by Lisa Swallow
“How can you know that?” she asks quietly.
“This is music. It’s a bit tricky because your E chord is yellow, that’s the colour of my C,” I tell her. “And your C Minor is orange, mine’s green. Some of our notes match though.”
Ruby lowers herself onto the glass coffee table and continues to stare. “You have synaesthesia? You see music as colours?”
I nod and concentrate on playing. “This is half-decent. Did you write this today?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you always write music like this?”
“The only way I know how, I taught myself.”
Now it’s my turn to stare. “You are kidding me?”
“No. And thanks, a compliment from you means something.”
“Sure does, I don’t deal them out much.”
The look that passes is too heavy with the unsaid, the opportunity to talk about what else we have in common. I’m not sure what Ruby sees in my eyes, but she looks away.
Ruby carefully places the lids on the remaining pens. “But, really? You have synaesthesia, too?”
“Yeah, all the best musicians do, you know. For instance… me.”
“Sure, Jem Jones.” She shakes her head. “I thought I was weird, seeing colours when I listened to music until someone told me what it was.”
“I guess that makes us both weird then.”
I can’t. She’s pushing at the edges of my world, another part of Ruby slipping through and joining me.
“I’ve never met another like me before,” she says.
“Oh, I’d say we’re unique people.”
“I doubt that’s the word most people use.”
We know the truth here, we’re unique; but so similar it threatens. If she were Dylan or Jax, I’d grab my guitar and join her in playing, write a song with her. But not Ruby, no more. The pale-faced girl came here because she needed to escape, needed my help and protection. I’m not tangling with another broken girl.
I hand Ruby the sheet and pull her guitar off me. “Cool, well, I’ll look forward to hearing the song when you’re finished.”
The thread of connection snaps, springing back and Ruby attempts to hide her disappointment that I’m not staying to chat.
“Back to hiding?” she asks.
“What do you mean?”
She points upwards at my bedroom. “In your den.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“It’s safer there.” She gathers her pens. “Nobody can touch you.”
Of course, she understands.
In my room, I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at the sun streaming through the window. The sound of Ruby’s song travels upstairs, through my open bedroom door, following me. I close my eyes and lie back on the unmade bed. Individually, the notes have the colours from her sheet; together the song has another, a rich purple that fills my mind.
Why does she have to be so much of who I am?
Chapter Thirteen
Ruby
The bass from music playing thumps through the house and into my dreams until I can’t ignore the noise any longer. My phone illuminates two-forty-five a.m., not the most thoughtful time of day for Jem to play music so bloody loud. Half an hour of shifting in bed, attempting to cover my ears with a combination of pillows and duvets, and the last remnants of sleep are gone.
Giving up, I pad along the polished wooden hallway floor into the kitchen. I pour a glass of water and rest my tired head on the counter as I consider what to do. I don’t have any right to go upstairs and tell Jem to turn his music down, but I’m working in five hours and need my sleep.
The music stops.
Did I psychically do that? I hesitate in case the music starts again; but after a few minutes, the house remains silent. Yes.
Heading out of the kitchen, I almost walk into Jem who’s coming in.
“Shit!” I say in surprise.
He’s shirtless, the curls hanging in his face unable to obscure the confused look. “Forgot you were here.” Jem pushes past.
“Obviously,” I mutter.
“What does that mean?” Jem snaps.
I turn to retort but he’s scowling at me. Edgy. Unpredictable? “Nothing. You woke me up. Night.” If I get back to bed now I can get an extra couple of hours.
“Fuck. Sorry. Ignore me.” Jem crashes around in a cupboard, swearing under this breath.
Jem Jones apologising?
“It’s okay. This is your house.”
“Yeah. Couldn’t sleep.” He grips an empty glass as if confused over what he needs to do with it. His pupils are dilated. Is he high?
“You okay?” I ask tentatively.
For a long moment, Jem stares at me unblinkingly, face pale. No, not drugs, something’s upset him. “Doesn’t matter.”
When he turns away to fill his glass, I edge away.
I’m in bed less than five minutes when a crash jerks me awake. When this is followed by several more crashes, I climb out of bed and head back into the other part of the house.
In the kitchen, Jem rests his hands on the bench, head bowed, breathing deeply. Broken glass surrounds him on the floor and blocks his path out of the room.
“Jem?”
“Do you know where my keys are?” he asks, not looking round.
“Your car keys?”
“Yeah. Can you get them?”
I chew the edge of my mouth and point at his naked feet. “How will you get out of the kitchen to leave?”
“I don’t want to get out of the kitchen,” he growls.
“Then why do you want your car keys?”
“Just fucking get them!”
“No, I fucking won’t if you swear at me.”
Jem throws his head back and stares at the ceiling continuing to swear under his breath. “Phone Bryn,” he says to the ceiling.
“Phone him yourself! I don’t have his number anyway.”
“I need to talk to someone, you stupid girl!”
I straighten; scalp prickling at his behaviour. “I doubt anyone wants to talk to you if you’re behaving like an asshole!”
He looks over his shoulder. “Get me my keys and my phone.” I arch an eyebrow and he huffs. “Please.”
“Where are they?”
