by Ciara Smyth
Ruby smiled and kissed me. “We should probably go. Your dad will be wondering where you got to.”
I didn’t want to go, but I pulled my T-shirt over my head anyway and I watched Ruby put hers on too. There was something more intimate about seeing her putting her clothes on than taking them off. For a second, I saw us in our imaginary flat in our imaginary future again. Waking up beside her and getting dressed before going downstairs. It was the kind of moment you only shared with one person and most people probably didn’t think about it much at all.
When I drove Ruby back to Oliver’s, the car only stalled four times. I parked in the driveway and we kissed until the sensor light turned off. Then we agreed it was definitely time for me to go home before Dad started calling to see if I’d been in some kind of serious accident.
“Hey, so why are your mum’s files at your house?” Ruby said as she twisted in her seat to retrieve the purse she’d tossed in the back. She sounded deliberately casual, as if she was always interested in mundane details about filing.
“Got stuck down the back of the desk, that’s all,” I said. But all my sleepy happiness vanished, like it was sucked out, leaving me cold.
“Why did your dad say your mum would be mad?”
“Because they’re private.” I wouldn’t look at her. I made a production of checking my mirrors instead. My chest tightened.
“No, I mean he said your mum would go ballistic instead of will go ballistic. And you asked if she helped people. Like it was past tense. But she isn’t . . .”
“Dead?” I finished coldly, trying to cover for the nauseating sense that the thing I’d been trying to stay one step ahead of was about to reach out and grab me. “You’d be being pretty insensitive if she was. Why were you listening to our conversation anyway? And memorizing the exact phrasing to catch me out like you’re bloody Jessica Fletcher or something.”
I crossed my arms in front of my chest. I wished she’d just get out of the car. Why was she ruining everything? She kept doing this.
Ruby huffed and threw her hands up.
“Get over yourself,” she snapped. “No one’s listening to your secret conversations. I didn’t mean to overhear.”
“Get over myself?” I blinked, disbelieving. I heard my voice rise. “Get over myself? What are you, twelve?”
“I’m twelve? You are so immature. It’s not interesting and mysterious to keep secrets, you know. Fine. I do know there’s something going on with your mum. I don’t get why you won’t tell me. I told you about Noah.”
My heart stopped for a second and when it started beating it did so at double time. Bubbling anger churned in my stomach and my head was loud with buzzing.
“How do you know there’s something going on with my mum?” I asked through gritted teeth.
I suddenly remembered the dinner, Beth and Ruby arriving together. Had they spoken about it on the doorstep? Had she known all this time?
“It’s obvious.” Ruby said it as though I was stupid for not realizing. “You never talk about her and I knew you were lying when you said I could meet her, so I asked Oliver—”
Oliver.
After our talk about how it was my business and ethics and everything, he’d told anyway. I felt betrayed by both of them.
“You went behind my back?”
“I wanted to ask you.” She pointed her finger at me, her face contorted. “But God forbid we have a serious conversation about anything to do with you.”
“So instead of respecting my privacy, you found a way around it? Nice.” I spat the words out.
Ruby paused and then she sighed. It was the second when I gained the advantage. Later I’d wonder why our fight was a game I was trying to win.
“OK, you’re right.” She took a deep breath, then took my hand. “That was crappy. But I don’t get what the big secret is.”
I snatched my hand away. “It’s not a secret! I just don’t want to talk about it with you.”
Ruby looked like I’d slapped her. A point for me.
“Because I’m just some girl you want to have a little fun with over the summer and then forget,” she said quietly.
I shrugged. “What do you want me to say? You knew that going in.” A body blow.
“You don’t mean that,” she whispered. “But it is totally fucked up that you’d pretend you do.”
“How do you know what I mean? You don’t know me,” I shouted, and she recoiled. “That was the whole fucking point.” My voice cracked and I felt furious tears falling down my cheeks. And then I couldn’t stop. I cried until I couldn’t get enough breath.
“Saoirse, take a deep breath,” Ruby said firmly. “In through your nose. One, two, three, out through your mouth. Come on.”
I did what she said. She counted breaths out to me until I was able to do it for myself. I saw her hand twitch and I knew she wanted to reach out and stroke my back or my arm, some comforting gesture, but she was afraid I’d push it away again. I wanted to tell her I wouldn’t, but the words got stuck in my throat.
“I’m sorry,” I said, wiping tears away, “I didn’t mean that. But that wasn’t what this was about. We were supposed to be having fun. I don’t want to come and cry to you about my mother having dementia. I wanted to have a good time with one person who doesn’t feel sorry for me.”
“Dementia?” Ruby said, her mouth falling open slightly.
“Oliver told you that,” I said.
“No, he didn’t. I asked him, but he told me I should talk to you. But why didn’t you tell me? It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
I closed my eyes. Even though it wasn’t a secret I felt somehow that I’d lost by telling her. Oliver’s integrity was something I’d have to think about later. I swallowed the hard lump in my throat. She knew now and it was my fault. But really, how else could this argument have ended?
“I’m not ashamed,” I said. “But I don’t want to talk to you about how my mother lives in an old people’s home and she doesn’t know who I am.”
