Tried With Fire - (Ruth Harris Series)

Chapter 41

'What. The. Hell.' Susie hissed. I looked over at her, and the rest of the now silent room, and tried to keep my cheeks colourless. Andy hushed his girlfriend, but her face of thunder remained.
               So, unnerved and nervous, I turned my attention back to the people at the door. Hunter, who was standing between me and them, tried to explain to the room,
'Look, er, guys -' but he fell short of words. 'We, we wanted - me and Ruth thought you wouldn't mind if, er...' He looked to me for encouragement, but the most my tongue-tied self could do was put a hand on his back. We may have discussed this: invited these people even: but now that they were really here, it was pretty daunting. After all, they tried to steal my daughter.
'What if they try it again tonight?'
'Ssh, Julie. They won't. We're civil now.'
               When the awkwardness in the room only grew, I finally found my voice enough to wheeze,
'Please, both of you, come in.' And soon Katherine and Phil Brookes were standing in my house. They took their shoes off. 'Thanks for coming -'
'Hi. I don't think we've met - formerly.' Susie suddenly spoke up, standing up from her position next to my brother on the sofa, and strutting over to the latest guests. She stuck her palm out. 'I'm Susie. I was the one sitting behind your son in court when you took his little girl away. You remember me, right? I was watching Andy get teased and manipulated on the witness stand, while he tried to advocate for the human rights of mentally ill people -'
               Mama, who had been staying very still and silent since I first opened the door to her old friends, finally stood up too and said,
'Susie.'
               Susie stopped, and turned to face her.
'Sorry, Sofia, I was just trying to be polite. I guess it's hard to be polite to depraved people who thrive off other people's suffering -'
'Susie.' Mama said again. Susie drew a breath. Andy stood up now too, put his hands on his girlfriend's shoulders and addressed Katherine and Phil with a nod and hello.
'Hello, Andy.' replied Phil.
               Susie shut her eyes, and for the first time in ages I saw a look of genuine stress cross her face. She so wanted to be the 'cool, calm and collected' friend, that she had to get very upset before showing anything but sarcasm. In that respect, Andy and Susie were one flesh. But now, with Hunter's parents standing five feet away from her, she couldn't hide how much the confrontation hurt.
               'Susie.' I whispered to her when Hunter finally led his parents into the house. She opened her eyes again and sighed a shaky breath. 'I-I'm sorry. I should have told you we'd invited them tonight, but, well, I didn't want you not to come and I didn't think it would upset you this -'
'I'm going to the bathroom.' Susie replied, her emotions switching off again. She spent so much time wearing a mask, it was a miracle she hadn't suffocated yet. Before I could say another word she had broken free of Andy's hands and run upstairs. Andy sighed.
'Who are they?' I heard Olivia ask from the floor. With a colouring pencil in her hand, a sketch on the coffee table and blazing green eyes, Hunter's parents had to smile. She was definitely Hunter's child, even if she did have no idea who his parents were.
               Half of me ached to stay in the living room and be part of the moment transpiring, knowing it would be a historical reunion in the Brookes family, but the other half of me knew that my best friend was upstairs, swallowing tears like acid, all alone.
               I heard Hunter start to reply to our daughter, and took a second to admire his courage before dashing after Susie. I heard, 'This is your Nanny and Grandad, Olivia. It's been a while since they came over, because they live very far away...'