“Upstairs. By my bed.”
Jem’s inner sanctum. Huh. Who’d have thought? Days of curiosity and I get to take a look.
Jem’s room is tidy, apart from the scrunched up bedclothes on the king sized bed. The main reason it’s so tidy is there’s barely anything in it. He has a guitar by the bed; one I’d love to inspect but don’t. A set of keys and a phone rest on the black bedside table so I grab them and head back downstairs.
When I get back to the kitchen, Jem is sitting on the counter and he’s arranged mugs into a line, ones he keeps shifting to make the painted patterns line up.
“Catch.”
I throw him the phone and I’m about to throw the keys when he shakes his head. “You keep them. Don’t give them to me.”
“Then why ask me to get them?”
“Because I don’t want to leave the fucking house!” He tears a hand through his hair. “Fuck! Leave me alone!”
I’m too tired for this shit and, to be honest, scared. I’ve lived with my share of unpredictable men; and at this point, I question if staying here with another was the right decision.
“Don’t worry, I will.” I stalk away and get as far as the lounge before Jem’s phone sails through the kitchen doorway and lands near me.
“Did you just throw that at me?” I yell.
“No! I can’t see you! I want you to use it.”
“What for?”
“Bryn’s not answering! I need to speak to him!”
I step back into the doorway, relieved the broken glass is between him and me. “Maybe he doesn’t want to be woken up at three o’clock in the bloody morning!”
Jem jumps down from the counter straight onto a pile of glass and I wince for him. “Shit! Fuck!” He jumps back up
and pulls a shard of glass from his foot, grabs a tea towel and presses it to the wound.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“This isn’t a normal reaction to insomnia. What’s with the attitude and the glass?”
“If I leave this house, I won’t stay sober. So take my keys and fucking leave me alone, if you won’t phone Bryn.”
I drop my shoulders; suddenly aware I’m in the room with an ex-addict who needs help. “What happened?” I ask gently.
Jem shakes his fringe from his face. “This is nothing to do with you. Just throw my phone back and go away.” The hostility has dropped from his voice, replaced by a tired defeat.
What do I do? Should I try to call Bryn, too? Do I wait with Jem and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid?
I sit on the floor and cross my legs.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Talk to me. And if you don’t, I’ll sit here anyway.” Jem’s eyes narrow until they all but disappear beneath his heavy brow. “You helped me the other night. I want to help you.”
The response is a short bark of a laugh from Jem. “Right.”
“Your foot is bleeding through the tea towel.” I point at the seeping blood on the beige cloth.
“Don’t care.”
“Doesn’t it hurt?”
Jem inhales. “Yeah. Everything fucking hurts.”
“What’s wrong, Jem? There’s at least three broken glasses on the floor here. Did you need me to call someone; do you have a counsellor or something?”
“He’s no use. I want to speak to Bryn.”
“We’ll keep trying him; he’ll answer eventually.”
“We?”
“I’m staying here until I’m sure you won’t walk across broken glass to attack me for your car keys, then disappear somewhere to get high.” I cross my arms over my chest in what I hope looks like determination and not an attempt to hide the shaking in my hands.
“Fine.”
Silence descends, apart from Jem’s tapping on the counter and the slow movement of an occasional car outside. I pull my knees into my chest and rest my head on them, listening to the blood whooshing through my ears.
“How long are you going to sit there?” he asks.
“Until we get in touch with Bryn.”
“Why?” asks Jem.
I want to say because I see your pain as readily as I feel it; because I know he needs someone here even if he wants to be alone. Jem shouldn’t live on his own and whatever’s triggered this need to get out of the house and relapse, it must be significant.
“Because I’m worried about the manager of Ruby Riot,” I reply. “I don’t want to go back to square one and look for another.”
Jem meets my eyes and the understanding passes. His mouth curls into a half-smile but he doesn’t respond.
If the broken glass didn’t cover the kitchen tiles between us, I’d go to Jem, pull him back to reality, and tell him I understand. We’re connected, existing on the fringes of the world. Two shattered people with broken glass surrounding us; we’re unable to step out, or risk hurting somebody else by allowing them in.
“I’m fucked, Ruby,” he says hoarsely. “Totally fucked.”
“No, you’re not. You’re here and sober, not wasted and on your own somewhere.”
“The dreams…” He says through gritted teeth. “They don’t fucking stop!”
“What dreams? Is that why you’re awake now?”
“Just dreams, Ruby. Just dreams.” He shakes his hair away again and leans down to retrieve his boots. I want to push him, ask more, and help the guy because he helped me.
“Jem, if you…” I’m interrupted by a sharp ringtone, the sound shocking me in the quiet of the house. “Bryn.” I say as I look at the caller ID.
Jem holds his hand out and I throw the phone across the small space. His gruff responses to Bryn are accompanied by shifty-eyed looks to me. Unsure what to do, I stand and watch.
Jem holds the phone away from his face. “Bryn has keys. You can go. I’ll wait here for him.”
“You sure?”
“Go back to bed, Ruby.” His dismissive attitude pains me as much as the panic of the last few minutes.
The more time I spend around Jem Jones, the more aware I am that he’s a lot more complicated than the image he presents to the world.
