Page 5 of Save You (Maxton Hall #2)

James

The walls are spinning. I don’t know which way’s up and which way’s down; all I can tell is that Ruby’s hands are there, keeping me semi-anchored in reality.

She’s sitting on my bed, leaning her back on the headboard, and I’m half lying in her lap.

One of her arms is wrapped tightly around me and she’s stroking my hair with her hand.

I’m focused entirely on the warmth of her body, her even breath, and her touch.

I have no idea how many days have passed. There’s nothing but fog when I try to remember anything. Thick gray fog, and two thoughts that get through to me in every brief moment of clarity.

Firstly: My mum is dead.

Secondly: I kissed another girl in front of Ruby.

It doesn’t matter how much alcohol I down, or what else I take—I’ll never forget Ruby’s face at that moment. She looked so shocked and hurt. Like I’d destroyed her whole world.

I bury my face in Ruby’s side again. Partly because I’m afraid she’ll stand up and leave at any moment. And partly because I’m afraid the tears will be back any second now. But neither of those things happens. Ruby stays and, apparently, there’s no more liquid left inside me to get rid of.

I feel as though there’s nothing at all left inside me. Maybe my soul died along with my mother. How else could I have done that to Ruby?

How did I do that to Ruby?

What’s wrong with me?

What the fuck is wrong with me?

“James, you have to breathe,” Ruby whispers suddenly.

As she says that, I realize that I have actually stopped breathing. I’m not sure how long ago.

I inhale deeply and slowly let out the air again. There, that wasn’t so hard.

“What’s happening to me?” Whispering those words is so exhausting that afterward, it feels as though I’d shouted them.

Ruby’s hand pauses. “You’re grieving,” she replies, equally quietly.

“But why?”

Just before, I forgot to breathe—now my breath is coming way too fast. I sit up with a jerk. My rib cage hurts, and so do my limbs, which feel like I’ve been training too hard, even though I’ve spent the last few days doing nothing but suppressing the way my life is right now.

“What do you mean, ‘why’?” Her expression is warm, and I wonder how she’s able to look at me like that.

“I mean, why am I sad? I didn’t even like my mum very much.”

Even before I’ve finished speaking those words, I freeze. Did I really just say that?

Ruby reaches for my hand and holds it tight. “You’ve lost your mother. It’s normal to be knocked sideways when someone that important to you dies.”

She doesn’t sound as confident and sure of herself as usual. I don’t think Ruby actually knows how to act in a situation like this. But she’s here and doing her best, and that fact feels almost like a dream.

Maybe it is.

“What happened here?” she whispers suddenly, cautiously lifting my right hand.

I follow her gaze. My knuckles are still smeared with blood, and my skin is red and blue with bruises and grazes.

Maybe this isn’t a dream after all. Or if it is, it’s a highly lifelike one.

“I punched my dad.” The words come out of my mouth entirely neutrally.

I don’t feel a thing as I say them. Something else that’s wrong with me.

Any halfway normal human being knows not to hit their parents.

But that moment, when my father gave Lydia and me the news of Mum’s death—so emotionless and cold—was the moment when I couldn’t take it anymore.

Ruby lifts my hand to her lips and kisses the back of it gently. My heart starts to beat faster and trembling floods my body. Her touch is doing me good, even though her tenderness is killing me. Everything about it feels so wrong and yet so right.

From when I was a little kid, my parents taught me never to show my emotions because doing so allows other people to get to know you, and—up to a point—to get the measure of you.

The moment you show weakness, you make yourself vulnerable, and at the top of a big business, you can’t afford that.

But they never prepared me for a situation like this.

What do you do when you lose your mother at eighteen?

For me, there was only one answer: Try to drown the truth in alcohol and drugs, and act like nothing even happened.

But now that Ruby’s with me, I’m not sure I can go on like that. I let my eyes roam over her face, over her slightly messed-up hair, and down to her throat. I still remember exactly what it was like to press my lips onto her soft skin there. How overwhelming it felt to hold her. To be inside her.

Now she looks just as sad as I feel. I don’t know if she’s thinking about my mum, or only about how much I hurt her.

But there’s one thing I know for certain: Ruby didn’t deserve to be treated like that.

She’s always given me the feeling that I can achieve anything.

And whatever might have happened…I should never have let Elaine kiss me just to prove to myself and everyone else that I’m a coldhearted arsehole, incapable of feeling a thing, even the death of my own mother.

Pushing Ruby away like that was cowardly.

And it was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life.

“I’m sorry,” I say hoarsely. My throat feels rusty, and it’s a major effort to speak. “I’m so sorry for what I did.”

Ruby’s whole body stiffens. Minutes go by in which she doesn’t react. I think she’s even stopped breathing.

“Ruby…”

She just shakes her head. “Don’t. That’s not why I’m here.”

“I know how badly I fucked up, I—”

“James, stop it,” she whispers fiercely.

“I know you have no reason to forgive me. But I…”

Ruby’s hand shakes as she pulls it away from mine.

Then she gets up from the bed. She smooths out her jumper, then flattens down her fringe.

It’s like she wants to re-create her neat and tidy appearance—the version of her that I didn’t even notice for two years.

