Characters
Ruby Bennett is sarcastic, and introverted. She suffers from mental illness and drug addiction. She's sometimes deadpanned. Rue is very straight forward and sometimes crass, but she has a sense of humor. Her loss of her father still hits her. She has a lot of wisdom for her age. She'll do anything to protect her friends
Georgia Bennett is a sweet supportive sister who does anything to stop Rue's addiction. She admires her sister and has always been quite smart and responsible
Lexi is Cassie's younger sister and Rue's best friend who is a goody-two-shoes, very smart and responsible girl
Madeleine Perez is Nate's ex girlfriend, she's confident, extroverted and commanding. She's learned how to utilize her looks for power, and she will use it to protect her friends. She can be a bit snaky and fake, but its typically not done with the expectation thatll impact anything
Ashtray is the 12 year old adopted son of Fezco. He's used to chaos in his life, and looks up to Fezco like his big brother. Not much is known about Ashtray's old family who abandoned him. He is quite hard on the outside, with a soft childish shell.
Patrick O'Neill, or Fez, Fezco is a school dropout and drug dealer. He has a big heart and wants to stop Rue from doing d rugs, but it is his job. He's desensitized to bad things.
Cassandra Howard is the older sister of Lexi, she is attention seeking, naive and desperate to be popular like her friend Maddie. She has a crush on Nate, though she knows she can't have him. She is messy and whiny and weak spirited.
Nathaniel Jacobs is the school quarterback, very popular and very well liked. he has a deeply-ingrained sense of violent behaviour due to his ideologies regarding toxic masculinity, his upbringing, and the struggles he faces with his sexuality as a result. He uses his good-looks, social status, to protect himself. He is deeply caring when he's not putting up a facade.
Rue and Gia's supportive hardworking and sometimes stern mom.
Eclectic, free-spirited, chaotic and kind, Jules is a new girl in town, who quickly catches Rue and Nate's attention during the end of summer and before the start of their new year in high school. She is trans. 'She' is deeply artistic, displaying a natural talent for unique fashion and sketching. However, it's shown that 'she' can be impulsive about 'her' choices, she ends up being a fascination and infatuation of Nates' when hes struggling with his sexuality. He often catfishes her. Jules wants desperately to have a family, which is hwy she goes so hard to protect her friends.
Intro
East Highland, California
One friend group really dominated East Highland high school culture. Led by Maddy Perez and Rue Bennett. Maddy's side of the friend group were considered the more typical popular kids you'd see. Her, Lexi and Cassie Howard and Nate Jacobs. Rue had the more loner side of the friend group. Jules and Elliot.
They were united by their care for each other. And recently, things had been amping up into the wrong direction. Rue was doing more and more using. And her dealer, Fezco, who used to be able to convince her to stop, couldnt now. She'd just get violent. Fezco was dating Elliot, or Elly. This was a big deal because of their age gap. But Fez was a good guy, he'd adopted a boy named Ashtray when he was still in school, and had to drop out to take care of him. And Ashtray really only opened up to Fez and Elliot. Recently, the FBI had opened an investigation into Fez for his drug trafficking. He was on house arrest.
Meanwhile, Jules was getting overtly scary dms from a user '@LocalChaser88', who Rue was insistent was Nate again. Last time Maddy asked Nate if he just wanted to be gay or date trans people, Nate had a violent fit like a manbaby. So they don't really confront him. But these dms were different. So, Rue was on her bed in her room with Jules scrolling through this dms, while Elliot was calling Fezco's number on the landline repeatedly. No response was getting through, until it finally did connect. Fez was stressing. The FBI had basically been making steps to take Ashtray away. He swore he'd never give him up alive. Elliot had never seemed so...scared. He was freaking out too now. Meanwhile, Rue was making fun of this harasser in Jules' dms for his username being so literal. If it was Nate Jacobs, he was a dumb ass for trying to disguise himself like that. He really could've just came out to Maddy at this point. Jules was still freaked out by the messages. And it wasn't helping that Elliot kept pacing. Jules lost it.
Creator
Release Date 2026.06.01 / Last Updated 2026.06.02