Ruby’s eyes were wide and sad and she bit her lip.
“I don’t want to talk about how it was my fault she’s in the home to begin with because I wasn’t able to keep track of her and she got hurt.”
She opened her mouth to speak and I kept talking so I didn’t have to hear her say the words that everyone said. It’s not your fault. Because lies didn’t make me feel better.
“And I definitely don’t want to tell you about how it’s only going to get worse. How someday soon she’ll forget how to eat or clean herself and she’ll have to wear a diaper and be bathed by nurses even though she’s only fifty-five.”
I couldn’t look at Ruby anymore because truthfully I was ashamed of those things, whether it was the right thing to feel or not, and I knew she’d be disgusted with me if I admitted it.
She looked like she was trying to find words, but she didn’t say anything.
“Tell me you don’t feel sorry for me now,” I said bitterly, and I didn’t want to look at her. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her open her mouth and then close it. Then she started to cry silent tears.
“OK.” She sniffed and shook her head as if to clear her mind. “OK. I admit it. I feel sorry for you. Anyone would. But what is wrong with that? I care about you. Fuck the montage. I don’t care.”
“I care.” I hit the steering wheel with the heel of my hand. Stinging pain shot up my arm as the horn beeped and Ruby flinched, whether at the noise or me, I didn’t know. She felt sorry for me now; how would she react if she knew that I might end up like Mum? She could never know that.
“I told you I didn’t want something serious.” My anger flared up again. “I agreed to this montage thing because we were going to have fun.”
My head felt like it was bursting. I didn’t like it. With great effort, I shut all the anger behind a door and locked it.
I was good at that when I had to be.
“I still want that,” I said finally. “We only have four weeks l
eft. Can’t we make the most of it?” I turned in my seat to face Ruby and I took her hands. “Let’s do the rest of the things on the list and forget about this. Can we keep things as they were? We can pretend this never happened.” I was ashamed of the pleading note in my voice, but I said it anyway.
Ruby looked past me, staring into space for what felt like forever.
“No,” she said eventually.
My heart fell like a stone into my stomach. I barely noticed when she pulled her hands away from mine.
“I can’t do that. I agreed to the terms, I know that. But it’s different for me now. I want it all. The good stuff and the bad stuff.” Ruby ran her fingers through her hair, tossing it to one side, and her voice quivered as she continued talking. “If you don’t want that too, then it has to end now.” Her bottom lip trembled, but her shoulders were stiff and braced and I knew she’d made up her mind.
I nodded. I was numb.
I told her that I wished it didn’t have to be this way.
She said she had to be honest with me and with herself.
The words sounded like a script. I let them wash over me.
She opened the car door. I looked at her. There was one last plea not to do this in my eyes and she hesitated. For a second, I thought she might change her mind. But then she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and smiled sadly.
“See, the thing about the falling in love montage,” she said, her voice hoarse, “is that when it’s over, the characters have fallen in love.”
28.
Dad and Beth were cuddled up on the sofa when I finally arrived at the flat. They were watching some American late-night talk show. The boxes were everywhere. I was really sick of seeing boxes everywhere.
“I was just about to call the police, missy,” Dad said.
I grunted and went into the kitchen for some water. There were no glasses. The glasses were in a bloody box somewhere.
“For the love of God, did you unpack anything?” I snapped. I got grim satisfaction from their bemused expressions.
“I’ll have you know I unpacked your duvet and pillows and put sheets on your new bed while you were off gallivanting so you didn’t have to do it when you came home.”
“Class, well, I’m going to bed then. And turn the TV down, would you? The walls are paper thin in this shithole.”
I stomped down the hall like a stroppy teenager, which I was allowed to do because I was a stroppy teenager. I had a year and a bit of legitimate stropping left and I was going to wring out every last drop.
Dad stared after me, but I knew he wouldn’t say anything. I dove under the duvet without changing. Except for wriggling out of my bra because I am not a masochist. That would have been a bitch to sleep in. I wanted to fall asleep. I was exhausted. Moving house and breaking up in one day really takes it out of you.
My brain did not cooperate.
Instead, it decided to replay the argument over and over again until details started to blur. I couldn’t quite remember exactly what Ruby said and what things I really said versus what I wished I’d said.
I wondered if that was a sign that my memory was already going.
The next morning the sun beat down on me and I woke up sweaty and unrested. There were no curtains or blinds yet and I lay uncomfortably for a few minutes until the smell from my own armpits insisted I shower. At some point around the fourteenth rehash of the argument and the millionth time I considered texting Ruby, I decided I was not going to fall apart. This wasn’t like with Hannah. There was no investment. We were only having fun. It did not hurt. I was not going to be a pathetic mess. I remembered pathetic-mess Saoirse. She was the reason I didn’t do relationships to begin with.
