Page 192 of Save You
Cyril grins and shakes his head.“Doubt it.But my money’s on Alistair.”
I’m not really listening, still looking at the door they just vanished through.I’ve never seen Alistair and Kesh fight like that.
When Alistair came out as gay and his family practically disowned him, he spent a lot of time at each of our houses because he couldn’t stand it at home.It brought us all closer together, but especially him and Kesh.Kesh’s parents are friendly and accepting, and they became like a second family to Alistair.
“Something’s not right with those two,” Wren says.
“Yeah, I noticed that.”
Wren raises an eyebrow and for a moment I get the feelingthat he wants to say something, but instead he just takes a huge swig from his whisky and Coke.
I sigh.“Wren,” I begin.
He looks cautiously at me.
“I’ve been a crap friend lately,” I say.“I’m sorry for being too caught up in my own shit to be there for you.”
“It’s not like you didn’t have a good reason,” Wren replies quietly.He exhales audibly.“Your mum died.I acted like a dickhead.Sorry, bro.”
“I should have noticed that you’ve got stuff going on too, though.”
Wren shrugs his shoulders.
“Now would be a good time to tell me,” I say.“That’s the main reason I came tonight.”
Wren looks uncertain.He glances at me over his glass.Then he shuts his eyes like he’s psyching himself up.
“We’re…moving.”
I scoot a little closer to him.Did I mishear that?“What?”
“My parents lost all their money.We found a buyer for the house last week.We’re moving in March.To a semidetached.”
I stare at Wren.The words echo around my head, but I can’t make sense of them.
“Why the fuck didn’t you say anything?”Cyril asks.He stands up, comes over, and drops onto the sofa beside Wren.“We could’ve helped.”
That frees me from my state of shock.“Cy’s right,” I say.“There must have been some way you could have kept the house.”
Cyril nods.“My parents would have bought it and let you keep living there.”
Wren raises his hands in an appeasing way.“You know howproud my folks are.They’d never accept charity.Anyway, having your parents as landlords would be super weird, Cy,” he replies.But Cyril just shrugs.
“What happened?”I ask.
Wren sighs and rubs his chin with his free hand.“Dad was playing the markets.He put all our eggs in one basket—and lost.”
All I can say is, “Fuck.”I don’t know exactly how rich the Fitzgeralds were, but I know their house and their various holiday homes.I know the companies they had shares in.It’s hard to imagine that they could have lost it all—and in such a short space of time.
“Is there anything we can do?”I ask after a while.
Wren twitches one shoulder.“It’s all a bit chaotic at the moment.And Dad…He’s kind of down.”
“Just let us know—anything at all,” I say, and Cyril murmurs in agreement.
“It’s a lot.I can’t keep up at school at the moment.And now I have to think about loans and scholarships for Oxford too.I…I really don’t know if I can deal with it all.”
Wren buries his face in his hands while Cyril and I exchange glances.I’m sure we’re thinking the same thing.In the worst case, we’d all chip in to lend Wren some money.Hell, we’d give it to him no questions asked, but we know him well enough to know he’d never accept that.
