Hold Me Close

by Talia Hibbert

  The stranger’s voice was raw and satisfying, threaded with something that might’ve been concern, and it soothed Ruth’s embarrassment-induced irritation beautifully.

  But then came a voice that brought it back ten-fold.

  “Don’t bother,” said Daniel Burne. “She’s slow.”

  Ruth’s head snapped up, her gaze settling on the person she hated most in the world.

  His smile was as cruel and as gorgeous as ever. For a moment, Ruth’s heart lurched. But then she looked back at the stranger, who was still crouched beside her—who was frowning—and she felt slightly consoled.

  The stranger was far more handsome than Daniel. How he must hate that.

  Biting down on the inside of her cheek, Ruth stood. She ignored the fact that the tissue in her knickers felt slightly dislodged. She ignored the fact that there must be grit and dirt on her pyjama bottoms, and even ignored the fact that she was in her pyjamas at all, with only a jacket to hide them.

  Ruth folded her arms across her chest and took a deep steadying breath, staring Daniel down. She said, “If I’m slow, what kind of man does that make you?”

  His lip curled. “Opportunistic, perhaps.”

  Direct hit, of course. She’d expected nothing less.

  Her jaw set, Ruth turned on her heel. Daniel wasn’t worth talking to, anyway. He was beneath her notice. He was a gnat. But gnats were infuriating too, when you couldn’t squash them.

  “Wait!” the stranger called.

  Ruth ignored him. She walked faster. She could see her car now, just a few metres away, gleaming like an oasis in the desert.

  Then she heard the heavy footsteps of a man running behind her. “Miss!” he called. “You dropped your…”

  Ruth stopped. Her hands balled into fists. She spat out, “For fuck’s sake,” and her breath twisted before her like smoke in the evening air.

  The man was right behind her now. “I’m sorry,” he said. He seemed to say that a lot.

  She turned to face him. He really did look apologetic. Maybe because she’d fallen, maybe because Daniel was a prick, or maybe because he was holding out the box of tampons she’d dropped.

  At the newsagent, Mrs. Needham had asked if she wanted a bag for five pence, and Ruth had thought, Goodness me, five pence on a bag when I have two good hands? And said, “No, thank you.”

  Now she was rather wishing she had parted with the five pence.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” the man asked. “I’m sorry about… Daniel’s behaviour.” He said Daniel’s name with the sort of tone she’d use to say kitten killer. Maybe that’s what this gorgeous stranger thought: that Ruth was a kitten.

  She snatched the tampons from him, turned her back, and walked away. He’d learn the truth soon enough.

  The only question was—which truth?

  Ruth started her engine and pulled out of the car park with almost reckless speed. Still, she wasn’t fast enough to miss an intriguing tableau.

  The stranger striding away from Daniel. Daniel shouting after him.

  Ruth lowered her car window, just a touch, to catch the words.

  Daniel called, “You’re really pissed? Over a girl like her?”

  A girl like her. It was a familiar phrase, especially from Daniel’s lips.

  But there was nothing familiar about the stranger. He tossed a glare over his shoulder and called back, “Don’t worry about the lift. I’ll walk.”

  3

  The next morning, Ruth opened her curtains and scowled at the unholy brightness of 10 a.m.

  She was not made for mornings.

  But today, she’d have to cope. Ruth wanted to be out of the house when the courier came; it was easier that way. Plus, a brunch date with her sister was long overdue.

  She chanted those reasons to herself as she got dressed. Pyjamas, she knew, were frowned upon in public settings, so she wore a soft, jersey tracksuit instead.

  Whatever.

  Hannah was waiting for her at the Greengage Cafe, which held the dubious honour of being Ravenswood’s only cafe. It was also the only place, aside from the local pub, that served food before 5 p.m. Ruth couldn’t go to the pub; too crowded. Plus, she didn’t mix well with tipsy locals.

  So she shuffled into Greengage, sank into a dainty, white chair opposite Hannah, and tried to blend into the furniture. It didn’t work very well, maybe because the chair was barely wide enough to contain Ruth’s arse. Or maybe because Hannah, in her shiny lip gloss and jewel-toned knit set, was ruining Ruth’s bland effect.

