Page 33 of Save You
I rub my hand over my chin.My throat suddenly feels dry.
“I asked her not to tell anybody.Please don’t be pissed off with her.”
I can only shake my head.Then I sink back and cross my arms over my face.
Ruby knew.
Ruby was there for my sister.After everything I did to her, she didn’t leave Lydia in the lurch.Unlike me.
I can’t breathe.
“James?”whispers Lydia.
My arms are shaking, but I can’t lower them.I’m so ashamed.Of everything.All the mistakes I’ve made as a boyfriend and a brother fall on me like a ton of bricks, until I can hardly bear it.
My sister pulls my arms away and looks at me in concern.Understanding spreads over her face.After a while, she drops down beside me and together, we stare up at the chandelier in the middle of her room.
“Lydia,” I whisper into the silence.“I’ve fucked up.”
Lydia
I’ve never seen my brother like this before.
I knew that the break with Ruby had affected him, but I had no idea how badly he was hurting.
Now that he’s dropped the mask, I can see the shame in his eyes, as well as the deep sorrow and pain that it’s caused him.It’s the first time he’s openly showed me how he’s doing inside.
I feel a desperate longing to do something for him and Ruby.Because it’s clear that they both have feelings for each other and that they’re both miserable.
“Why didn’t you do anything to show her how sorry you are?”I ask cautiously, after a while.
James turns his head to me.“I tried to apologize to her,” he says, his voice shaky.“She said she couldn’t.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
“I can understand that,” I begin eventually, which makes James flinch, barely perceptibly.“But then again…I don’t know.I just so wish you two would get it together.”
“Ruby doesn’t want that, and I have to respect her wishes.”He sounds so resigned as he says those words that I suddenly feel an urge to shake him.
“Since when have you been the type to give up, just like that?”
James snorts.
“What?”
“I didn’t give up,just like that.I’m thinking about her all the time, and I’m pretty damn sure I’ll never have feelings for anyone else.But if she doesn’t want me, then…”
I grab one of the sketchbooks off my bedside table and whack James over the head with it.
He sits up with a jolt.“Ow, what the…?”
I sit up too, ignoring the black dots dancing before my eyes.“You have toshowher, James!Show her how important she is to you and how much you regret it.”
“You didn’t see the way she looked at me on New Year’s Eve.Or hear what she said…” He shakes his head.“She’s determined to begin this year without me—I can’t go bothering her with what I feel for her.In her opinion, we have nothing in common and it would never have worked out.”
“I’m not telling you to go and shower her with declarations of love.But until she knows how sorry you are for what you did, she won’t be able to forgive you.”
I see the cogs starting to turn in his mind and add another thought.“You have to show her.Not just with words.With actions.If she says you’ve got nothing in common, convince her that that isn’t true.”
