through Ravenswood just for the pleasure of it. And really, if one ignored the large number of irritating inhabitants, it was a beautiful place. She’d missed it.
Plus, she had time to kill.
So she wasted an hour at the park, studying the blooming tulips and following the paths drawn through the thick, verdant copse. By the time 5 p.m. drew near, Ruth had counted seven grey squirrels. No red. She and Hannah had a twelve-year-long bet about who would be the first to see a red squirrel, and apparently, Ruth would not win that bet today.
But the thought of Hannah made Ruth pause to lean against an oak’s wide trunk and pull her phone from her waistband—no pockets.
Most people would say that Ruth should call her sister. And, while Ruth disliked phone calls—it was hard to really hear someone’s words, when you couldn’t see their face—she made them often enough.
Well; not often. But she could, was the point. If she wanted.
Only, she didn’t want to now. Hannah was at work anyway, and one phone call per day was quite enough, and—w
ell. Ruth wanted to say something important, and important things were so much easier to write down than to say out loud. So she texted.
What you said on Sunday was right. I’m going to do better.
She paused for a moment, pursing her lips, looking down at those words as she organised the next few in her mind.
I think I’ve been selfish. I concentrated on feeling guilty about you instead of actually helping you. And I isolated myself without thinking about how that would affect you.
Yeah. That sounded right. Ruth read over the message again and felt pleased; the words actually conveyed what she wanted them to. That didn’t happen very often.
She added the most important part.
I’m sorry and I love you.
Then she sent it.
After a last look around the park, Ruth reached down to pluck one of the tulips that had so captured her attention. She felt slightly bad as she snapped the crisp stem, but the things literally carpeted the grass. No-one would miss this single bloom. More importantly, it would grow back. It would recover.
Things usually did.
Hannah rarely used her phone at work, so Ruth wasn’t expecting a reply for hours. She got one within ten minutes, though.
Hannah: I love you too. So much.
Ruth wound her way to the outskirts of the town’s industrial estate, following the low wall that circled the Burne & Co. forge. They had a showroom in town, but this was where the blacksmiths worked. She knew because, once upon a time, she’d been forbidden to come here by Daniel.
Well, Daniel could get fucked.
She searched out Evan’s crappy old car and perched on the wall beside it, waiting for him to appear. While she waited, Ruth rolled the tulip’s bright green stem between her fingers. Its sunshine-yellow bell was streaked with scarlet. The colours reminded her of ripe fruit.
As she trailed a finger over one silken petal, a shadow fell over her. Ruth tensed.
She looked up to find a vaguely familiar man standing before her, his hands in his pockets. She studied his dark hair, his pale skin and piercing eyes, for a long moment before placing him.
“Zachary Davis,” she said, speaking the words aloud as they came to her.
He smiled. It was a cute and crooked tilt of the lips that made him look almost boyish, despite his size. Apparently, Burne & Co. only hired enormous people.
“I didn’t think you knew my name,” he replied.
Oh, she knew his name. She knew his name because he was the town’s male equivalent to Ruth—though, being a man, he was tacitly approved of rather than ostracised. She remembered his name because, despite his reputation, he had never tried to get in her pants. Or lied about getting in her pants.
Which made him unusual for a young, single man in Ravenswood.
But instead of admitting any of that, she tilted her chin defiantly and said, “Of course I do. Don’t you know mine?”
“Yep.” Ah. She’d walked right into that. But then he said, his explanation unexpected: “You’re Evan’s girlfriend.”
She blinked. “Am I?”
“Aren’t you?”
She twirled the tulip. He’d taken the words as denial, when really they’d been shock.
You’re Evan’s girlfriend. He’d said it so casually. Imagine that. She was with Evan, really with Evan, and it was not a secret.
“Yes,” she said finally, firmly. “I am.”
His little, crooked smile became a bigger, crooked smile. “I was in the year below you at school,” he said.
Ruth, conscious of the typical escalation