Page 103 of Save Us
“Want to talk about it?” he asks quietly.
I shake my head. “No, but I can’t go home yet either.”
Even as I finish the sentence, Wren steps aside. “Come in.”
I walk into the house and follow him up to his room.
Every time I come up here, it gets a bit less weird. Wren’s house was like a home away from home to me—I wonder if this place will start to feel like that.
“Have a seat,” says Wren, pointing to his bed. He goes over to his desk and sits down on the chair. My eye rests on his computer screen. I’m very familiar with the swirling header of that website, as well as the image on the right of the page. Hastily, Wren slams the laptop shut, but it’s too late—I’d have recognized Ember’s blog anywhere.
“Wren?” I ask as I sit down.
He turns to me.
“Yes?”
I look straight at him. “Ember’s become like a sister to me lately. If you hurt her, I’ll hurt you. Got that?”
One corner of Wren’s mouth twitches slightly, but the look in his eyes stays serious. “Got it. Not that I’m planning on it, just so you know.”
I look down at my hands and focus on the folds of my skin. “Sometimes, you have no choice. Sometimes other people make you hurt someone, even when that’s the last thing you want to do.”
Then there’s silence between us. I clench my fists and relax them again. My thoughts go to Ruby and Dad and then to Mum. I’m asking myself what she’d do if she were still alive. Would she understand that I can’t deal with the company? Would she let Dad threaten Ruby’s family? I don’t think so. But the problem is, she’s not here anymore to hold him back—and I feel more useless than ever.
Wren snaps me out of it by sitting down beside me. He holdsout a generous glass of whisky—one of the tumblers we gave him for his housewarming. I take it gratefully and swirl the brown liquid around inside it.
“Whatever your dad’s up to, you’ve got this. We’ve got this.”
I cling to his words as I clink my glass against his.
Ember
I don’t know how much time has passed when I finally let go of Ruby and we walk back into the house. She dodges our parents’ questions and just mumbles that she’s too tired to talk and wants to go to bed. Then she goes up to her room and drops down onto her bed without a word. She didn’t shut the door, so I take that as an invitation to follow her.
As I sit down beside her, she sits up, leans her back against her headboard, and looks at me. I look back at her and wait to see if she’ll break the silence. She really hurt me by the way she acted at Lydia’s aunt’s house, and while I don’t want to leave her on her own right now, I can’t forget that.
“I’m sorry for freaking out like that,” she begins. Her eyes are still red, and her voice catches, but she stopped crying some time ago. “Seeing you together like that was just the last thing I was expecting. Since when don’t we tell each other stuff like that, Ember?”
I take a deep breath. “I wanted to work out what was going on between me and Wren first, before I told anyone else. And I knew exactly how you’d react.”
“Did I really make you feel like you couldn’t trust me? I just wanted the best for you. That’s all.”
“I know,” I answer quietly.
“I’m sorry for being so patronizing. I…” Her shoulders shake. “I want to know what you get up to in your spare time. And I want us to be able to tell each other everything. Like the old days.”
Her words make a lump form in my throat. “I’d like that too.”
“I definitely don’t want to be the kind of big sister you can’t talk to, and where you’re just worried that she’ll judge you.” She hesitates. “It’s just…Wren and I have history that really…I don’t know what kind of person he is now, but back then I hated him and the way he acted.”
“I get that,” I say. “I hate it too.”
“But you got in his car just now.”
I’m trying to find the right words. “We hadn’t been speaking for a couple of weeks, and only made up again today. I wanted to give him the chance to explain. And you have to know that I met him as a totally different person. He admits that he did wrong back then. Doesn’t he?”
Ruby takes a deep breath and then gives a brief nod.
