Phantoms of Fall (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 2) (22 page)

I started shouting, “STOP, ZACH! PLEASE STOP!” He
acted like he didn’t even hear me, so I grabbed his shoulder
from behind. “Zach, no! You’re going to get into so much
trouble!”

He shoved me back, driving his elbow into my nose in
the process. Blood gushed out and ran down my face and I
fell flat on my ass in the middle of the hallway. Everything
was such a mess. How did our perfect relationship crumble
into dust so quickly? I didn’t care who was watching
anymore, I buried my head in my hands and cried.

I didn’t look up until I heard Boone’s voice. He and
two of his friends wrenched Zach off of Ryan who was now
slumped on the floor in a bloody heap.

Zach struggled to get away as Boone yelled at him.
“He’s not worth it, Zach! You’ve hurt him enough!”

“He deserved everything I gave him and more!” There
was fury in his voice and he barely sounded like the boy I
loved.

“What about Ruby? Did she deserve what you gave
her
?” Boone swung him around so he could see my face.

His darkened eyes softened the minute he saw me.
“Ruby, what happened?” He sunk to his knees by my side.
“Who hurt you?”

“You did! You smashed my nose when I tried to stop
you!” I screamed into his face. “YOU DID THIS!”

I knew that he didn’t mean to do it, that he would
never hurt me on purpose. He loved me and I loved him. But
that didn’t stop me from hating what he did. As he reached
out to touch my face, I flinched.

Zach started to shake. “I’m so sorry, Ruby! I love you!
I don’t know how this happened! I never meant to hurt you!”

 

“But you did!” I couldn’t look at him anymore so I
scrambled to my feet and took off running down the hall.

 

“Ruby,” he called, “Wait, let me make it up to you!”

The sound of his footsteps pounding behind me made
me run faster and I found myself at the top of the steps
leading down into the deserted locker rooms. But I wasn’t
alone.
Garnet was standing there, head cocked to one side
and staring blankly at me through a curtain of dirty blond
hair.

“Not now!” I hissed at her through clenched teeth,
hoping no one was close enough to hear me. I stepped past
her and sprinted to the landing below.

She shook her head slowly from side to side, turning
to face Zach who’d finally caught up with me. Garnet lifted
her bony arm and pointed directly at him threateningly.

“No—don’t come near me!” I shouted at Zach. Why
did I run away from him? I should have stayed by his side
regardless of what happened. He didn’t hurt me knowingly—
it was all a tragic accident. But I led us straight into Garnet’s
path and I was afraid of what she might do. Zach couldn’t
come any closer—he might get hurt.

“Ruby, I love you! Please say you still love me, too!”
Zach placed one foot down on the next step and Garnet moved
swiftly behind him.

She raised both hands to his back. I screamed, “No!”
just as she placed them on his shoulders and gave a vicious
shove.
Garnet stood at the top with a smile on her face as
Zach crashed down the steps.

He landed with a thud at my feet and a groan exploded
from his chest.
Clutching his left wrist, he moaned in pain.
“Ruby, I need help! I think my arm’s broken and my neck
hurts really bad!”

I hesitated.
I wanted to wrap my arms around him
and hold him until the pain was gone. One look at the top of
the steps told me I shouldn’t. Garnet drew a skeletal finger
across her throat and pointed at Zach. I had to get away from
him before she hurt him worse than she already did. Taking
the stairs two at a time, I left him there in a heap and ran
away. Halfway down the hall, I could still hear him calling my
name.

“Ruby, please don’t leave me!”

But I had to.
I loved him too much to let him get hurt
again because of me. I was the reason he got angry enough to
beat the living hell out of Ryan. Zach was going to be in so
much trouble because of me. He was the love of my life and I
had to leave him behind without an explanation, without a
goodbye. Together, we were a beautiful yet toxic recipe for
disaster. I knew that his body wasn’t the only thing hurting.
The very second I broke his heart, I felt it. I felt it because
mine shattered into a thousand pieces right along with it.