But too much has happened between us. There’s nothing that could make her invisible to me again now.

“I can’t do this now, James,” she mumbles. “I’m sorry.”

The next moment, she walks across my room. She doesn’t even turn back to me, doesn’t look at me as she goes through the door and shuts it quietly behind her.

I clench my teeth together hard as the stinging behind my eyes returns and my shoulders start to shake again.

I don’t know how long I lie in my bed, staring at the wall, but eventually, I pull myself together and go downstairs.

It’s been dark outside for ages, and I wonder if the lads are even still here.

From just outside the sitting room, I can hear their quiet voices.

The door’s slightly open, and I pause with my hand on the handle.

“This is getting out of hand,” Alistair murmurs. “If he keeps on like this, he’s going to drink himself into a coma. I don’t get why he won’t talk to us.”

“I wouldn’t want to talk if I were him.” Keshav. It doesn’t surprise me that he’s the one who said that.

“But you know your limits. I’m not sure that James does anymore.”

“We shouldn’t have let it get this far,” Wren says. “Until yesterday, I genuinely thought he was just celebrating Oxford.”

There’s a moment of silence, then Wren goes on, his voice quiet. “If he doesn’t want to talk about it, we have to accept that.”

Alistair snorts. “And keep watching on as he fucks himself up? No way.”

“You can take the drugs and booze off him,” Wren mumbles, “but his mum died. And as long as he won’t face up to it, there’s nothing we can do, however shit that feels.”

An icy shiver runs down my spine. They know. The idea of having to look into their sympathetic faces in a moment turns my stomach. I don’t want that. I want this all to be like the old days. But if Ruby’s visit has shown me one thing, it’s that it’s time to face reality.

So I let my neck click, circle my aching shoulders, and walk into the sitting room.

Alistair is about to reply but presses his lips together as he spots me.

I head straight for the drinks trolley and pick up a bottle of whisky.

There’s no way I’ll get through what I’ve got to do next sober.

I pour a shot and down it in one. I put the glass down and turn to the lads.

Everyone but Cyril is here. Alistair is swirling the last of his drink around his glass and keeping his gaze fixed on the floor.

Kesh is watching me, his dark eyes expectant, and so is Wren.

Although they already know, it feels important to say the words out loud.

“My mum is dead.”

It’s the first time I’ve said it.

And it hurts more than I expected. Not even the booze can help with that. That’s exactly why I’ve avoided talking to them. Words just cause more pain. I turn my face away and stare at my shoes so that I won’t have to see their reactions. I have never felt as vulnerable as I do in this second.

Suddenly, I hear footsteps coming toward me. When I look up, Wren is standing right there. He puts an arm around me and gives me a squeeze.

Wearily, I let my head droop onto his shoulder. My arms are heavy as lead and I can’t hug him back. But Wren doesn’t let me go. A moment later, Kesh and Alistair join us, putting their hands on my shoulders.

There’s no need for words in this moment, especially as the lump in my throat won’t let me get any out.

It takes a while until I’ve got myself back under control, to some extent at least. Eventually, Wren starts to steer me toward the sofa, and Alistair gets me a glass of water, which he holds out without speaking.

“That’s so shit,” Alistair mumbles, sitting down beside me. “And I’m so sorry, James.”

I can’t meet his eyes or say anything, so I just nod.

“What happened?” Kesh asks after a while.

I sip hesitantly from the glass. The cold water tastes amazingly good. “She…She had a stroke, while we were in Oxford.”

Silence. I don’t think any of the lads has even drawn breath. They might have known that Mum had died, but this is clearly new information to them.

“Dad didn’t tell us until we got home again. He didn’t want us to fuck up our interviews.” Remembering the conversation with my father makes my blood run cold. I study my bruised hand, clench my fist, and relax it again.

Wren puts a hand on my shoulder. “We guessed that something bad must have happened,” he murmurs after a while. “I’ve never seen you like that. But Lydia didn’t tell us anything, and you weren’t in any fit state…”

Keshav clears his throat. “This afternoon, Beaufort’s put out a press release. That’s how we heard.”

I gulp hard. “I just didn’t want to think about it. About…anything.”

“It’s OK, James,” Wren says quietly.

“And I was scared that if I said it out loud, it would make it come true.”

At last, I raise my eyes and look into my friends’ stunned faces.

Keshav’s eyes look suspiciously damp, while all the color has drained from Alistair’s cheeks.

It never even occurred to me that my mates have known my mum since we were kids and so they’d be upset about the news of her death too.

Suddenly, I realize how selfish my reaction was.

I didn’t just ignore reality and hurt Ruby, I pushed my friends and Lydia away too by how I acted.

“You’ll get through this. Both of you will get through this,” says Wren. I follow his gaze and see Cyril and Lydia standing in the doorway. Lydia’s cheeks and eyes are red. I must look pretty similar.

“Whatever it feels like at the moment, you’re not alone. You’ve got us. Both of you do. OK?” Wren insists, clapping me on the shoulder. The look in his brown eyes is steady and serious.

“OK,” I reply, even though I have no idea whether I can believe him on that.