He gives a bitter laugh and shakes his head.
“I don’t want to lose you,” I whisper, plucking up every last ounce of courage I can find inside me.
He puts his hand on top of mine on his cheek. He shuts his eyes, and it almost looks as though this moment is causing him physical pain. His fingers gently stroke the back of my hand, and the tingle spreads through me. “You can’t lose a thing that isn’t yours in the first place, Ruby Bell.”
He pulls my hand from his face. Then he opens his eyes again and looks at me. It’s the way he used to look two months ago—cold and distant. Suddenly, I feel hollowed out. Icy cold floods through me as the meaning of his words hits home.
“Beaufort!” Wren calls across the field. “You’re missing your first training session in weeks. Come on, man!”
He wants to turn around; I can see it in the way his body tenses. It’s as though there’s an invisible wire linking him to his friends.
“Are we done here? The boys are waiting,” he says emotionlessly, gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder.
I’ve never felt so humiliated in my life. Adrenaline pumps through my body, mingled with pain, despair, and rage. I have to clench my fists to stop myself from shoving him in the chest. I want to, more than anything, but when he’s this cold and distant, I’m not giving him the satisfaction of losing it in front of his friends.
“Yes. We’re done,” I say, with as much dignity as I can muster.
James takes no interest in my words. He turns away before I’ve finished speaking and runs back to the team. My pride dwindles with every step he takes until I can barely stand upright.
24
Ruby
Green—Important!
Turquoise—School
Pink—Maxton Hall Events Committee
Purple—Family
Orange—Diet and Exercise
If I divided my afternoon up by colors, it would look like this:
Purple—Cry my eyes out with Ember
Purple—Cry my eyes out with Mum
Purple—Avoid Dad so he can’t ask me too many questions
Orange—Go for a run with Ember to clear my head
Green—Give James Beaufort the bag back and inform him exactly how far he can take a jump off a cliff
A good list, in my opinion. And if it actually existed, I’d already have ticked off every item except the last.
I spent an hour with my hair in a towel, trying to write him a letter. Now I’m still sitting here surrounded by crumpled sheets of paper as I decide to call it a day. I wanted to write something that expressed my anger and disappointment, but on paper, the wordssuddenly seemed totally irrational. I wish I’d said all this to him on the sports field, but at the time, I was too shocked to have a ready reply.
Pinned to my noticeboard in front of me is the card James sent me for my birthday. The words meant so much to me back then. I genuinely believed he meant them. Now it feels as though I imagined everything that happened between us. Like all the phone calls, the times we laughed together, our kiss, all of it, were just figments of my imagination.
Suddenly, I can’t look at the card a moment longer. I snatch it off the pinboard, pick up a black pen, and write the first and most meaningful words that come to mind:
James,
Fuck you.
Ruby