After Hannah, I cried in bed. I cried in the toilets at school. I cried at the dinner table and on the walk home from school. I sent texts to her that made my cringe glands almost explode, things like I still love you, What can I do to fix this, and Did you ever love me? At first, she would answer immediately with some guff about wanting to be friends, and then it took longer and longer and I began to imagine what she was doing in the time it took her to reply. I stalked her Instagram and Facebook. For a while I tried to be her friend and show her that she could still love me. I’d end up saying something needy or bring up in-jokes from our relationship to try to remind her of how good we were together. She would smile sadly and change the subject. I cried to Izzy over and over, and bored her to tears, asking questions like Did she say anything about me? Do you think we’ll get back together? Is she seeing someone else? All before I found out she’d known all along that Hannah was planning to break up with me, of course. That’s when I cut them both off. I only wished I’d done it immediately and spared myself the humiliation.
That girl broke me, and I wasn’t going to go through it again.
What if I did get the dementia and my stupid brain decided to pick this year to be stuck in, the way Mum thought she was young? If I moped around about Ruby I could be stuck in post-breakup depression forever.
Had the montage experiment worked out? Not exactly. We technically had four weeks left but what did it matter? We’d have broken up then anyway. I had more time to prepare for whatever was coming next. I wasn’t going to dwell on the past. Even if the past was yesterday.
I let the shower wash off the night before and thought through the upcoming weeks. Exam results, the wedding . . . and whatever came after that. I was keenly aware I still hadn’t mentioned to Dad that I wasn’t totally on board with Oxford. Every time he brought it up I reminded him I might not be going, but I knew he thought I was being cautious about my grades. There’d be a party too, of course, on results night. I could get drunk and kiss girls. It would probably be at Oliver’s, though, and maybe I shouldn’t show up there. I didn’t want to look like I was following Ruby around. Although if I didn’t go I was purposefully avoiding her and that would look like I was not totally over it.
I know what you’re thinking. Why do you care so much what other people think, Saoirse? But at the time it did not occur to me that I was only considering what it looked like and not what my actual feelings were. At the time they seemed like the same thing. Like if Ruby thought I was over it, then I would be. Appearances were reality. And what did people who were definitely not depressed about their ex-not-girlfriend do? They got on with life, and I would too.
In the kitchen, I clicked Beth’s fancy espresso machine on. I was wrecked from a bad night’s sleep, but I was going to visit Mum the same as I did every day. I’d missed her yesterday for the first time in a long time because of Ruby so I wouldn’t do it again. After Mum? Well, that was a problem for future Saoirse. One step at a time.
I found glasses and mugs in the cupboard. Beth and Dad must have stayed up late and put away some of the kitchen things. I felt a pang of guilt for snapping at them, but it wasn’t a feeling I was comfortable with so I ignored it. I didn’t actually drink coffee so I don’t know what I was expecting but it tasted terrible and I ended up downing an espresso like a tequila shot as Beth padded into the kitchen in an ugly nightie and fluffy socks. It was weird seeing her in the morning. I didn’t know how to feel. It was like I thought I should feel mad at her or mad at Dad maybe, but the feeling wouldn’t come. Maybe that was the exhaustion, though.
“You’re up early,” she yawned, filling the kettle.
“Didn’t sleep well,” I said.
“Oh yeah,” Beth said like she had forgotten something in her sleep haze. “I wanted to go and talk to you, but your dad said it was better to leave you alone. Did something happen? Did you and Ruby fight? You were gone a long time.”
Dad had said to leave me alone. Classic. If I don’t ask you how you feel I can pretend everything is fine.
“We broke up,” I said brightly. “But it’s fine. It was for the best.”
“Really? That’s sad, Saoirse, you two seemed really sweet together. What happened?”
“We weren’t serious,” I said. “Nothing happened. It
ran its course.”
Beth’s head started to tilt, her eyes softening.
“Don’t look at me like that, Beth. Seriously, I’m fine. It’s not a big deal.”
“If you say so,” she said, eyeing me as though I might break down.
“I do.”
“OK, say no more.” She shrugged, but I had the feeling she wasn’t really going to let it go. “Do you want a cup of tea?” she asked, pulling mugs out of the cupboard.
“No. I’m going to go to see . . . Mum.” I stumbled over the word mum, like mentioning her might offend Beth somehow, but she didn’t notice.
“Do you have plans after that?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Great. Want to come look for a bridesmaid dress? It’s getting so close and we haven’t even looked yet.” She rubbed her right temple, strain showing on her face. “I know you’ve been busy so I didn’t want to bother you, but I’ve seen a couple of things. You need to try them on, of course.”
“What do you mean bridesmaid dress?”
Beth’s face fell. “Your dad said he asked you.”
“Er, no,” I said. I tried to work out quickly how I felt about being a bridesmaid. I wasn’t thrilled exactly, but I didn’t feel the intense revulsion I thought I would. Exhaustion again? “Did he actually say I said yes?”
“Yes, he did,” she said emphatically. “He specifically said you said you’d love to do it. If you don’t want to . . .” She trailed off, looking like a wounded puppy.
“No,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. Patience. “Of course I will. Don’t ever trust Dad to do things, though. He’s kind of a tell-you-what-you-want-to-hear person.”
Beth grimaced. “Noted. I’ll deal with him later—but listen, I saw this amazing lavender number in Debenhams that I think would look brilliant on you.”