Page 20 of Save Us
Some of the notes have gone on the floor, but right now I don’t care. I hug Ruby back, as best as I can.
“I don’t want to give up on Maxton Hall,” she says, her voice muffled by my blazer.
“I know,” I reply.
She snuggles closer to me, and I hold her as tight as I can.
“Hi, James,” a voice behind us says suddenly. Letting go of Ruby is the last thing I want to do, but Ember’s mocking tone leaves me no choice. I turn around. Ruby’s sister and mother are standing in the doorway. I leap up off the sofa.
“Hello, Helen,” I say, straightening my blazer. “Hi, Ember.”
There’s a moment of awkward silence, after which Helen takes a few steps toward me. For a second, I’m scared that she’s going to give me a slap, and I’m bracing myself, gritting my teeth. But then, Ruby’s mother surprises me.
She takes me in her arms.
For a moment, I really don’t know what’s happening to me.
Helen Bell ishuggingme.
“I was so sorry to hear about your family situation, James,” she says quietly.
Her words take my breath away.
She leans back, but her hands are still gripping my upperarms. My body is as stiff as a board. I can’t move, can’t speak. I remember the last time my mum hugged me. It was my last birthday, at breakfast. She came to Lydia first, arms outstretched, and then me.
“If there’s anything we can do for you or your sister, don’t hesitate to say so,” Helen continues as I push down the memory of Mum.
I was expecting to be yelled at. I was expecting rejection and hate. To have the door slammed in my face. And now, Ruby’s mum is hugging me and offering her help. Even though it’s my fault that Ruby got suspended.
I gulp with an effort. Right now, I have no idea what’s going on. All I know is that it’s really hard to meet her eyes and not show how deeply her words have affected me. Maybe gentleness is Helen’s personal weapon of choice.
“James has been taking notes at school for me, so that I don’t miss anything,” Ruby says after a while, freeing me from my trance. If she hadn’t said anything, I probably wouldn’t have been able to move and would have had to spend the rest of the day standing in the Bells’ sitting room like a pillar of salt.
It’s only when Helen joins Ruby on the sofa that I can breathe again. It takes me a moment to get myself together and go back to where Ruby and Ember are picking up the papers from the floor.
Ember studies one sheet intently, then holds it so that Ruby can see. “They look like you did them yourself,” she says, almost amused.
Ruby gives me a little smile, which shoots through me like an arrow. “Yeah, they do, don’t they?”
I sit down again. My heart is still thumping like crazy, but being close to Ruby is gradually settling my nerves.
“Ember, I could do with a hand in the kitchen,” Helen says.
Ember rolls her eyes exaggeratedly but follows her mum without a word.
Then Ruby and I are alone again.
I turn in the direction where they just went.
“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” Ruby remarks with a smile.
“Your mum is…” I don’t know how to describe what just happened. I shake my head and lean back on the sofa.
“I hope you don’t mind me having told them.”
“Of course not,” I reply. “Your parents need to know the truth.”
She breathes a sigh of relief. “I wasn’t sure if you’d see it that way.”
