Page 38 of Save You

I finish my tea and put the empty mug down on the table.Then I pull out my own phone and tap on my messages.I still have Graham’s number saved.I just couldn’t bring myself to delete it.Just having it there and knowing that I could text him if I wanted to is enough.

I scroll to the top of our chat.It’s not just everyday texts and photos; we shared our deepest anxieties and worries.Any normal person would have deleted those messages, rather than keeping them and constantly flicking through them like an old photo album.

Apparently, I’m not a normal person.

This is all I have left of him.And I’m just not ready to let go of him forever.To be honest, I don’t know if I ever will be.I miss him so much.I miss our phone calls, him laughing at bad action comedies, our fingers intertwined beneath a café table.Knowing that I can’t get that back is driving me almost out of my mind.

“That sounds great,” James says.His voice sounds so enthusiastic that I raise an eyebrow at him.“Yes, of course.No, thankyou, Alice.Speak to you later.”James sighs with relief and stretches both arms over his head.

“Alice?Alice Campbell?”I ask.

He turns to me.“She owes me a favor.”

“I’d rather not know why.”

He smiles with embarrassment.“Ruby really admires Alice.”

Hardly surprising.Alice Campbell set up her own cultural foundation while she was still at Oxford.

“You’re really pulling your finger out,” I remark, instantly regretting it as James’s face grows serious.

“Don’t change the subject,” he says, but I shake my head.

“I can’t tell him.How am I meant to sit through his history lessons after that?”

“You could switch teachers.”

“That would look really weird.”

James shrugs his shoulders.“There are all kinds of reasons toswitch.I don’t think it would be that weird.If you came into my class, we could say it’ll help us revise together.”

“I don’t know,” I mumble.

“Well, whatever you do,” James says, “I’ll help you.”He gives me another long, serious look, then turns back to his laptop.

I feel a slight tingle in my stomach and put my hand on it to tell if it’s one of the babies.I can feel them moving a tiny bit now—almost like having butterflies.

Now that James knows, I’m feeling a lot better about things, but it still doesn’t change the fact that I’m having two children, I’m going to be a single mum, and I will probably have to leave school without A levels.Although…maybe I can get them done before everything comes out.

I force myself to take three deep, calm breaths.I can’t get caught up in thinking about the future when it’s all up in the air anyway.I have to take each day as it comes.Because if I spend my whole time worrying, that won’t do anyone any good—least of all the little beans inside me that have to be my priority from now on.

“Fuck,” James exclaims suddenly.He’s linked his arms behind his head and is staring wide-eyed at his monitor.

“What’s wrong?”

James is rigid.Anxiously, I get up and walk over to his desk.I stand behind his chair and hold on to the leather back.Then I lean down a little.

The first words I see areUniversity ofOxford.

Glancing down a little further, I seeDear James…and many congratulations…

“You got in!”I blurt out.

James still isn’t responding, so I turn his chair round to face me.His face is a picture of sheer shock.

“James, you got in.That’s amazing!”I grab him by the shoulders and pull him up to give him a hug.He stumbles and it takes him a moment to hug me back.

“Fuck,” he repeats.