She groans and squints at me. “What do you want?”
“I think you need this.” I thrust the water and painkillers at her. “I need to talk to you.”
“Later.” She twists her head and buries it into the sofa. Several attempts at getting another response fail, so I give up.
There’s a cafe close by and I can go there undisturbed most days. Recently, anyway. A few months back, when life was a huge ball of shit and I was in the middle of it, leaving the house was hard. No longer trapped, I can walk the streets in peace and usually sit and chill at a coffee shop. Small pleasure but ones missing from life until recently. Inevitably, someone takes my picture but there’s no story to attach. A couple of hours later I head back home.
Ruby’s now curled up under her duvet on the white sofa watching old movies on TV. Her damp hair is piled on her head, accentuating her pale, drawn features and the huge black marks under her eyes. A half-empty two-litre bottle of Coke rests on the table.
“Morning, sunshine,” I say. “How are you?”
“Feel like shit. Sorry. I hope I didn’t wake you up when I got home last night.”
“Gotta love alcohol memory blanks.”Or not.“I wasn’t asleep.”
Ruby massages her temples. “I hope I wasn’t full-on Ruby with you. I was a bit aggressive with people last night.”
“Let’s not go there. I want to talk to you about Dan.”
At the mention of his name, her hand curls around the duvet and she shifts her focus onto the TV screen.
“We haven’t talked about him since you moved in. I spoke to Jax and he said Dan texted you. If you want to stay here, you need to do something about him.”
She pulls herself to her feet. “I’ll leave. I can stay with Jax.”
“There’s a reason you didn’t go there originally. I know you feel safer behind my security gates.”
Ruby moves to pass me, and I gently take her arm. “Dan is a threat to you. Go to the police. I’ll help.”
She drags her arm away. “Help? Why do you keep trying to help?”
Crap, my big mouth. What do I follow that up with? The wide-eyed girl waits for my response, and the push-pull of wanting her with me, and also wanting her somewhere I’ll never see her again, tightens a band around my head.Be professional.“Because I don’t want the lead singer of Ruby Riot ending up in the hospital when we’re about to tour!”
“That’s all?” I can’t tell from her tone whether she’s annoyed or disappointed but her dull eyes tell me she isn’t happy.
“That’s all and I don’t want anything from you in return apart from to go on stage, perform, and be awesome. This shit with Dan will interfere. Draw a line. Move on.”
“Just like that,” she mutters and sits back on the sofa.
Does Ruby know that I’m piecing together her story slowly? Or that the more jigsaw pieces that fit, the harder I need to convince myself this is business?
“Yeah, I’m putting money into you guys. My faith. Attaching my name means something.”
“Gee, thanks, Jem Jones,” she snaps.
I sit in the chair opposite. “I’m not interested in fixing your fucked up life, Ruby. Sorry.”
“I never asked you to.”
“I tried to fix someone before,” I say quietly, “and she died.” Ruby’s eyes widen. Of course, she knows the story; the whole fucking world knows the story. “So that’s why I won’t to try to fix you and why I won’t ever see you as more than Ruby. I don’t want to know about Tuesday.”
“Don’t call me that. Don’t ever call me that!” she says, tone rising.
Andthisis why I don’t want to know. “Do you understand why I won’t interfere beyond what’s best for the band?”
She nods and the tears are fighting through—Tuesdayis fighting through and I don’t want to see her. I can’t see Ruby weak.
The frail girl pulls at the edge of the duvet and I consider how many sides she has. There’s Ruby, the obnoxious girl covered in thorns, and underneath lives a broken girl, Tuesday, who has secrets I don’t want to hear.
But with me, in this house, she’s neither of those people. Instead, this girl is somebody who acknowledges she’s neither but both. This Ruby doesn’t hide, but she doesn’t attack.
Ruby’s demons moved into my house too and although our demons don’t get along, they sure as hell recognise each other.