Hopelessly Devoted To You

‘Oh, hell,’ she cried, squeezing his hand even tighter. ‘What am I talking about? I’ve already done it, haven’t I? Last night now seems like the biggest mistake of my life. This wasn’t what I wanted, not at all, and now the thought of losing you from my life for ever is absolutely destroying me. I couldn’t bear it, Finn. You’re my friend and whatever else happens between us, I hope we’ll always be able to remain friends. So you see, Finn, you have to wake up. You simply have to. For me, for you, for everyone’s sake. Most importantly, you have to do it for your mum and dad. You are their life and if anything was to happen to you then I’m not sure how…’ Her words trailed away on a sigh.

‘And think of all your friends and all your colleagues at the firm. You’re a partner now, Finn! Remember? It’s what you’ve always wanted. You can’t not get better because the people of London need you to fight on their behalf against all the injustices of this world. Yes! What will happen to them if you’re not around to take up their causes?’

Ruby let go of Finn’s hand gently and stood up. She arched her back and stretched her arms above her head before wandering over to the little window that overlooked a service bay at the back of the hospital. She peered outside and her heart sank even lower. It wasn’t a cheering view and the grey April morning only added to her sense of desolation and hopelessness. Would there ever be a life for her and Finn outside the confines of the depressing hospital room, she wondered, or had their lives been irrevocably changed for ever? She turned to look at Finn lying helplessly on the bed and felt a surge of longing and regret. Whatever her personal feelings for Finn, whatever had happened between them, she realised she needed to be strong for him. She couldn’t afford to be pessimistic or negative about Finn’s chances. If she didn’t believe in him and his ability to overcome this setback then what chance did he have? In her place she knew he would have remained resolutely positive. To the end. She rushed back to his side, grabbing hold of his hand again.

‘It is going to be all right, you know that, don’t you, Finn?’ She coughed, trying to clear her throat of the wobble threatening to overcome her. ‘Everything will work out in the end, I’m sure.’ She took a deep breath getting her emotions in check. ‘You’ll get better and you’ll go back to work and everything will be as it was. Well, almost everything. Because things change, obviously. Life moves on, but what I’m trying to say is that things will get back to some sort of normality. This is just a blip. Well, quite a big blip actually, but we will get over it together.

‘Do you know, your mum and dad don’t know yet about you being made a partner? Can you imagine how made up they’re going to be? I’ll tell them when I get the chance. Obviously at the moment the most important thing is getting you well again and that’s what’s occupying all of our minds. I won’t tell them about us, what happened the other night. It doesn’t seem relevant now. I’m not being deliberately evasive but I can’t see it achieving anything. Can you? Not for the moment at least. I want to see you through this, Finn. Get you well again. What is important is your recovery and that’s all you need to concentrate on. Will you do that for me, Finn?’

She squeezed his hand tight, bending down to leave a gentle fleeting kiss on his cheek.

‘Don’t worry about anything. Your job, your flat, me or the wedding. It will all still be here when you wake up. Let your parents and me sort all that stuff out for now and once you’re better that’s when we can make plans…’

Her voice trailed away. She knew instinctively there would be no going back for her and Finn. He dealt in absolutes. And the fact that she’d played her cards now, told Finn in no uncertain terms that she didn’t love him and had never loved him, would have left Finn in no doubt as to his future with Ruby. There could be none. She’d known by the hard look in his eyes, the resolute set to his jaw, as he’d ruminated over what she’d told him, that the bond between them had been well and truly shattered.

Maybe they could stay friends, she thought, as a surge of desperation filled her chest, threatening to stifle her breathing. She ran her fingers along the length of his arm. Now it seemed more important to her than ever that she didn’t lose Finn from her life.

‘Look, Finn,’ she pleaded, bending over his bed to whisper in his ear, sounding as desperate as she felt. ‘Just wake up, will you? I promise, we can work everything out. Please don’t leave me. Not now. Not like this. Just wake up. Would you do that for me, please, Finn?’

Chapter Six (#ulink_43e182d6-f72e-5f82-993c-3bf70519f8ac)

Despite her pleadings, her pacts with the devil, her prayers to God and her requests to the Cosmos, Finn stayed resolutely obstinate and showed no signs of waking up. Apart from one awful night a week after the accident when she received a frantic phone call from his parents saying she needed to get to the hospital immediately because…well, just because…they’d tell her when she got there, there’d been no activity whatsoever. Thankfully the panicked phone call had been a false alarm and the sudden dip in Finn’s condition had righted itself to its previously stable condition, which wasn’t great, but it was stable. And with all the other terrifying scenarios out there, ‘stable’ seemed a pretty good compromise to Ruby.

Over the following days and then weeks, Ruby spent every spare moment, when she wasn’t working shifts at the restaurant, at Finn’s bedside. She had two freelance assignments she’d been working on at the time of the accident that she quickly finished off and returned to the clients with a hastily scribbled note. She made a decision not to take on any more jobs for the time being, not wanting to commit to something, not knowing if she might need to rush to Finn’s side at any given moment. Besides she didn’t think she could concentrate on anything for more than a nanosecond as her mind was preoccupied with all thoughts of Finn.

Instead, she sweet-talked Hugo, her boss at the restaurant, into giving her as many shifts as he had available. She would wake up in the morning and either dash to the hospital or get ready to go into work and when she was finished at the one place she would dash off to the other. It was all she could cope with, but she liked the fact that she didn’t have lots of empty hours in the day and she relished the familiarity of the restaurant where, when she walked through the door, Hugo would greet her with a welcoming hug, before she donned her pinny and got to work knowing she would be rushed off her feet for a couple of hours. Hours in which she didn’t have time to dwell on Finn lying helplessly in hospital.

Hugo was an old school friend of Finn’s and Ruby’s favourite of all his friends. They clicked from their first meeting and although Hugo and Finn had since grown apart, preoccupied as they were with their respective work commitments, Ruby had become closer to Hugo having worked for him on and off for the last few years. Over the last couple of weeks he’d been a complete sweetheart, telling Ruby that if she needed to go to the hospital, even if it was in the middle of a shift, then she needed to up and go and not to worry about letting anyone down.

‘Are you all right, darling?’ Hugo asked as they literally bumped into one another through a swing door into the kitchen. His hand on her arm brought her up short, his touch reminding her that her emotions were raw beneath the surface, just waiting to erupt.

‘Yes, fine.’ Ruby laughed and ran a hand through her hair. She took advantage of the moment to take a breath, fanning her hand in front of her face, knowing her cheeks were flushed from the heat of the kitchen.