'Hey.' I said softly, upon entering the bathroom. Susie was sitting on the edge of the bath and breathing deeply. Her red hair hid her eyes, but I knew she was crying. My friend, my rock, my fellow nutjob, was crying. I hadn't seen her do that since we were sixteen and locked up.
               'Susie, I'm so sorry -'
'You should be.' she snapped coldly. I hesitated in the doorway a second longer, before slowly and quietly shutting it, then perching beside her. 'Why are they here, Ruth?'
'Oh, well,' I shrugged, 'what's a game night without Katherine complaining about the tea I make and making me feel like a generally inferior human being?'
'Stop joking around, Ruth. This isn't funny.' Susie said, sniffing. 'You know I don't like surprises. Especially when the surprise is awkward, and makes me feel - well, just, don't do stuff like this to me, okay?'
               I eyed Susie up a moment.
'Susie, how does it make you feel?'
'I, I'm just looking out for you, chicken.' she sighed at long last. 'I saw what Katherine did to you and Hunter. She tore you apart. I don't want her to hurt you again.'
               I studied Susie's hanging head a little longer, then tipped her chin up and looked deep into her eyes. She held her breath.
'No, that's not it.' I said. 'I know you care about me and Hunter, and Liv, but that's not the whole story. You don't look worried - you look sad. Why?'
'I...' Susie pushed my hands away and started fidgeting. 'I thought I was supposed to be the smartarse. You're the bull-headed one. Everyone knows that.'
'Even a broken Ruth can be right twice a day.' I snickered. 'Come on, Suze. Tell me what's wrong.'
               Susie took a long time to open up, but after a few more attempts to push me away, turn the whole thing into a flippant inconsequence, or pretend she was fine, my best friend cracked wide open. Finally, I could see the emotions inside that stubborn skull. They looked like a jumble of wires: a variety of colours, some old, some new, some sparking, some dead, all of them knotted tightly together.
               'Fine! If you want to know, I'll tell you!' Susie exploded. 'You hurt me, Ruth. You ran away, because of those people downstairs, and that hurt.'
               I stared at Susie. She glared back. 'I didn't want to say anything, because you and Hunter had so much on your plates and when you came back, you were so happy, I couldn't put a damper on that, but, but you hurt me, Ruth. What you did, it stung.'
               'You're right.' I gulped. 'You're absolutely right, Susie. I should have apologised the second I got home, but I was being selfish. Running away was selfish, and coming back was selfish. I couldn't stand to watch Olivia get taken away from me and Hunter, so I ran away. And then I came back and just expected everything to be fine again without making any amends! I'm, I'm really sorry, Susie. You're my best friend in the whole world. I let you down -'
'Oh shut up.' Susie barked. I froze.
'...What?'
'You don't understand at all.' she said. 'I'm not angry because you left. I knew that was your only real option. You made a hard decision in a ditch attempt to save Hunter and Olivia from being separated, even if it broke your heart into a million pieces. I actually admire you for that.'
               I couldn't suppress my laugh.
'But, Susie, you just said -'
'I know what I said. I said it hurt me. And it did.'
'Susie.' I sighed. 'I don't understand. Why are you so upset, if you think I did the right thing?'
'Because, Ruth, when you ran away, I felt ashamed.'
               Susie stood up and turned her back to me, but I heard her voice wobble every now and then as she expounded, 'For the first time in ten years, I felt ashamed of who I am. All this time we've been doing so well, you and I, even doing things for our support group that I never thought I'd be able to do for myself! We've been sober, and clean, and happy. But then those, those people,' she pointed through the floor, 'showed up, and took Olivia from you, and, a-and it shook me. It felt like the perfect, happy bubble I'd been living in for the last decade burst and I saw this world for what it really is again. This world, society... it doesn't like people like you and me, Ruth. It's watching us, waiting for an opening to strangle us, slowly and painfully, until we turn blue.' Susie glanced back at me. 'Don't look at me like that. That's not the schizo talking, it's just the depressing truth. There's no place for us in this life. I deluded myself for such a long time, but I don't want to anymore. I can't keep living this stupid lie that I can be happy.'
'Susie -'
'If we find our soulmates, something separates us. If we have kids, the law says we're mental and takes them away. If we spend ten years making a decent life for ourselves - let me finish - we lose it all as quickly as a doorbell sounds! You know I'm right, Ruth! We're fighting a losing battle, because we're fighting it alone.'