Page 88 of Save Me

James, who wished me luck this morning, and stroked my wrist.

James, who freezes, his beer halfway to his lips, as he spots me, only to turn back to Cyril a second later and act like nothing ever happened.

I gulp hard.

I don’t know why I’m so surprised to bump into him and his mates here. I knew they were applying to Oxford, and this evening in the pub is a fixed point of several colleges’ programs for anyone invited to interview. Even so, it dampens my euphoria, and I have to admit that Oxford won’t be the entirely fresh start I’ve so often painted it as in my mind. I’ll have to live with seeing some of them again.

If I even get in, that is.

“Ruby!”

I whirl around and see Lin coming toward me, armsoutstretched. Her cheeks are flushed from the cold air outside, and she’s got a chunky gray scarf around her neck, which covers half her face. The next moment, she flings her arms around me, and I hug her back, just as hard.

“Tell me everything,” I say excitedly, once we’ve let each other go.

“Come on, sit down,” says Jude, pointing to a bench facing him. Lin drops onto it first, and I follow suit once I’ve slipped off my coat. Somehow, I manage not to glance in James’s direction again.

“This is so cool,” Lin says, once we’ve sat down and looked at the menus. “Almost like we’ve gone back in time.”

“Yeah, there’s a real sense of history here,” I agree. “But spill! Your text was so cryptic. How did it go?”

“You first!” Lin replies, and I give her the short version of my interview this morning.

“They had total poker faces—I had no clue whether what I was saying was right or wrong. I bet they were confused by the way I grinned at them after the first question,” I say.

“Well, at least they weren’t glaring at you. I got a tutor with a unibrow, and he frowned so hard it made me lose my train of thought a couple of times. I was so glad when it was over.” She sighs, scowls, and props her chin on her hand. “It really didn’t go well.”

“But there’s another interview,” I say encouragingly, squeezing her arm for a moment. “You’ve got this.”

“Two more, actually. One each for economics and philosophy. Lucky you to have both combined.”

“But that means you have two more chances to prove yourself. That’s a good thing, trust me.”

“In my interview, they asked me if I could retrieve a pen that had gone under the armchair,” Jude pipes up unexpectedly.

“What?” asks Lin.

“I thought it was part of the interview and started to work out the economic grounds for the question and build an answer based on that.” He grins. “But in the end, they really did just want me to pick up the pen.”

Lin and I start to laugh.

Then a barman comes to take our orders. Jude says drinking in the Turf is an absolute must, at least once, so Lin and I both get pints and a few nibbles. As we wait for our food, I tell her about my afternoon and the lecture I snuck into. After that, we make the most of the opportunity to bombard Jude with questions about seminars, tutorials, fellow students, and life in Oxford.

Our drinks arrive after a while. I’ve never had beer before. The only other alcohol I’ve drunk was the sweet stuff Wren plied me with at that party. I know what I’m doing this time as we clink glasses. This is my decision. It’s my own choice to drink because it’s part of the experience. It feels grown-up and exciting to do a thing I’ve never allowed myself in the past.

I lift the glass and take a sip. Then I pull a revolted face. “Ugh, that’svile!” I exclaim.

Jude and Lin burst out laughing, and I look from one of them to the other, genuinely confused. “Why would anyone drink this of their own free will?”

“Your first beer?” Jude asks.

I nod. “And my last.”

“You say thatnow,” he replies, waggling his eyebrows, and Lin nods.

“It’s like coffee. It’s disgusting when you’re a child, but theolder you get, the better it tastes.” Lin points to my mouth. “You’ve got a foam mustache, by the way.”

Startled, I wipe my lips with the back of my hand. “I’ve always liked coffee. This is…It tastes…like licking a tree.”

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