’s the only one not laughing.

“Switzerland,” Gage says.

V huffs, then very obviously changes the topic to other things.

They include me in their talk of TV, books, and random things, but they don’t pressure me to talk with them. It’s not just me, either. Gage sits quietly, and Langston only chimes in every now and then, his book back in his hands.

The rest of the day passes by fast, but for the first time in a long time, it’s not a blur.