Page 42 of Save You (Maxton Hall #2)

Lydia

I wish I hadn’t come. I should have listened to my gut and not let them convince me. I knew it wouldn’t be easy for me to see Graham. But I never expected this.

Just now, when he was dancing with Pippa, when he put his arm around her like it was so ordinary, when she smiled at him and he smiled back, when the distance between their faces was shrinking more and more—I just couldn’t bear it. It was too much.

And even now, in the empty corridor, with no music and no people around me, my heart won’t stop racing.

I feel sick and my hands are clammy. Dots are dancing before my eyes.

My blood pressure must be way high. At once, I lay a hand on my bump, like that will tell me anything about whether the twins are OK.

“Lydia?”

I lower my hand and turn around.

Graham is standing just a few feet from me, his jacket unbuttoned, his eyebrows narrowing pensively.

“What?” I snap. Oh, how sick I am of pretending to everyone that everything in my life is fine. Nothing is fine. Least of all now, with him facing me. He ran after me when I thought he hadn’t even seen me. And he’s looking at me like he knows what’s going on inside me—the way he always used to.

I can’t look away. The pressure that has been building up inside me has got to the point that I can’t hold it in anymore.

“Did you have fun?”

His expression darkens and his frown deepens. “It was just one dance, Lydia.”

I snort disdainfully. “What I saw in there was a lot more than just ‘dancing.’? ”

We’ve never argued before and now I know why. It feels shit, and snarling at him like this isn’t even liberating.

“She asked me, and turning her down would have looked weird. People are already gossiping about me as it is.”

I laugh. “So, you were on the verge of making out with my tutor in the middle of the dance floor to stop people wondering if you’re seeing someone?”

The words emerge from my mouth louder than I intended, and Graham glances anxiously over his shoulder.

“I hate this, Graham,” I say. My voice is cold yet trembling. I’ve never heard myself speak like this before. “I hate that you can’t even speak three words to me without looking all around you in panic.” I clench my fists and put all my strength into fighting the stinging at the backs of my eyes.

“Do you think I’m enjoying it?” he retorts suddenly.

I can only snort again.

Now he clenches his fists too. “I’m trying to do the right thing for both of us!”

“The right thing?” I can’t believe he just said that. “You think it’s right to dance with other women—while I watch on?”

“Do you think I like this? Keeping away from you, acting like we never met?” he asks in disbelief. Then he clutches his hair, shakes his head. “It hurts like hell, Lydia, and it’s getting worse every day.”

“Well, that’s certainly not my fault!” I almost scream the words, and then bite my lip.

I take a deep breath and remember the stuff Mum drummed into me about composure all my life.

“I don’t call you,” I continue more quietly.

“I don’t speak in your lessons. I don’t even bloody well look at you.

So, if you’d be so good as to let me know what else I should be doing so as not to hurt your feelings… ”

Graham shakes his head again. Then he takes a long stride toward me—and holds my face in his hands.

For a moment, it’s like I’ve been turned to stone. Then I push his arms away. He can’t touch me like that—if he does, it feels like the old days, and I can’t bear that for even a second.

“We can’t go on like this, Lydia,” he croaks.

“Like I just told you, I’ve stuck to my end of the deal.”

“Me too. But it’s going to break both of us.”

I feel my anger gradually ebbing away, leaving only pain. Pain that’s tearing me apart from the inside, so that I can’t breathe.

I wish I hadn’t pushed him away. And I wish I’d done it harder.

“It was just a dance,” Graham whispers.

All I do is nod. I long to look away, but I can’t. Graham and I—it’s been ages since we’ve been this close. I get the feeling that I have to breathe in every second before the moment is over and I’m left here on my own.

“Nothing has changed on my part, Lydia.”

I catch my breath. “What—what do you mean?”

Graham comes another step closer but doesn’t touch me.

“I mean that you’re the first thought on my mind when I wake up.

I think about you all day long. If I see something funny, you’re the first person I want to tell.

I hear your voice in my ear when I fall asleep.

For God’s sake, Lydia, I love you. I loved you from our first phone call.

I will never stop loving you, even though I know there’s no chance for us. ”

My heart is beating as fast as if I’d just run a marathon. I can’t believe he just said that.

“I’ll change schools.”

That tears me out of my stupor. I shake my head. “No. You can’t do that. You said yourself that Maxton Hall is the best thing that ever happened to you. That you’ll never find a better job.”

“I don’t care. I want to be able to be there for you again. I want to be able to walk into a café with you, to hold your hand. And I want my best friend back. If I have to take a worse job to get that, then I’ll be happy to.”