  “Sit up straight,” Hannah said. The please was silent. She snapped her menu shut and caught the eye of a passing waitress with ease. “What will you drink?”

  “Water,” Ruth mumbled. Why Hannah asked every time, she had no idea.

  “And what will you eat?”

  Ruth rolled her eyes. “You know what I’ll eat.”

  “I wouldn’t dare to assume.”

  “Don’t be an arse.”

  As the waitress neared, Hannah’s exasperation melted into a beatific smile. “Good morning, Annabel.”

  The teenager didn’t smile back. Her tone robotic, she said, “Drinks?”

  “We’re ready to order, thank you.” Hannah’s light, pleasant voice never faltered, and her smile never wavered.

  Ruth didn’t know how she did it.

  “We’ll have a strawberry lemonade, an orange juice, and water for the table. I’ll have the…” Hannah studied her menu as if she hadn’t already chosen. She was always conscious of seeming too perfect. She knew it intimidated people. “The eggs Benedict,” she said finally. “Ruth?”

  Sigh. Clearing her throat, Ruth said, “Ham and cheese omelette. Brown toast, no butter. Thanks.”

  The waitress, Annabel, didn’t even look in Ruth’s direction. She shut her notepad with a little slap and snatched the menus from the table.

  “Well,” Hannah murmured. “You fixed that girl’s bike, once. Do you remember?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “About five years ago. Her father wouldn’t take it down to Mack’s, so you fixed it for her.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “She had braces. She thought you were God on earth.”

  “You blaspheme too much. Mum would slap you.”

  “If Mum hasn’t slapped either of us yet, she never will.” Hannah winked one perfectly made-up eye.

  Ruth laughed. That was her sister’s superpower; she could always make Ruth laugh.

  Sometimes, being with Hannah was as easy as ever. Sometimes, being with Hannah was like tiptoeing through a landmine of Ruth’s own guilt and self-loathing.

  When it was like that, things only got worse and worse. Hannah would be upset at Ruth’s cold silence, and try to hide it, and Ruth would want to say, “It’s not you or anything you’ve done, it’s me and this fucked-up tongue that won’t obey and this fractured mind that won’t think and the guilt I thought I’d gotten over lurking like a shark beneath dark waters. Can you forgive me for making you pretend? Can you forgive me for being yet another reason you pull up that false smile? I am an ungrateful sister.”

  Today was not one of those days. Nothing dramatic occurred. Hannah wasn’t too annoyed when Ruth refused to drink the juice she hadn’t asked for. Ruth managed not to drop anything or spill anything, or otherwise command the kind of attention that made her want to jump into a grave. Things were easy.

  Until they weren’t.

  Cameron Wright and Will Hardy wandered into Greengage with raucous grins and boisterous words. They had been inseparable as children, and adulthood hadn’t changed that. They’d also been nasty little shits, and adulthood hadn’t changed that either.

  Ruth wondered if they’d ever been more than a metre apart since infancy; she rather thought not. And yet, they always shouted to each other as though they were miles away.

  Until they set eyes on Ruth. They were silent enough then. For a moment.

  “Well, we
ll!” Cameron grinned. His smile was too wide for his narrow face, so he looked like a cartoon character, mouth pasted over hollow cheeks. He sauntered over to Ruth and Hannah’s table, flattening his palm against the varnished wood. He leaned over Ruth and said, “Look what we have here.”

  “Gentlemen,” Hannah murmured. “My sister and I are waiting for the cheque.”

  “Gentlemen,” Will mocked, making his voice high and tight. He came to stand beside Cameron, folding his arms and thrusting his hips forward. “Hello, Hannah. How’s your stick?”

  Hannah released the sort of exhausted sigh she typically reserved for misbehaving toddlers and did not answer.

  Ruth stared dully at a crumb on her plate and tried to unlock her latent mutant powers. She knew she had some. They should come out under moments of extreme stress. Surely, if she could teleport or, say, tear a man’s head from his body, that ability would make itself known now?

