Page 77 of Save Me

Cyril calling everything I’ve done with the events team in the last few weeks “dirty work” makes new rage build up inside me, but I restrain myself. He is what he is, and I’ve had enough stress this evening already. All I want is to get drunk, to drink until I can’t feel a thing. Not Dad’s hand and not Ruby’s lips either. “I had no choice. You know that.”

“Bullshit,” says Wren. His eyes flicker with amusement. “Ruby just makes you horny.”

I don’t answer, just take a sip and close my eyes. Whatever Cyril’s mixed me, it’s strong enough to burn its way down my throat to my stomach.

“Are you serious? You put up with all that shit because you’re into Ruby Bell?” Cyril asks in surprise.

“That’s why he’s changed.” Wren’s not looking at me as he says that, but at Camille, whose hair he’s stroking pensively.

“He’s been sucking right up to her. You should have seen him at the last few meetings,” she puts in. She looks sympathetically at me. “Or did you just do that so you could get back to lacrosse quicker?”

Glass halfway to my lips, I pause. “Where did you hear that?”

“Ruby told us before the party.”

I frown and look at Wren, who is still stroking Camille’s hair. Is that why he brought her home this evening? So he could question her about me?

“I haven’t changed.” My tongue feels heavy as I say that, and the words are hushed and slurred.

“Yes, you have.” Alistair drops onto the sofa to my left. His golden hair is a mess, and his cheeks are flushed. Either he’s had a few already, or he left the party with some guy, and he’s come straight from Wren’s spare bedroom.

“How have I changed, if you please?” I ask, deliberately calmly, trying to kid myself that I don’t care what they think of me.

Alistair lifts a hand and ticks the points off on his fingers. “One, you don’t party with us anymore, or if you do you leave before dawn, which the old James Beaufort would never have done. Two, you’re happy to spend your free time with the geeks on the events team—nothing personal, Camille.” She sticks her middle finger up at him. “Three, you suddenly don’t give a fuck about our deal.”

“I didn’t come here to listen to this bullshit.”

Alistair raises an eyebrow. “It’s not bullshit, and you know it.”

“Alistair’s right. We want to enjoy our last year of school and really live it up,” Wren says. “That was the deal. Carpe fucking diem, mate. Every day, so long as we’re together. The sad part is that somewhere along the way, you seem to have lost the James who got every party started.”

I lean back and take another swig, although it burns. The truth of his words gets through to me, and my stomach knots.

They’re right.

The plan was to make the upper sixth the best year of my life and enjoy the time with my mates. The lads who’ve been a second family to me. The plan was not to develop feelings for someone I can have no future with.

I can still taste Ruby on my lips and feel her hands on my body. Unfortunately, all that means is that I’m still way too sober.

Ruby gave me a feeling I’ve never known before. Which is that, with her at my side, everything is possible. A beautiful, ugly lie. Because the truth is that, for me, nothing is possible. Unlike her, the world is not my oyster. The course of my life is preset.

Maybe that was exactly what attracted me to Ruby in the first place. She takes her life in her own hands while I’m just a puppet, pulled this way and that. She can live while I just exist.

We don’t fit together.

I only wish I’d realized that before I kissed her.

23

Ruby

How do you speak to someone after you’ve made out?

The only other boy I’d kissed before James was Wren, and I just ignored him, acted like it never happened. That’s not an option with James. I spend most of Sunday lying on my bed and staring at his hoodie, which is still on my desk. I’d like to message him, or call him, but I don’t know what to say—apart fromCan we do that again, please?andWhat does this mean for us?—and I’m too scared. Besides which, he and his parents disappeared so abruptly that I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.

In the end, my musings get so much on my own nerves that I decide to start working on our post-party jobs to take my mind off them. Apart from the brief power outage at the start, everything went to plan, and I had an email from Mr. Lexington in my inbox this morning, praising our team for all their hard work. I forward it on to everyone with my own warm words. Then I pick up one of the books my grandparents gave me and read the first few chapters. Marking key passages and sticking in colorful Post-its has always helped me clear my head. As I take notes, I’m filling mybrain with information and trying to chase away the memories of James’s firm grip on the back of my neck, and his lips on mine.

I can’t help wondering how many girls he must have kissed to be that good at it.