by Lisa Swallow
My stomach flips at Bryn’s easy acceptance that this is probably the reason. “Check up on him.”
“I’m overseas. I’ll see if Dylan or Liam is around. Someone needs to see if he’s okay if you think it’s needed.”
“He was behaving oddly, shutting down. I don’t know; it’s not as if I was around him long, but to me he seemed… wrong.”
“But this is why I’m surprised. He was different around you. I don’t get why he’d fuck up something good for him.”
“Because he’s Jem Jones?” I suggest.
“Yeah, there is that.” Bryn swears under his breath. “I’m worried because he won’t answer my calls. I told him a relationship was a mistake… He’d better not have done something stupid…”
I should’ve called Bryn as soon as we split; but I wanted to blank Jem from my mind, so I didn’t have to deal with the tears. Not that the attempt worked, fragments of Jem’s splintered life pierced mine and I’m left with painful shards trapped beneath my skin.
“I don’t think he would”
“You definitely don’t know him then. Thanks for the info.” Bryn hangs up and I stare at my phone.
Should I check on Jem? I can’t switch off my feelings the way he did to me, and Bryn’s woken the worry I have that Jem could relapse. I drag my fingers through my hair. I’m pulled in two directions. If I go to him and he refuses to see me or talk to me, the glass beneath my skin will cut deeper. If I leave this alone, and the man who was the world to me for those short months disappears back into addiction, I’ll hate myself.
No, he has others who can help. I make things worse.
****
Jem
Dylan.
Wow, I’m honoured.
He shoves his way into the house and stands in my lounge, casting his gaze around the room. The place is covered in all kinds of crap; fast food boxes, empty cups, and glasses but not what I know he’s looking for.
“Wanna sweep the house too? Should’ve just brought a sniffer dog,” I snarl.
Dylan crosses his arms. “You look like shit, Jem.”
“Nice.”
“Where’s Ruby?”
“Gone and if you’re here you know that.” I flop onto the sofa and rest my head on the cool leather. “I’m tired, man. Could’ve called before you landed on my doorstep.”
“What happened with her?”
I shrug. “Got too hard.”
“Bullshit, Jem. I saw you guys together and you were good.”
I regard him with tired eyes. He’s tanned, curls returning as his hair reaches past his ears again. Yeah, he’s looking more like the old Dylan; but his new life with Sky means he never will be.
“How’s things in your love life?” I put my bare feet on the low coffee table.
“Why the snide tone, Jem?”
“The love-struck thing you have going on. Doesn’t suit you.”
“Why? Because you want me to be unhappy like you? Throw away the right girl because of my past fuck-ups?”
“Just saying.”
Dylan pushes a pizza box out of the way and sits on the armchair. Resting his elbows on his knees, he fixes me with a look I recognise. “Tell me what’s happening. You just threw away something good. I thought you’d dropped the self-destruct act.”
“I’m not on self-destruct! See any drugs? Booze? No. I’m good.”
He sinks back and makes an exasperated sound. “Give me your phone.”
“No!”
“Just fucking do it. I want to show you something.”
“What?”
Dylan holds his hand out and beckons with his fingers. Huffing, I slam it into his hand. “Don’t read my messages.”
“Not gonna.” He swipes a finger across the screen. “Looking at your photos.”
“They’re not that interesting. Been a while since I had pictures of naked chicks on there.”
Dylan laughs. “I’m only interested in one naked chick these days. So are you.” He turns the phone to show a picture of me and Ruby on the screen, my arm around her shoulders close-up on our faces. Relaxed. Happy.
“Yeah? There’s a picture of us.”
“A few pictures, Jem.” He keeps scrolling. “Look at yourself in these pictures and see how the outside world saw you and Ruby; how good you were for each other. You were fucking happy, Jem. I hadn’t seen you so alive for years.” He tosses the phone and it lands on my lap. “So, I’m asking again, what the fuck happened?”
I scroll through my phone absentmindedly looking through the pictures I couldn’t bring myself to delete because that’d be the final removal of Ruby from my life. Dylan’s here, I should’ve called him weeks ago. I had a chance to talk to him about this in Germany, but I’m unsure he understands anymore. I lost him like I lost everybody else; pushing and pushing until I became such a pain in the ass that he gave up on me. I swallow hard and look to the concern in his eyes. If there’s one person in the world I can share this shit with, it’s Dylan.
