47
Ruby
Life takes on a new routine—amonotonous constancy to keep my head in check: work, home, sleep. There’s a deep hole I keep tripping into when I’m not paying attention, but apart from that, I push on. What pisses me off the most is that I can’t play right now. I’m that frustrated by life even trying to hide myself in the colours of my music world won’t work. So when I get a midnight text from Jem asking to see me, after three weeks of silence, I’m angry and respond with a colourful version of that fury.
Jem doesn’t reply.
The one text is enough to tap into my brain, a searing pain forcing Jem back in. The nausea and twisted stomach, the unrelenting ache of being turned inside out at the loss of him, grips again.
This isn’t fair. After two weeks of dazed acceptance and a week of tentatively re-joining the world, my head has finally disconnected from the idea I can have what nobody can: Jem Jones’s love. I won’t let him rip off the skin I’ve grown over the raw wound he caused.
A second text wakes me at 2A.M. and when I squint at the phone, I see Jem’s name. A pang of worry over why he isn’t sleeping and his mental state pushes in momentarily, but I firmly shove it back out. Not my problem.
But as I close my eyes to go back to sleep, I can’t let the worry go. Images of Jem surrounded by broken glass, the first day I realised how shattered he was, won’t leave my head.
Swearing at my decision, I drag myself out of bed, dress, and head to my car.
November isn’t the best weather for hanging around the streets in the early hours. Luckily, I still have my key—I don’t know why I kept it. False hope? Deluded thoughts things would mend? Cautiously, I climb the stairs.
“Jem?”
For a horrible moment I think someone broke in and robbed him because the lounge room is trashed. Sure, there’s half-empty pizza boxes and food wrappers strewn around, but more than that. A table lamp lies on the floor, bulb smashed and the glass table it once stood on is upside down. The large white cushions from the sofa are halfway across the room and glass picture frames are shattered. No, if someone broke in, the expensive sound system and TV wouldn’t be here, and neither would the rare guitar that’s survived amidst the chaos.
A noise alerts me from upstairs. The crash of something heavy as if thrown, loud enough I’m convinced whatever it is will fall through the ceiling.
My heart sounds in my ears. What if this isn’t Jem? No, the front door was locked and I needed the key code for the secured gate. I creep up the polished wooden stairs and listen. Jem’s bedroom door is open. Hoping whoever this is will be too distracted to see me, I peer around the door.
Jem’s room is as big as mess as the rest of the house, drawers knocked over, clothes scattered around, even his mattress is upended. The house is unrecognisable beneath the chaos.
A figure stands in the darkened room. Jem. He faces the window, staring at the closed curtains.
“What’s happening?” I ask him quietly.
He turns. In the shadows of the room, Jem’s face is hard to make out, but he looks confused, chest rising and falling rapidly. His hand shakes as he pushes it through his hair.
“Jem?”
“Why are you here?” he asks hoarsely.
“You asked me to come.”
“Did I? Oh.”
I swallow, heart sinking. “I can go.”
“No!” He tempers his tone as I step back. “No. Don’t.”
I rest against the doorframe, the space between us a gulf filled with the unspoken. “What happened?”
“I think I broke something.” He gives a small laugh.
“This is a bit more than a broken glass in the kitchen, Jem.”
“Yeah. And I’m a bit more fucked.”
With those words, the crack in his voice, and the tired defeat, every fibre of me wants to cross the room to Jem, hold him, tell him I’m here. I’ve known Jem long enough to recognise the despair.
But he rejected me—doesn’t want me.