| 032 | Ruby |

"Your father was a jerk and you were always detached of his judgement, only your mom's words used to affect you, you were never a dad's girl, but a mom's little girl instead, while Cole was dad's baby boy and even a side-eye from your father could make his entire day bitter. After your parents divorce, you grew even more detached from your father, the only judgements that affected you then were your mom's and Cole's, though you pretend like Cole's didn't. His relationship with you wasn't the best, he had always been a shit brother, too envious of you and at the same time too overprotective, too jealous of you with anyone else, and though you acted nasty and as if you disliked him, you didn't."

"You always struggled to show other how you cared for them, because being teared apart from your mom at a young age made you grow unused to this kind of behavior, the kind that effectively shows affection, as she used to. Being around your messed up father and Cole, both defective in showing love and affection, made you kinda messed up emotionally too, and instead of talking about your emotions, you bottled it all up. But that was equally bad, because whenever you were pushed too far, whenever you were cornered, you would snap, and you would snap aggressively so."

"From birth you were allergic to dust and bees, and from your 4 to 13 years, you evolved five different allergies: avocado, coconut, seafood, mosquitoes, as well as pickles. Four months after you turned 14, you evolved lactose intolerance as well, which you hated because you always loved lactose bases things, and you began to go on a diet without it, after you loss weight considerably because of it. When you were 7, you were diagnosed with severe anxiety, and from the time you were 12 and on, you began to pretend to take your medication because it would make you black out, and you began to sleepwalk, but anyone who looked long enough at you could notice if you hadn't take them, because when you didn't you would get shaky, especially when stressed or under pressure."

"You only learned how to swim at 12 years old, in July of 2012, because that was when you forced yourself to get through your trauma, after you drowned at 6, and later you grew scared of deep water when you drowned again, when ice skating in the lake. For being too introverted and never liking people, even less enjoyed talking with people, at the tender age of 6, after you could read perfectly well, you began to seek refuge on books, and by the age of 9, you already had a library for yourself in your wing of the Sinnott villa. Your favorite genre was romance, even if you never believed you could find it in real life, because that's how mature you already was at 9 years old, and that was also when you set your mind into becoming a writer and attending Oxford."

"Every time you mentioned that close to your father, he would snap and complain, saying that no daughter of his would attend Oxford, even less English Literature, and you would just scoff at him, disregarding his opinion, since your mom believed in your dream. A dream that you made your professional goal. While your father wanted you to be a lawyer and go to Law School in Harvard, which you always mocked him about, saying that if he wanted a daughter to go ti Harvard Law School, he should make another one, because that was not going to be you. You also constantly fought with Cole about it, because he wanted you to go to Harvard too, to keep the boys away, which you found ridiculous."

"You always loved strawberries, everything that was strawberry flavored you automatically loved, your favorite ice cream flavor was strawberry shortcake, and whenever they served you fruit salads you would always nitpick the fruits you didn't like much and eat the first, leaving the best at last, then you would eat the strawberries as a reward for going through the nightmare of eating the not-so-yummy fruits in the dish. Your favorite dessert, however, had always been tiramisu, and though you've always been a lover of tea, you always love cappuccino, the one with chocolate, even if you shouldn't have been having caffeine at all, given your anxiety."

"You always hated Coke and Pepsi, and whenever you were having soft drinks as such, you would go for Sprite because you liked the lemon better, as lemons were always your second favorite fruit, but you were never a fan of oranges, though you loved bergamot, not the normal one but the Calabrian bergamot. You always strawberry lemonade and strawberry smoothies with bergamot, as well as passion fruit juice, you have always opted for the sour fruits instead of the sweeter ones like bananas or watermelons. There was only a time in the year you would accept eating a watermelon and that was during summer, between June and July, because you always hated that season, liking winter the most."

"Your second favorite season was autumn, and your favorite holidays of the year were Christmas and Halloween, because you always liked horror movies and scary shit, and as you grew older, you began to like true crime podcasts too. But back to the watermelon, the only way you would have them was if they had made a whole on the damn thing a week before and dipped a bottle of lemonade inside the watermelon and let it sit on the refrigerator for at least seven days, and somehow you knew if they hadn't by the taste. That way it would taste more bittersweet, and you loved the bitter side of the word."

Parking the Bugatti in the garage of the school, Rhyot turned his darkened eyes to me and I felt something inside of me tremble at the look in his face, "You were born on April 8th of 2000, at 01:47 am, in the middle of the night, it was a torrential and stormy night in Boston, you were 7 months old, an anxious baby girl, you were initially supposed to be born on June 17th, as a summer child, but you decided to come on spring instead. It was a normal labor, you stayed in the hospital with your mom for 27 days. Cassiano wanted to name you Coraline because he wanted all his kids to have C names, you mom fought him because he had already named Cole and she wanted you to have an R name."

"He couldn't win against her, thus you were named Ruby Coraline Vaughan Sinnott, but given how your father only called you Coraline, you hated the middle name and you clearly still do. You weren't a crier, only when your father tried to pick you, then you would cry and scream as if he was trying to kill you, but with your mom and anyone else you were a quiet baby. They tried to feed you apple, but you refused and for two months the only fruit you would accept was strawberries, then they tried the green apples that are sourer and you began to accept them, later bergamot and lemons too, but you never liked sweet fruits, you would have their juices though."

"You first spoke at 7 months old. Your first words were 'mum', 'no', 'ew', 'good', and 'meow', the later because your mom had a cat named Noel, that you re-named Noew, and you used the love the damn animal. You first walked at 9 months old, running at 11 months old, and coherently formulating sentences by 1 year and 3 months old. When we met, you were 8 months old, and you didn't like my dad, or Hayes, only Adeline and me, even as you grew, until you were around 6, you only liked me, Adeline, and my mom. Time changed that, as we know, but it doesn't change the beginning of our lives that have always been connected, even if you were nonchalant about it."

"So, tell me again that I don't know you, Ruby," he dared me and I gulped, his voice growing raspier, igniting something deep inside of me, something unknown, something dangerous, something... alive. "I dare you to tell me that I don't know you, because I'm sure I used to be the one who knew you the best, I was just too fucking shy to get close to you, I hated how being near the sight of your siren cornflower blue eyes made me malfunction, and that made me project a dislike in you, but I never disliked you, I never hated you, Ruby. Quite the opposite," he chuckled anxiously. "My eyes were always on you, Ruby."