Jill Steeples - Hopelessly Devoted To You

Laura sat back in her chair and dropped her head back onto the cushion, a huge sigh escaping her lips. Ruby felt one of her own rise in her chest.

‘Come on, Ruby. This is me you’re talking to. You don’t need to put on an act, pretend everything’s okay, when we both know that it isn’t. Don’t tell me you’re actually going through with the wedding, after all?’

‘I am, yes! Why shouldn’t I?’ she said, with a spirited show of defiance. ‘I’m a very lucky girl to be marrying a man like Finn.’

‘You know why not! Because you don’t love him. You’ve admitted it yourself. It’s just wrong, very wrong to marry someone you don’t love. It’s not fair on Finn and it’s not fair on you.’

‘Well, I’m sure I’ll get to love him.’ Ruby tried hard to ignore the stirring of disquiet in her chest. She shifted in her seat, grabbing the cushion from behind her and clutching it to her stomach. ‘Finn is a very lovely man who just so happens to love me. He will make a wonderful husband and father. What’s so wrong about that?’

‘Nothing would be wrong with that. If you felt the same way about him too. But you don’t. And you’ve been with Finn for, what is it, a zillion years? If you haven’t fallen in love with him yet, what makes you think you’re ever going to fall in love with him? How long are you prepared to wait, Ruby? Six months? Six years? A lifetime?’

‘Does it have to all be about love, Laura? Finn is a great guy, caring, loving and generous. We get on fantastically. He’s got a great career, with a great future ahead of him. We want the same things from life, we’ve had that conversation, the whole marriage and babies thing, and we share the same values. We are a match made in heaven. Some things transcend love, you know? We’re singing off the same song sheet. Isn’t that enough?’

‘Well, it might be.’ Laura shrugged, her mouth curling in distaste. ‘I know it wouldn’t be for me because I’d want to know that the person I was marrying loved me just as much as I loved them. Now it may be that Finn would still want to marry you knowing that you don’t love him in the same way, but I do think he has the right to know the truth about your feelings. Don’t you?’

Ruby felt her skin prickle with shame under Laura’s intense steely-eyed gaze. Tears stung her eyes. Her heart pounded in her chest, reverberating in her ears so loudly she thought her head might explode. If she could just close her eyes and shut it all out. Everything: her own tormented thoughts, Laura’s accusatory words running around her head and Finn, oh, God, the image of Finn’s smiling, unsuspecting face taunting her mind. She clutched her hair in fists, the pain at her temples a welcome distraction.

What kind of person was she? To go ahead with a wedding just because she was too lily-livered to do the decent thing and tell her fiancé she didn’t know if she loved him. Was that it? Was she prepared to go ahead and marry a man she didn’t love simply because she didn’t want to lose face in front of Finn and all her family and friends? It looked as though she might be.

If she broke off the engagement, she’d be vilified, she knew. Ex-communicated. She might need to get away for a while, lie low until all the fuss had died down. But she couldn’t imagine a time when that would happen. No one would understand why she didn’t want to marry the most perfect boyfriend in the world. If she couldn’t understand it herself, how on earth could she expect anyone else to understand?

‘You’re right!’ she said, jumping up from her seat and pacing the length of the living room as if she’d been struck with divine inspiration. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. Of course, I can’t marry Finn. You know that. I know that. He deserves someone much better than me. I must tell him. I’ll do it today.’ She looked at the phone as though it were a lethal weapon. If she picked it up and pressed Finn’s number she knew it would shoot a thousand bullets into both their lives. She paused, her gaze drifting out of the window. ‘Well, maybe not today.’

Laura raised her eyebrows doubtfully.

‘When, then? You’ve been talking about it for ages, but you never seem to get round to it. I know it’s hard. One of the hardest things you’ll ever have to do. But you’re running out of time, Ruby. You just need to do it, get it over and done with. And then you can get on with the rest of your lives. Both of you.’

‘Yes, yes. Absolutely.’ An urgency filled Ruby’s veins. ‘Tomorrow. How about that?’ The enormity of what she had to do crept over her body like a huge heavy rain cloud. ‘I’ll do it tomorrow. Actually, thinking about it, it’s probably just as easy to send him a text?’

Laura’s dark expression gave Ruby a definitive answer.

‘No.’ Ruby shook her head, agreeing with Laura’s silent admonishment. ‘I can’t do that. How about an email? Would that be better?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t suppose you could tell him for me, could you?’

‘No. Absolutely not.’ Laura tutted, actually tutted and folded her arms in front of her chest. ‘You have to do it. It has to be face to face. He deserves that at least. Right. Let’s think about this. You need a plan. Work out in your mind what you’re going to say to him. When are you next seeing Finn?’

‘Tomorrow night. He’s meant to be coming round for supper.’

‘Perfect. That will be the ideal opportunity. Just get it straight in your head what you’re going to tell him and then all you have to do is come out and say it. No beating around the bush. I know it’s a horrible thing to have to do, but once it’s out there you’ll feel so much better.’

Ruby glared at Laura. It was easy for her to say. She wasn’t the one on the verge of breaking the heart of the sweetest man in the world. She was just watching from the sidelines at the train wreckage about to unfold. With a little bit too much barely contained glee, suspected Ruby.

But still, Laura was right. She had to do it. However awful it was. She should have done it much sooner than this. Absolutely. There was no getting away from it this time. No avoiding the issue. No pretending that there wasn’t a huge white wedding booked that would need to be unbooked. She would just have to tell Finn how she felt and all those other issues were just mere practicalities that she could deal with once she got the awfulness out of the way. Come what may, this time tomorrow night Ruby would no longer have a fiancé.

‘Yes, I’ll do it!’ Ruby slapped her hands down on the arms of the chair, saying the words more to herself than to Laura.

‘Well, make sure you do.’ Laura stood up, looking at Ruby with a no-messing expression on her face. ‘If you don’t do it, I’m going to boycott the wedding. I’ll stand outside the church waving a placard and you don’t want that to happen, do you?’

Ruby gave a wry smile.

‘It’ll be fine,’ Laura said sympathetically. ‘Remember I’m on your side. I’ll pop round tomorrow night. About ten o’clock. After my date. If I haven’t heard from you by then I’ll know the coast is clear.’

‘Another one?’

Laura shrugged nonchalantly.

‘Well, it’s a numbers game, isn’t it? And I reckon my lucky number must come up soon. This one’s an alternative comedian. His name’s Max. He sounds really funny and quirky and right up my street.’

‘Oh, great. Well, I hope it goes well. And I’m really sorry about tonight. Do you want me to call you tomorrow night just in case?’

‘Nah, don’t worry. You’ll have enough on your plate with Finn and if I run into problems I can always use the tummy-bug excuse, but I don’t think I will. I have a really good feeling about Max.’