19. Hey, Can I Borrow That Magic
Wand?

I ran and I didn’t stop running until I was in my car
and driving away.
Really, though, I was still running, in a
sense. Running away from embarrassment and humiliation,
for sure, but more importantly, running away from Zach. Not
because I didn’t love him, but because I
did
. I couldn’t stand
by and watch as he threw away his hopes and dreams to
defend me, watch as he lay broken by the secret I could never
tell him. Running wasn’t simply the best option—it was my
only
option.

I didn’t think about what I was going to tell Shelly
when I got home, I just burst through the front door like a
hurricane. If I’d thought about it first, I never would have told
her the truth.
When she met me at the door, though, I
collapsed into her arms blubbering the whole story to her in
ugly and vivid detail.
Except for one detail—Garnet’s role in
the incident.
I was even distraught enough to tell her what
started the whole thing—our failed date from Friday night.

“Oh, Ruby! Slow down—I can barely catch a single
word of what you’re saying!” she said as I cried uncontrollably
into her shoulder. She wiped at the blood on my face with a
tissue. “Come sit down and start over from the beginning.”

She took a seat on the grand staircase and I sat down
beside her. “Misty Landrum took a video of me in the locker
room shower and sent it to the whole school!
When Ryan
taunted Zach with it, Zach snapped and beat him up. I tried to
stop it, but Zach didn’t know it was me behind him and he
cracked my nose with his elbow accidentally.
I got mad at
him
and
ran
away
but
he
followed
me.
Then, someone
pushed him down the stairs and I left him there and I came
straight home!” My nose started to drip again so I sniffed
back the blood and went on. “I left him there with a broken
arm and didn’t even tell anyone else he needed help! I’m a
horrible person!”

Shelly smoothed my hair back and offered me another
tissue. “You’re not a horrible person, Ruby. But why did you
leave him there?”

My tongue almost outran my brain in a mad rush to
tell the story.
Thankfully, my brain caught up and I stopped
myself just before
the
truth
about
Garnet
slipped out.
“Because I’m no good for him! He gets into fights because of
me and pushed down the stairs because of me. He’s going to
be in so much trouble—he’ll be lucky if he doesn’t get kicked
out of school over this! I ran because I didn’t want to hurt him
anymore.”

Shelly held me as I cried. “I know you think this is all
your fault, but it isn’t. Zach chose to get into those fights—
you never asked him to do it. If he gets kicked out of school,
he has only himself to blame.”

I protested. “But maybe if I hadn’t argued with him
first, maybe he wouldn’t have been so ready to fight.”

 

“What did you argue with him about?”

I took a deep breath and told her everything that
happened Friday night and why I was in such a hurry to sleep
with him. It was hard to believe that there was ever a time
when I hated her so much that I barely even spoke to her.
Right now, she was the only person in the world I trusted
enough with that story.

“Ruby, you have it all backwards! Zach not wanting to
move too fast with you is the sweetest thing he could possibly
do! He put his own desires aside to do what he thought was
right for you. The fact that he loves you enough to do that,
well, it says a lot for who he is and how he feels about you.”

Now I felt even worse. I never looked at it that way. I
wanted nothing more than to find him now and say I was
sorry
about everything.
But it was
too
late
now—our
relationship was over. We still couldn’t be together because
of Garnet.
She hurt him once.
What would stop her from
doing it again? He’d been hurt enough already. What if the
next time ended in his death?
My love for him was being put
to the test. I had to protect him even though it meant letting
him go. As much as it hurt me, I knew it was the right thing to
do.
Someday I would find someone else who would love me,
wouldn’t I? I would miss the kind of intensity I had with Zach,
but our chemistry created deeper problems that we could
both do without.

