Rising (Blue Phoenix, #4)(82)

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 re-joining 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 f*cked.”

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. “What? 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 f-ucking 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.