  “You know,” Will continued, smirking over at Hannah. “Your stick.”

  “Yes,” Hannah drawled. “The stick up my arse. Don’t worry, Will; I understand the joke.”

  The two men guffawed together, as if they hadn’t told that ‘joke’ a thousand times over the last ten years at least.

  Then Cameron turned his attention back to Ruth. His eyes roamed the front of her oversized hoodie until they settled on the place where he judged her breasts to be. Leering at a body he couldn’t see, Cameron said softly, “When you gonna give me a ride, babe?”

  Ruth looked up at him, her face blank, her eyes dead. “You know the rules. I only fuck guys with money.”

  Under the table, Hannah kicked her in the shin. Ruth ignored it.

  Cameron straightened, his too-wide smile impossibly wider. “I’ve got money,” he said, making sure his voice carried.

  “So have I,” Will said, more quietly. Because he was married.

  Neither of them saw the manager coming over to their table, but they jumped slightly as the big man cleared his throat.

  Walt Greengage put his big hands on his skinny hips and gave all four of them—Ruth, Hannah, Cameron, Will—a hard look. Then he said, “You ladies paid your bill?”

  Ruth sighed. She reached into the deep pocket of her tracksuit bottoms and found a couple of twenty-pound notes. The bill was £23.65. She threw both notes onto the table and stood, unable to even look at Hannah. “We’re going.”

  She and Ruth left the café in silence and stalked through the town centre in the same state. Only when they were far, far from Greengage did Hannah speak.

  “Why do you let them do that?”

  Ruth turned to face her sister. They were standing in the shadow of the town’s yarn shop, on a side street that not many frequented. Hannah would choose this for a confrontation, if she was too angry to wait for a completely private space.

  “Are you blaming me for that?” Ruth asked.

  Hannah’s dark eyes flashed. Her sensible shoes tapped against the gravel street, heel to toe, one after another. This meant that Hannah was furious and holding it back.

  “You know I’m not blaming you,” Hannah said tightly. “But I do wish you would stand up for yourself instead of… instead of goading them!”

  Ruth shrugged. “Why?”

  “Self-respect, that’s why!”

  “I respect myself just fine.” Ruth started walking again, slower than before, since standing still was difficult when her mind was busy. It felt like clinging to a hot air balloon’s tether, trying to hold it down with nothing but her bodyweight. It was far more sensible to let the balloon fly.

  Hannah followed, her heels clicking sharply against the pavement. “You think I don’t know that you’re punishing yourself?”

  Guilt plunged into Ruth’s chest, a sharp, barbed arrow. “Someone has to.”

  “Someone has. So you can stop.”

  “I don’t want to worry you, Han. That’s not what I want.”

  “I almost wish I hadn’t noticed,” Hannah said, her voice suddenly soft. “I almost wish I’d stayed distant.”

  That was what they called it. Distant. Words like depressed were for girls with English mothers.

  “Don’t say that.” Ruth realised that she was rubbing her own hands—wringing them, people said—and made herself stop, even though the action was calming. “I don’t understand why we can’t just leave,” she burst out.

  “Because this is our town,” Hannah snapped back. “Your town. Just as much as it is theirs. It’s our home, and we’re not leaving it behind!”

  “I don’t see why not,” Ruth muttered grimly. “It wouldn’t be the first worthless thing I’ve thrown away.”

  Mum was always telling her to be more observant, but Ruth’s senses and mind didn’t connect like that. When she wandered out of the stairwell toward her flat, she was too deep in thought to look around, or listen, or anything like that.

  So she didn’t notice the courier on her doorstep until she’d almost walked right into him.

  Ruth realised, with a sinking heart, that it was far too late to turn and run. After jerking out of her way, the poor man offered her a customer service smile.

  “Ruth Ka… I’m sorry.” He winced apologetically. “I’m not sure how to pronounce this.”

  “Kabbah,” she said, pulling out her keys. “I was hoping I’d miss you.”

  The man blinked uncertainly.

  “I even subjected myself to human company. What a waste. Best laid plans, and all that.” She opened the front door and turned to look at him. “What is it? Do you know?”