“I don’t like what he’s been doing—all the fights, I
mean—but I still think Zach is a good boy at heart. Have you
talked to him about how you feel?” Shelly squeezed my hand
lightly. “Relationships require open communication, you
know.”

“I know—but it’s too late now.” I should have talked
to Shelly about it a long time ago. If I had, maybe I wouldn’t
be in the mess I was in. But I didn’t and I couldn’t go back in
time to change things now. Shelly was just about to impart
more words of wisdom when the phone rang.

“That’s probably the school
calling—you basically
ditched class, didn’t you?” Shelly said as she made her way to
the phone.

Oh no. I hadn’t even thought of that! Now I was
probably in a lot of trouble, too. The minute she picked up the
phone, though, I knew she had my back. Whoever was on the
other side of the line sure got an earful about what Misty did
to me to cause the whole thing in the first place. By the time
she was finished with them,
they
were apologizing to
her
.
Way to go Shelly!

“Well,” she said as she hung up the phone, “They’re
going to try to figure out where the video originated from—at
least they have a limited suspect pool, though.
There were
only a few girls in the locker room that day so it shouldn’t be
too hard to trace it back.
In the meantime, I told them you
would be out of school for the rest of the week until the
drama settled down.”

Thank God for Shelly! I didn’t want to go back ever
but a few days were better than nothing.
With a hug, I
thanked her for everything.

“You’re welcome, Ruby. But you still need to talk to
Zach. I wish I could take care of that for you, too, but I can’t.”

“It’s too late for that, Shelly! I missed my chance and
our moment is gone.” The full effect of not being with him
ever again was finally hitting me. He would never forgive me
for leaving him when he needed me the most. Rachel would
probably be mad at me, too. I was even more alone now than
when I arrived in Charlotte’s Grove. There was nothing worse
than having everything and then losing it all because of your
own dumb stupidity.

“He loves you Ruby—you at least need to try. But you
have to let him
know that his
recent
behavior
is
totally
unacceptable.”

But what good would it do to get him back? Garnet
would just keep on hurting him and if not her, then it would
be the next ghost that came along. I couldn’t let that
happen—he was far too precious to me. The best thing for
him was to not be with me. The hollow feeling once limited to
my
chest engulfed my entire body
now and
I knew that
without him I would never feel whole again. But I was willing
to sacrifice my own happiness to keep him safe. Unlike me, he
still had a shot at having a normal life. He would forget about
me in time, get married, have kids and never look back. As for
me, I would love him until the day I died. Based on what I
knew about the afterlife, probably even longer than that.

Knowing that I couldn’t fully explain it all to Shelly, I
told her I would try and left it at that. Worried about how
much trouble he got into, I considered texting Rachel to get
the answer. No. I had to stay away from him, stay out of his
life so he could move on. He was impossible to forget but I
had to at least try not to think about him. Easier said than
done.

He was first and foremost in my thoughts at any given
moment. There wasn’t a single aspect of my life that didn’t
remind me of him in one way or another. As I walked out to
Shelly’s car so she could take me to my doctor’s appointment,
I stared woefully at my own car. How mad would my parent’s
be if I demanded a new car so soon, one that wasn’t a carbon
copy of Zach’s?

Even the waiting room at the doctor’s office reminded
me of him. A bouquet of roses in a vase on the table made me
think of the night he left that rose on his pillow for me.
Getting over him was going to be impossible.
I wanted to cry
so I snatched a magazine from the table and hid my face
behind it. What if I never got over him? What if I spent the
rest of my life regretting my decision today? Why did he have
to be so damned unforgettable anyway?

Shelly did most of the talking during the exam, only
making
me
speak enough to
tell
the
doctor
what my
symptoms were.
Now that my heart was demolished, my
stomach seemed fine by comparison. The doctor decided to
send me for some tests and the exam was over. Not as bad as
I was expecting, I guess.
But as I hopped down from the
exam table, Shelly brought up the dreaded subject that I
assumed she would drop now that Zach and I were history.