Page 108 of Save You
Without another word, she drags me out of the office and into the waiting area outside it.I’m raging, and stare at Lexington every step of the way until Mum slams the door behind us.
This didn’t just happen.It can’t have done.
I shake my head and turn to my mum.“Can you believe that?How sick would you have to be to dream up a thing like that?”I ask her.
Mum just shakes her head and won’t meet my eyes.Her gazeis fixed on a point somewhere over my shoulder.“I knew something like this would happen if we sent you to this bloody school.”
I flinch and my eyes narrow.“Wh…What?”
Mum shakes her head.“How could you, Ruby?”
“I’m telling you, I didn’t do anything!”I yell.
If my own mother won’t believe me, I don’t know what else to do.Despair floods through me, runs through my veins, making it hard to breathe.
“Mum, you have to believe me—I’d never kiss a teacher.”
“I’d never have thought that you’d lie to us so you could sleep with your boyfriend either, but apparently things have changed in the last few months.”
I gape open-mouthed at her.
Mum takes a deep breath and then sighs.“I don’t have anything to say to you right now, Ruby.I’m so disappointed in you.”
Tears fill my eyes.I try to find the words, but there are none.My body feels numb.The only thought racing through my head is this:Who the fuck took those pictures?
“Mum…”
“Get the bus home,” she says, gulping hard.“I have to speak to your father.”
“I didn’t do it, Mum.”
She doesn’t respond to my words, just adjusts her handbag strap on her shoulder, turns, and walks away down the corridor.
I’m left alone.
Lexington’s words are echoing in my head on a loop.
You are suspended from Maxton Hall with immediate effect.
Suspended.Just before the Easter holidays.Before my A levels.With my St.Hilda’s offer printed out and pinned to my noticeboard at home.
If I don’t get the grades, I can forget Oxford.
Everything I’ve spent the last eleven years working toward.
The recognition of what just happened hits me full force.I sway, have to grip on to the secretary’s desk as the world seems to spin around me.I have to fight to walk out of the room without collapsing.
In the corridor, I meet gaggles of younger kids on their way to lunch, and my feet want to turn toward the dining hall.But I’m not allowed in there.
I’m not allowed to go to events committee meetings.
You are suspended from Maxton Hall with immediate effect.
I’m not even allowed to be in this corridor anymore.
“Ruby?”a familiar voice says behind me.
I look up, eyes blurred with tears.James is there.As he sees how shaken up I am, he takes my upper arm gently.