  “Um…” He looked down at the slim package in his hand. “I don’t, I’m afraid. But if you’d just sign for it—”

  “Must I?” Ruth asked. She’d never asked that before. It had never occurred to her that she might refuse. But the morning’s events, and Hannah’s reaction, had her trapped in the eye of a rage-guilt-fear hurricane, and she was suddenly and completely sick of this shit.

  “You don’t want the package?” the man asked uneasily. “I suppose you could, um, return to sender.”

  Ruth stared. “Are you serious?”

  The man shifted his weight from foot to foot. He was uncomfortable. She could see the signs. “Yes.”

  “I thought that was just a song. I thought it was some old-fashioned, American thing…”

  “You can’t do it with the Royal Mail,” he said, “but we at Diamond Services—”

  “You don’t need to give me the spiel,” she interrupted. “I don’t send things to people.”

  The man’s face fell.

  “Can I tip you?” she asked, because she was suddenly incredibly fond of this middle-aged, lanky stranger. “I have, um…” She fumbled through her pockets and found nothing but Parma Violets. “Hang on.” Without waiting for his response, Ruth stepped inside and shut the door.

  Then she thought that shutting the door might send the wrong message and opened it again. Then she thought that might send the wrong message, and wondered if she ought to invite him in.

  That would probably be weird.

  Forgetting about the door, she hurried off to the shoe box in a drawer in her bedroom. She pulled out one of her prized fifty-pound notes—she collected fifty-pound notes—and rushed back to the door, fighting the odd worry that the man might have left. Of course, he wouldn’t have left. Why would he leave?

  He hadn’t left.

  She gave him the note and said, “Return to sender. Thank you.”

  “I’m not really supposed to accept tips…”

  “Oh,” she said, and held out her hand to take it back.

  He stared at her for a moment. She realised he was doing the thing people did, where they protested, but didn’t truly mean it. She put her hand in her pocket and smiled. “Goodbye!”

  “Ah… Bye?”

  Ruth shut the door.

  Good Lord, what an exhausting morning this had been. She tore off her hoodie and the T-shirt beneath, right there in the hall. The fabric had been slowly suffocat
ing her for hours. She weaved through her stacks of comic books as she wandered back to her bedroom, peeling off more clothes as she went.

  While she changed, she heard her neighbour, Aly, moving around through the thin connecting wall. At least, she assumed it was Aly—but those heavy footsteps weren’t the ones her neighbour usually made.

  Perhaps Aly had a man. That didn’t bode well for Ruth. She’d almost certainly overhear them going at it.

  4

  Evan hadn’t planned to waste Saturday morning in bed, but somehow, that’s what had happened. After moving in last weekend and working like a dog all week, his typically efficient body had had enough.

  The series of mysterious bangs and indecipherable voices coming from the outside corridor served a double purpose. First, they woke Evan up before midday—thank God. He had shit to do. And second, they reminded him that he still hadn’t met the—suddenly quite noisy—guy next door.

  After a week of hearing loud, stamping footsteps at all hours of the night, and never meeting their owner in the corridor or stairwell, Evan had developed a mental image of his next-door neighbour. He imagined a curmudgeonly, older fellow who rarely left the house, referred to mobile phones and laptops as ‘new-fangled contraptions’, and owned a nose hair trimmer.

  So, to break the ice, Evan would make his neighbour a shepherd’s pie rather than brownies or casserole. That was one of the things his mother had drilled into him: Give people what you think they’ll want—not what you want to give them.

  He bore that in mind as he cooked, following his mother’s recipe. And within a few minutes, an idea occurred to him.

  He pulled out his phone and called Zach.

  “H’llo?” the other man’s voice was subdued and thick with sleep. If Evan was blissfully ignorant of the circumstances, he might assume that a Friday night out was responsible for Zach’s heavy rasp.

  But Evan was not blissfully ignorant. He knew what Zach was going through, far too well. He remembered his own sleepless nights, spent with the person he loved most in the world—not to enjoy her company but to watch her struggle, to try and ease her pain. To see her fade away. Because if she had to go through it, the least he could do was bear witness.