“This happened.” I click over to my messages and throw the phone back. Dylan’s brows tug together as he reads.
“Marie? What the hell, Jem. Why screw around?”
“You too? People have such a high opinion of my morals,” I say sarcastically.
“So who’s this?” I cross my arms and wait for the penny to drop. His eyes widen. “Is this… Jem, is this your mum?”
I clap my hands slowly as Dylan carefully puts the phone on the coffee table. “Good guess.”
“You seen her?” he says in a low voice.
“Yeah, but won’t be seeing her again anytime soon.”
Dylan rubs his forehead, the concern softening the frustrated anger he had a few minutes ago. “Whoa. No wonder your head’s fucked. Does Ruby know?”
“No. Why would she?”
“Because when you’re in a relationship you kinda discuss this shit!”
“We’re not in a relationship anymore.”
“Because of this?”
“No. Leave it. You have your answer.” I stand. I can’t discuss Ruby as well as my mum; this is too fucking much.
“A clusterfuck like this, Jem? Why the hell didn’t you call me before?”
“Dealing in my own way.”
Dylan stands too. “I’m here, Jem. I understand this. You know that.”
Dylan was the first person who ever found out what was going on in my screwed up childhood. He was in a bad place too, his dad had left, and he shared my anger. Everything came out - where my mum was, her boyfriends’ treatment of me and her. The next time Mum went away, Dylan told his mum he was staying over at mine. And the next time, until Dylan was always there when she wasn’t. We’d go back to my place and get drunk; we were twelve years old.
One night Dylan picked up my guitar and I started to teach him with the aid of one of my ‘how to play guitar’ books. Our shared bond over the hurt surrounding us found its way into another outlet, the one that bonded our lives forever after. Music. We were shit when we first started playing covers of classics, three years later we began writing our own stuff.
Not long after, we discovered Liam, Bryn, and Blue Phoenix. Then we found drugs and fame; until eventually, me and Dylan frequently lost each other. He’s the only person I’ve ever let in and that’s only through a lot of shoving on his part.
“She’s dying.”
Worried he might hug me, I step back.
Dylan chews on the corner of his lip. “Shit, Jem,” he says softly.
“Pretty much.”
“And you’ve seen her?” Dylan sits again, watching me with the old concern.
“Yeah. First time since she left me.”
When it happened all those years ago, I never knew Mum had left for good, not for a while. The days following my realisation she was never coming back were numb; a week later, I fell apart, and so began the pattern for my life. Switch off and if I can’t numb myself, I use something to help me. I think I was drunk for two weeks straight. Right no
w, I’m close to stepping back there.
Dylan was there all those years ago, supporting, channelling my destructive needs into writing new songs and pushing me into music as my salvation. One person in the world knows who I am behind the Jem Jones mask, and I’ve also pushed him away when he’s got too close.
Two people, Jem. I shake the thought away.
Other shit has happened between me and Dylan, complicated crap from drug-induced mistakes; but we always come back together.
Now he has Sky.
“How long until…?” he asks.
“She dies? Not long. She’s really sick. Cancer.” My staccato answers to the questions coming will have to do. I don’t have it in me to delve back to that day at the hospice.
“When was this, Jem?”
“Four days ago.”
“When did you end things with Ruby?”
“Four days ago.”
Dylan throws his hands up. “So, rather than turn to her for support, you pushed away the person who loves you. What the fuck for?”
“She doesn’t love me! We don’t do love, Dylan. I’m not you.”
Slowly, Dylan shakes his head. “How do you feel right now?”
“We gonna talk about our feelings?” I say with a snort. “Maybe we should hold hands.”
“Fine. Shut me out too. What happened to living your life after rehab, Jem?”
“This is a hiccup. I’ll move on.”
“You don’t see your mum for fourteen years, and then you do and she’s dying? That isn’t a hiccup. You need support.” He sighs. “Come and stay with me and Sky.”
“No bloody way!”
Dylan runs a hand across his mouth. “Okay, I’m staying here. I’ll call Sky and tell her I’ll be away a few days.”
“I don’t want anyone here!”
“Have you thought about using again?” he says in a low voice.