I shake my head again, confused by this sudden switch. “I…You can’t. Why suddenly now?”

“It’s not a spur-of-the-moment thing. Since my very first day here, I’ve been thinking about leaving. Every morning, I ask myself whether Maxton Hall is really worth us having lost each other.”

“But we—” I break off, unable to think straight.

“We decided it together. That’s why I didn’t say anything. I was afraid of pressuring you. But now…”

The tears flow faster and I can’t hold them back. I pinch my eyes together and a silent sob shakes me. This time, when Graham touches me, I don’t stop him, just let my brow rest wearily against his chest and allow him to gently stroke my cheek.

“I’m so sorry that I can’t be there for you, Lydia,” he whispers.

The longing for him is almost unbearable at this moment.

And so is my guilty conscience, because I still haven’t told him about the pregnancy, and my grief—not just for our relationship, but for our friendship.

I dig my hand into his shirt and hold him tight.

“I miss my mum. And I miss you. All the time.”

“I know. I’m so sorry.” He strokes me again.

His soft touch reminds me of the first time we met.

Then we were nothing more than friends who’d met online, but he held me in this same way when a young woman in the café asked me about the newspaper headlines.

I tried not to let anyone see how much her words had affected me, but Graham could tell at once, and he took me in his arms. He whispered into my ear that everything would be OK. Just like he’s doing now.

His soothing voice eases my pain, and as he runs his thumb over my wet cheek and assures me that we’ll get there, I sink into the dream for the moment, into the illusion he’s created.

But then Graham stiffens.

“Lydia,” he whispers.

I move away from him a little and follow his gaze.

At the end of the corridor, only fifteen feet away, is Cyril.

His face is paler than I’ve ever seen it, and he’s staring in disbelief from Graham to me and back again. His mouth drops open.

But then his face changes. His eyebrows contract, his eyes narrow to slits, and he grits his teeth so hard that his jawbone juts out.

The next moment, he turns on his heel and vanishes back into Boyd Hall.

“Fuck,” I mutter, pulling away from Graham completely.

“Lydia…”

I shake my head and wipe my fingers over my damp cheeks again. “I have to speak to him. Could we talk later…on the phone?”

Graham looks like his whole body is strained, but at my words, a warmth creeps into his golden-brown eyes that I haven’t seen in months. It’s familiar, like a faded memory that is slowly regaining color and becoming a reality.

“I’ll call you,” he says. “After the ball.”

“OK,” I whisper.

For a moment, I’m tempted to hug him again, but then Cyril’s disbelieving face looms up in my inner eye and instead I turn tail to look for him.

I run after Cyril as fast as I can and catch him just by the exit from Boyd Hall.

“Cy…” I gasp, reaching for his elbows.

He whirls around and snatches his arm away. “Don’t touch me.”

I raise my hands, shocked by his cold tone. Cyril has never spoken to me like that before. And the way he’s looking at me is entirely new: disdainful, disgusted. He shakes his head.

“I can’t believe you did that, Lydia.”

I frown up at him. “I can’t believe you think you’re in any position to judge me, Cy. Or do I have to remind you of some of the people you’ve been with?”

Cyril flinches. “You think I’m pissed off because you’re shagging your teacher?”

Now I’m the one to flinch. There’s a little group of people behind Cyril, who’ve just walked out of the hall.

“Why else?” I ask quietly.

He makes a sound of despair and leans his head back, staring up as if the heavens could tell him what to say next. Then he looks back at me and gulps hard.

“I’m pissed off with you because you’ve been holding out on me for ages.”

My mouth drops open. “What?”

“There’s only you for me, Lydia. I’ve been in love with you for years.”

“But,” I croak. “But we…I…It was never anything serious.”

Cyril looks like I’ve slapped his face. He opens his mouth, but not a word emerges.

“I didn’t know you felt like this,” I whisper. Cautiously, I stretch my hand out toward him a second time and touch his arm. He’s my friend; I’ve known him since we were kids. If I’d had any idea that he was serious about me, I’d never have got involved.

“Are you telling me you never noticed?” he exclaims in disbelief.

I nod in silence.

“You never noticed that I haven’t been with anyone since our little fling? You never noticed that after your mum died, I was there for you from morning to night, to comfort you?”

“That’s what friends do for one another,” I whisper tearfully.

“I wouldn’t do that for just anyone,” he says, his tone bitter. “I’d only do it for you.”

I stare at him, unable to move. Nausea washes over me, and more tears are rolling down my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I…I never meant to hurt you.”

Cyril hesitantly lifts a hand and wipes away one of my tears. Then his face hardens. “But you did.”

With those words, he turns away and walks toward the parking lot.