Page 55 of Save Me

Wren comes a step closer. I step back.

“Why not, Ruby?” he asks, taking another step toward me,until I feel the wall at my back. “Had a bad experience with alcohol?”

I can smell the booze on his breath and see how wide his pupils are. I’m wondering if he’s off his face on more than just whisky.

“You know exactly why I don’t drink, Wren,” I reply coldly, straightening my shoulders. If he doesn’t leave me alone, I seriously will hurt him. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see, on my left, a dark wooden sideboard dotted with assorted statues and lamps.

I know how to defend myself.

“I have lovely memories of that evening,” Wren answers. He raises his left arm and rests it on the wall beside my head.

“I don’t,” I hiss between gritted teeth. Until now, he’s always left me alone at school. Never even hinted at what happened that night two years ago—so why suddenly here?

“Are you sure?” he whispers, coming closer.

I can’t take it anymore. I thrust out both hands and push him hard away from me. “I have no interest in repeating it, Wren.”

He takes my hands and links our fingers together. I look around in panic. “I can still hear every word you whispered to me.”

“That was only because you got me drunk.”

“Oh, really?” He’s got that dirty grin on his face again. “Alcohol brings your secret thoughts to the surface, Ruby. You wanted it just as much as I did.”

I freeze as the memory of that night now comes back to me: Wren’s panting breath, his restless hands all over my body. The thought makes me burn up. Partly with shame and partly because I was actually enjoying it. But thewayit happened bothers me to this day.

Wren has opened his mouth again when a voice speaks behind us, sounding firm yet bored. “Leave her alone, Fitzgerald.”

His eyes widen, and I look past him in surprise. Lydia has joined us. She gives Wren an irritated glare, then takes my hand without another word and pulls me away from him, out into the room a little. It’s not until we’re out of earshot that she looks at me, eyebrows raised.

“Who’d have thought thatyouof all people had a dirty little secret?”

Panic floods through me, and I clench my fists. But before I can say a word, she lifts her hands. An amused smile plays around her lips. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

I stare at her, and it takes me a moment to grasp what she said. “I don’t care who knows about it,” I say defiantly, even though we both know that’s a barefaced lie.

If I could, I’d wipe that whole evening right out of my memory. I had just started at Maxton Hall. It was the first event I got to go to, and I was so jittery and nervous that I happily drank every cup of punch that Wren brought me. I didn’t know he’d spiked it from his hip flask. And when he pulled me into a corridor and kissed me, I was euphoric. Wren was one of the most attractive boys I’d ever seen. And he wanted me. Having my first kiss with him was such a rush.

It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized how wrong it had been of him to get me drunk without my knowledge, or how naïve I’d been. Since then, I haven’t touched a drop.

Opposite me, Lydia raises an eyebrow. “Seriously? I’d have thought you were more bothered about your reputation than that.”

“Snogging someone once two years ago after he spiked my drink won’t do much damage to my reputation. It’s not like having an affair with a teacher.”

I regret the words the moment I’ve said them. Lydia goes aswhite as a sheet. The next second, she takes a threatening step toward me. “You said you’d keep your mouth shut. I—” She falls abruptly silent and moves away again.

“Thereyou are.” James comes over and hands me a glass of Coke with ice and a slice of lemon. He’s holding an expensive-looking crystal glass of something brown in his other hand.

He looks slowly from me to Lydia. “Everything OK?”

“Could you get me a drink too, brother dear? My glass is empty,” Lydia says, batting her eyelashes exaggeratedly.

James rolls his eyes but takes her glass and heads off to the bar again. Almost the moment he’s gone, Lydia’s smile vanishes again. She looks at me with chilly eyes, and I swallow hard. I wish I’d never come. I don’t want to be in this room; I want to be at home, where I feel safe and secure. This is the exact opposite of that—an adventure that’s too much for me.

“Listen,” I say before she can threaten me again. “I’m sorry for what I just said.”

Her mouth opens and shuts. Then she gives me a skeptical look. “What?”

“I’m not your enemy,” I continue. “And I don’t care what you and Mr. Sutton get up to. I won’t give you away.”

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