“No!” My face betrays me; Dylan knows me too well. “It’s harder to control, yeah. Bryn was right, getting into a relationship was too much.”
“You’re a fucking idiot. Please explain to me why you pushed her away. I don’t give a shit what you say, that girl loves you, and you love her.”
Does she? How would I know? The concept is weird. I have no comparison. Spending a week waking and aching for her isn’t love; that’s not good. Ruby consuming my thoughts - how is she? What’s she doing? Unhealthy. I miss her with a despair that’s too familiar.
“She’d only hurt me,” I say eventually.
“So you decided to pre-empt it by hurting both of you? Smart move.”
“I’ll get over it.”
“Will you? ‘Cause I don’t think there’s any other Rubys out there. It’s like rewinding and watching a female version of you, Jem. That’s how close she is. And you saw that too; I know it.”
Dylan’s right. Of course, he’s fucking right. I pushed her away because I worried she’d push me away, that the fallout would send me spiralling back into addiction. I didn’t bargain on being unable to switch off how I feel about Ruby, unaware of how deep in my heart she’d settled. Guilt over somebody else’s feelings is new – over my stubborn stupidity that blew apart the one thing holding me together. Us. We opened up, cared, saw each other’s truths and the broken pieces fell into place. I threw the fragile relationship as hard as I could away from me and shattered everything – me, Ruby, the new place of peace we’d created.
I don’t know what to do. I’ve never wanted to fix anything before. However hard I try, Ruby is someone I can never obliterate; but if she has any sense, she’ll already have blanked out Jem Jones.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Ruby
Life takes on a routine that I follow, a monotonous 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. The biggest thing that’s pissed me off is I can’t play right now. I’m so frustrated by life that 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. Two weeks of dazed acceptance and a week of tentatively rejoining the world, my head 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 two a.m. and when I squint at the phone, I see Jem’s name. A pang of worry over his not sleeping and what that indicates about 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 he’s been robbed, 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 he’d been robbed, 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 it 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 unrecognizable 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 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.
“Do you want me to call Bryn for you?”
Jem sits on the low windowsill. “No.”
“Then what? What did you want me for, before you forgot you asked me to come over?”
“In the kitchen.”
“What?”
“Go in the kitchen and do something.”
I rub my head; this man makes no sense as usual. “Wh
at? Make you a drink?”
“Shit!” Jem doubles over and wraps his arms around his head.
I freeze. He hasn’t, surely… Heading downstairs, I halt in the kitchen doorway. Glass from a broken bottle covers the floor and a strong smell of whisky accompanies the brown liquid seeping across the tiles.
Jem, you fucking idiot.
Glass crunches under my feet as I walk into the room. An empty tumbler rests on the counter and I smell the inside. Nothing. Maybe he didn’t. My first instinct is to clear this up. If Jem’s slipping, then the smell of alcohol won’t help. I pick up the largest parts of the broken glass and set them on the counter. I can’t do this. I don’t know how to help him right now. Stepping back out of the kitchen, I pull my phone from my pocket and search for Bryn’s number. Jem needs his friends, not me.
“Don’t call anyone.” Jem’s low voice comes from the doorway behind.
“Have you been drinking?” I demand.
“No!”
“So where’d the bottle come from?”
“I didn’t drink anything, but I was fucking close!”
Hesitantly, I move closer but there’s no alcohol smell on his breath. The curls hang into his reddened eyes; and in them, I see a suffering my heart can’t handle; something has really hurt Jem. I reach out and touch his hand, attempting to take Jem’s fingers in mine. When he snatches his hand away and tucks both beneath his arms, backing away, the rejection hurts as much as the day he told me to leave.
“So you want me here to babysit?” I say harshly. “Wasn’t Bryn available?”
“I didn’t try Bryn. I wanted to see you,” he says in a flat voice.
“Why?”
“Because you won’t judge. You won’t push. You’ll just be.”
“I’m not staying if you don’t tell me what’s going on. You can’t randomly contact me three weeks after breaking my heart, and then expect me to be okay with it.”
Jem rubs his temples. “Breaking your heart?”
“Of course, you fucking did!” His eyes widen. “Jem, just tell me what’s going on.”
He mumbles something in the direction of his feet and I huff and step closer. “What?”
“I saw my mum,” he tells his feet.
