Page 9 of Save You

“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 youlose 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 tidyappearance—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.”