Page 48 of Save Me

She nods. “If you hadn’t spoken to me in the loos that day, we’d never have been friends like this,” she says, looking me properly in the eye for the first time since lunch. “I was so grateful that you came over to me.”

Her voice catches, and she gulps hard. I still remember the day eighteen months ago when I went into the toilets on the first floor and heard someone sobbing. I had no idea who it was in there, only that they seemed extremely upset. So, cautiously, I asked if everything was OK, and Lin just said to leave her alone. I didn’t listen, just sat on the floor, opposite the cubicle, passed tissues under the door, and waited till she was ready to come out. That was the start of our friendship.

“I’m so glad I spoke to you too. And I really am sorry.”

“Me too. I didn’t mean to be bitchy.”

“This is just one of those days,” I sigh. I pull out my phone and take a photo of the notes we made on the whiteboard during the meeting. Then I sit at my laptop and send the picture plus the minutes Lin took to the others. Meanwhile, Lin starts to wipe the board down.

“Beaufort was looking at you the whole time,” she says, out of the blue.

I snort. “I was at the front. Everyone was looking at me.”

“Not like that. His eyes were practically begging you to look back at him.”

“Bullshit.”

Lin shrugs her shoulders. “Whatever. Either way, it was great the way you gave him the brush-off. He deserved it.”

I shut the laptop and put it away in my backpack. “I just want everything to go back to how it was,” I say as we switch off the lights in the room. “The way people stare at me now, it’s like we got up to God-knows-what on Saturday. But none of them have a clue what really happened. Which is nothing.”

She hums thoughtfully. “I know. But you know what they’re like here. The smallest thing, and they’re on it like wolves. Especially if it involves James Beaufort.”

I give her a grumpy look. “Hmm.”

She digs her elbow gently into my ribs and holds the door for me. “Come on. They’ll have forgotten just as soon as the next rumor does the rounds.”

We step into the corridor, and I’m about to answer when I see somebody leaning against the wall.

James.

I stare at him.

I’m about to ask what the hell he’s doing here still, but Iremember just in time that I’m ignoring him. So I look away and walk on.

He levers himself up and comes toward me.

“Do you have a minute?” he asks. His soft tone confuses me. It doesn’t fit the James who treated me like shit forty-eight hours ago.

You have to walk away, Ruby.

I’d love to scream my opinion of him in his face, but I’m too fond of my library pass and keycard to the group rooms for that. “No, I don’t have a minute,” I retort instead. I’m proud of myself for keeping my voice calm but firm. He needs to know that he doesn’t get to act like that to me.

“We need to talk,” James continues, glancing at Lin a moment. “Alone.”

I shake my head. “We don’tneedto do anything, James.”

Lin touches my arm—a gesture of encouragement that shows me I’m not on my own here.

Suddenly, I just feel weary. “You know what?” I say, looking James square in the eyes. “Maybe it would be better if we just went back to the old days.”

He frowns. “The old days?”

I have to cough. There’s a lump in my throat, and it’s getting bigger. “I mean the days when you didn’t even know I existed. Maybe it would be better if we could go back to that. Because I was much better off then.”

He opens his mouth to reply, then shuts it, and the furrows on his brow deepen. In the end, he nods slowly. “Got you.”

This is good. He gets what my problem is. So in the future, I won’t have to deal with him anymore.

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