Rue peeled herself from the sofa as she dryly swallowed her night time pills and flipped open her tattered notebook. The TV droned, its brightness scorched Rue’s eyes, but she refused to turn it off—it was the only place where she might see Giselle Amon’s grey eyes and toothy grin. 

“I have a good feeling,” she thought as she circled an address, then slid into a neon vest and combat boots. Rue stood at the doorway, waiting to watch the missing persons’s report. She needed a sign she didn’t have to search anymore. 

A dozen minutes later, Rue turned off the TV, and stepped outside—disappointed but unsurprised. 

The clouds clustered above, whispering amongst themselves. She was glad for the noise that seeped from every corner of the city which distracted her from her thoughts. 

She rounded a corner where a beggar slept, and saw the dust from the gravel grounds of the construction site. Behind the metal skeletons, the sun was setting over the Kairos lake. Rue wanted to visit it before it would be closed off to the public, and morphed into a decoration of the county club that was being built. 

“You new?” a middle-aged woman said as she blocked the gates. 

Rue recited her false introduction. She needed her to believe it. 

The woman’s radio began to sputter. She rolled her eyes. “Stay here—I’ll check you in after I get back.” She tipped the gate open slightly, and slid through. 

Rue counted three breaths before she jammed her foot between then opening, cursing as she felt the metal dig into the sides of her foot. The air in the site was heavy, and the sky casted shadows among the working men and women. 

She avoided a crowd beside the shipping container offices complaining about the stubborn loose beams, and stooped under a white plastic tarp. Her phone buzzed every once in a while from the birthday messages. She was nineteen today, and alone.

Last year, when she turned eighteen, she remembered waking up to Giselle’s frizzy blue hair frayed upon her pillow, and her intricately acne scarred skin inches away. They made small talk over breakfast, both dancing around the events of the night prior. 

The silence was thick after they scrutinized the perfect sunny day. Rue wanted to ask Giselle about her feelings, and make clear her intentions. 

“Giselle, I—”

“—let’s go to the lake,” Giselle had said through a mouthful of eggs. 

And when Giselle proposed an idea, Rue couldn’t turn it down. They had climbed a wired fence, and Rue had felt the warmth of Giselle’s hands as they crossed the scattered beams and pillars of the would be construction site. 

Giselle had brought two paper cups with her that day, and packed them with dirt. “We’ll be off on own next year,” she said, avoiding Rue’s searching gaze. “Plant this once you find somewhere you can call home—your dormitory, maybe, in LA.” 

Rue knew she was disappointed, not in herself, but in her for leaving. Rue had received a scholarship to a private university. Giselle didn’t apply to college. 

“What about you?” Rue asked, letting herself fall paces behind. 

Giselle smiled sadly. “Dunno, haven’t found the right place yet.”

“Have you changed your mind about college?” 

“I’m not worried about that.”

“It’s important for your future—you have to think about it.” 

“No. It’s important for the future you want. Not mine.” 

Giselle kneeled at the trunk of the lone sycamore marked with a large red X, and pressed two of its fallen butterfly seeds into the cups. Suddenly, Rue was overwhelmed by her scent—cinnamon and coffee. “I’m running away—I think I know where my mother is. I’ll hitch a ride north. I have enough saved. . . ”

Rue wanted to tell her she was wrong, but didn’t dare disturb the peace between them. The world wasn’t as simple as Giselle had thought it to be. It didn’t matter how hard you fought, and believed in hope—not when you were deemed a burden at birth. Who listens to silence anyways? Rue wanted make Giselle understand personally. She wanted Giselle to come back to her willingly, and realize how she was right, and how much she needed her, her knight in shining armour. 

But Rue’s naivety was going to cage her into a cycle of regret. She will never be able to love, nor live, for her soul left the day Giselle did under her blessing—neither returned.

The tension had unraveled when lake came into view, its surface still and innocent, reflecting hints of noon.

“In a few months, I’ll be able to do what ever I want,” Giselle had peeled off her shirt as she began to run towards the water. “I won’t need a foster family anymore. My life will begin, Rue, and you will be the only to have known me before it did— I’m forever grateful for that.” 

Giselle Amon dove into the water, and disappeared like mist.

Rue heard a whine from above her, and another thin rasp that quickly bloomed into a howl. Rue looked up, and saw a wooden beam sliding out of place, its presence approached gently like spring—a spring where two sycamores matured, alone, under a sky which believed in a destiny that did neither justice.