Chapter Fourteen
Jem
The club Ruby Riot plays in tonight is a smaller venue in Camden, another I recognise from years ago. Bryn’s in town claiming he wants to see how the band is doing; check up on me, more like. This evening, Ruby left the house as soon as Bryn arrived, jumped into the waiting van the guys use when they gig, and they drove away. I arrive with Bryn an hour before they’re due on stage to find Jax and Ruby huddled together, running through the set list as they usually do. Their relationship bothers me, especially now Dan isn’t around. Whether they’re a couple or not isn’t the only thing that bothers me; it’s the fact she’s comfortable with him. Ruby’s not comfortable with me.
I’m not surprised following what she witnessed a couple of nights ago. My stomach turns over when I think about Ruby seeing me like that; but in a weird way, it equalizes us, vulnerabilities shown on both sides. Considering her history, Ruby should’ve run as far as she could from an irrational man throwing things around the house, but there was no fear in her eyes, just concern and understanding.
The incident hasn’t been mentioned since and we both behave as if it never happened.
Bryn pushes through the bar and we head toward the main hall of the old theatre. “You still haven’t explained why Ruby was there the other night. What’s going on?”
“Ruby’s living with me.”
He halts. “Define ‘living with you’, Jem. I thought we’d agreed you avoid relationships for a few months?”
“We’re living in the same house. Sharing a kitchen but not a bed. Platonic.”
Bryn chokes back a laugh. “Right. For how long?”
“I don’t intend fucking her anytime soon.”
Bryn arches an eyebrow. “I meant how long is she staying. Your response suggests you’re thinking a little too much about the non-platonic part.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I mutter. Am I that transparent?
“She’s not bringing anything into the house that can screw around with you, is she?”
“Ruby knows not to.” Bryn’s lips purse and he keeps walking. “Her ex beat the crap out of her, okay?”
“That’s even worse!” says Bryn, turning back to me. “Liv, much?”
This edges my thoughts every day, but I don’t acknowledge it. “Not ‘Liv, much’. So piss off if you haven’t got anything useful to say.”
Ruby sits on the edge of the stage drinking water between growling at the brothers. The more stressed Ruby is, the snappier she is, as I’m beginning to learn.
I can guess why.
“If Dan comes, I’ll sort it,” I tell her as I approach.
Ruby slowly screws the lid onto the bottle. “Don’t care if he does.”
“I do.” Ruby frowns at me. “I saw him threaten you when you were together; what the hell do you think he’ll be like now you’ve left him?”
“Now?” Ruby hops off the wooden stage. “I’ll tell you what Dan will be like now. He’ll be like you.”
Too stunned to reply I step back. Ruby leans closer, face impassive. “He’ll be super nice. Apologetic. He’ll offer to help me but say he doesn’t want anything in return. Like you.”
“Are you comparing me to Dan?” I ask in a low voice.
“No, I’m saying I trust people too easily. I trust you when I shouldn’t,” she replies as quietly.
“I never asked you to. All I did was give you somewhere to stay. Feel free to leave when you want.” Infuriated that she’s comparing me to Dan on the smallest level, I turn and walk away.
Ruby doesn’t realise, but I know exactly what she’s doing
because it’s a favourite trick of mine. Piss them off, push them away, and they won’t disappoint you.
Tonight is Ruby Riot’s first performance since Ruby left Dan, and there’s a new energy around her on stage. The connection between Ruby and the rest of the band is sharper. At past gigs, she was lost in her own world, part of the group but at the forefront and alone. On a couple of occasions tonight, Ruby even cracks a smile at the other band members. She and Jax joke around, Ruby interrupting his playing with hers and he sings over her in return.
Ruby Riot grips the crowd by the throat and drags them into a place that nobody in the room can escape from. This is the kind of performance people will talk about in years to come because this band is killing it.
I leave before the encore and head to the Green Room; Bryn’s already back there nursing a beer.
“You okay?” He swaps the beer for water as I walk in, and sets the bottle out of sight by the brown sofa. “You look pretty pissed off for someone whose pet project just raised the roof.”
“You can drink around me, Bryn.”
“Doesn’t feel supportive when I do.” He throws me a bottle of water and I catch it. “So, what’s up?”
I flop next to him. “Missing the guys. Watching the band tonight reminded me of the other high - the legal one that was good for me. That’s the thing I crave.”
“I get that. A few months and we’re back on tour, yeah? This isn’t over, Blue Phoenix aren’t done.”
But we’re not Ruby Riot. We don’t have the thrill of striving to make it; the high of the electric connection to the crowd you can only get in small venues. Blue Phoenix will still be a machine.
“Yeah, I guess.” I prop my feet on the plastic chair opposite.
“Ever thought of getting them into the studio?”
“Yeah, I’m arranging that.”
“Cool. You could offer to session for them.”
“No. They need to establish their own sound. I don’t want to be part of them; they make it on their own terms not because Jem Jones played on their debut.”
Bryn sits forward and peers at me from under his fringe. “You’re edgy again, man. Is Ruby Riot really doing you any good? If this starts to stress you, back off. You know what your counsellor said…”