for you,’ Ellie called up the stairs to Ruby. As Ellie was on her way out and left it wide open, it gave Ruby no choice but to haul herself out of bed, pull on a sarong and answer it.
‘Is everything okay?’
She looked at him.
‘Only I wondered …’
She blinked.
‘I heard you were sick. I bumped into Tilly. Is everything okay?’ Cort checked.
‘You tell me?’
‘I’m here to find out about you. Ruby, you know you have to do these nights.’
‘I don’t have to do anything.’
‘I know you’re having a difficult time. I know this week—’
‘How’s your week been, Cort?’ she interrupted.
‘I thought it was going well.’
‘How’s your month been? Anything happen that you might want to talk about?’
And then he got it—she knew.
She wanted to hop she was so angry. She wanted to shake him as she gave him every opportunity to explain things, to tell her, but he just stood there.
‘You bang on about support, about backing each other, helping each other through … being open.’
‘How do you know?’ Cort said, because to him it mattered. ‘Adam?’
‘Adam?’ Ruby’s voice was incredulous. ‘Of course it wasn’t Adam. Adam doesn’t talk about things that matter. I can see now why the two of you are friends.’
‘Then how do you know?’
‘It doesn’t matter how I know,’ Ruby said. ‘Actually, it does. Do you not think it should have been you who told me? Do you not think …?’ She was close to crying, just disgusted with herself and angry with him. ‘Six weeks?’ Ruby croaked. ‘She’s been dead six weeks.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘I’ll never understand.’ She wouldn’t. ‘If it had been just that night …’ Ruby said. ‘But you came back, you took me out, we sat in the car …’ She jabbed her finger at the pavement behind. ‘And you took me to your home and you still didn’t tell me.’
‘I don’t talk about it with anyone,’ Cort said. ‘She suffered a brain injury, and for years she was in a home …’
‘So you were embarrassed by her?’ Ruby said. Sometimes she said things; the thoughts in her head popped out and this was one of those times.
That he didn’t deny it really did make her want to cry. ‘Maybe you’re right, maybe there is no point talking about it. As you said, we can never work.’
‘We might.’
‘No.’ Ruby shook her head. ‘We’re at different stages.’ There was so much against them. ‘You’re too closed off.’
‘That’s rich, coming from you.’ He looked at her and did the most bizarre thing—stood on her doorstep in his suit, threw his arms in the air and did a brief dance that looked a lot like the one Ruby had done the night of the party. ‘The life and soul …’ Cort said. ‘Happy Ruby …’ He turned away. ‘You’re the one closed off, Ruby, you can’t even tell your best friends how you’re really feeling.’ He walked down to the gate. ‘You do your happy-clappy dance rather than admit your true feelings. You just avoid everything—like you’re avoiding tonight, like you’re refusing to listen about Beth …’
‘You want true feelings …’ She could not stand that she had a name, that Beth was real and he hadn’t told her. ‘You’re too boring for me, Cort, too old and too staid …’ She pushed him away with words, because he was getting too close, not physically, just too close to the real her, and she didn’t want anyone to see that.
‘Well, at least I see things through,’ Cort said. ‘Just don’t blame me for not showing up.’ He tossed the comment over his shoulder. ‘To anything.’
IT WAS a row. Her first row in more than a decade. It was the one thing she tried to avoid and there was no one home so she fled to her room because that was what she did, Ruby realised.
Avoid ed.
Hid like a wounded cat and licked her wounds till she was ready to come out.
Except she didn’t want to come out to the wreckage she was surely creating.
To repeating A and E or to have thrown it in.
But how could she go back there now, after the way she had spoken to Cort?
He wasn’t or ever had been boring.
‘Men!’ Ellie stood at the door, already back from her date. Clearly the latest love of her life had been relegated to history, but unlike Ruby she wasn’t curled up on the bed because Ellie just moved on, determined to find the true love of her life.
Ruby had just lost it.
‘What happened with Cort?’
‘I said the most awful things …’ She told her friend some but not all of them.
‘It’s called a row,’ Ellie said, but it was far more than that.
‘I found out …’ But she couldn’t tell her, couldn’t reveal the part of Cort that he clearly didn’t want anyone to know, and round and round things went in her head, even after Ellie had gone to bed. When Jess came home, she tried talking to her too, but it was hard when she couldn’t tell her Cort’s truth.
‘I’m going to ring Adam.’ Giddy from way too little sleep, Ruby stood up.
Jess, of course, should have suggested she check the time difference, but Jess had an agenda of her own and gave a nod of encouragement, even went and got her the phone. Ruby dialled her brother’s number but, of course, got a recorded message.
‘You didn’t leave a message.’
‘What’s the point?’ Ruby said. ‘Adam won’t tell me anything. I’m going to bed.’
But ten minutes later she heard the phone ring and Jess laughing and talking, and because it was the landline that had rung she knew who it was.
‘It’s Adam,’ Jess said as she knocked on her door. ‘And he’s not best pleased—it’s four a.m. in South America apparently!’
‘Thanks,’ Ruby said when Jess hovered and rather reluctantly handed the phone then dragged herself out the door.
‘Do
