Page 41 of Waiting for Ru
He knew better than to immediately offer a mint as a bribe. That might encourage biting because a bright horse could be trying to get the food from your hand or pocket. Lexi could be biting for some other reason. It wasn’t something that could be solved overnight, but Ru stroked his head, hugging it and handling it, giving him lots of attention. When the horse’s teeth got too close, Ru moved away. He didn’t overreact or yell, just carried on talking in his quiet voice, then stroked Lexi again.
On the fourth go, he didn’t try to bite and Ru gave him a mint. “Don’t let me down.”
After he’d said hello to all the horses, he headed towards the house. There was a large garden and there’d be somewhere to sit out of sight where he had enough light to work by. He could hear music and chatter coming from the house and the patio behind. Ru couldn’t see the house but he guessed the other polo players were still there. Maybe both teams.
Once he’d found a place to sit, a little wooden seat at the side of a hedge, he opened the maths workbook,Functional Skills Level 2,and turned to where he’d stopped. The section was to do with fractions and it wasn’t difficult. He hadn’t found any of the maths difficult, but he wasn’t sure about the jump to A level. Did he want to study maths at a higher level? He had to do Biology and Chemistry to stand a chance of being accepted at vet school. The third subject wasn’t so important, but was maths an option?
Why am I bothering?He had no experience of chemistry. He’d read a little about it, but he’d never held a test tube, never mixed chemicals. Biology was easy. The only thing that was. All that he was proving to himself with these books his mother had got him, was that he could have probably passed GCSEs in maths and English. Well, English language. He’d read lots of fiction in Ireland. His uncle had told him the books had been on the shelves when he’d bought the farm. Those books had helped on long winter nights when he was curled up in bed and smothered in blankets against the cold.
Whereas these workbooks were going to drive him insane. But once he’d done them, it would have at least proved that he could achieve something. Then maybe, he’d look at A level textbooks. Biology, chemistry and… geography?
When he could stand no more fractions, or grammar in the English book, he started to sketch Jasim reaching over Dream’s back to hit the ball, the angle such that it looked as if he were going to fall from the horse. Not all Ru’s drawings went right from the first pencil mark, but this one did. When the air turned chilly, Ru pulled on his hoodie, then lay on his side on the bench and continued to draw.
All he’d ever wanted was to be happy. When he was a small boy, he’d wanted his brother to be happy too, until he’d been told he was dead. Then Ru had amended his dream and just wanted to be happy one day, at some point in the future when he’d got over losing his family and found another of his own. If his aunt and uncle had been different, maybe he’d never have left Ireland.
Ru had come up with a list of things that would make him happy.
If he was healthy—well, he’d been lucky there, or unlucky depending on how you looked at it. A serious illness might have got him free sooner, but he’d rarely even had a cold. But staying healthy now, yes, that would make him happy.
So would having enough money so he wasn’t struggling to survive. Now he had a job, he had the chance to save.
Feeling optimistic about the future, knowing there was something to look forward to, that would also make him happy.
And the last point on the list, and maybe the most important, was to be loved and to have someone to love in return.
Ru’s experience of love was confusing. His parents said they loved him but that’s what parents were supposed to feel for their children. But they hadn’t loved Ink, so had they really loved Ru? Ink loved him and Ru loved Ink, and that was what was keeping him going, but it wasn’t enough, not the only love he needed. Ru wanted someone to love him who didn’thaveto feel that way, but just did. He wanted to be the most important person in someone’s life, he wanted to be put first and he wanted to believe that the love would last. So even if there were arguments, love would win in the end.
It had come as a bit of a shock to Ru, the idea that he might have to rely on someone else for his happiness. He’d been self-reliant for so long that he’d come to believe that happiness was something he had to make happen for himself. In part, it was. But now he knew what it was like to feel affection for another person… Not love yet. He wasn’t stupid. But he really liked Jasim. A stranger who’d done an incredibly kind thing.
Stuff was messed up though. Ru wasn’t a teenage boy with a crush—though not far off it. Jasim was a grown man. The prince part didn’t matter. Not to Ru. But Jasim was all wrong and all right at the same time. Ru didn’t know how he was supposed to feel, to act, to…be. All he knew was that being around Jasim made him feel relaxed and happy.
Yet he was still drowning and clutching at straws.Please let Jasim like me.
