Free The Gift by Cecelia Ahern Page A

on a weekly basis, stayed out all night, but Ruth still made it to the first lecture, with her assignments completed. She could do it all.
    Any time he’d failed an exam and had been forced to repeat it, she’d been there, writing out facts and figures for him to learn. She’d turn study sessions into quiz-show games, introducing prizes and buzzers, quick-fire rounds and punishments. She’d dress up in her finery, acting as quiz-show host, assistant, and model, displaying all the fine things he could win if he answered all the questions correctly. Even food shopping at the market was a game. “For this box of popcorn, answer me this,” she’d say.
    “Pass,” he’d say, frustrated, trying to grab the box anyway.
    “No passing, Lou, you know this one,” she’d say firmly, blocking the shelves.
    He often wouldn’t know the answer at first, but she’d make him know it. Somehow she’d push him until he reached deep into a part of his brain that he didn’t know existed and found the answer that he never realized he knew.
    They’d planned to go to Australia together after university. A year’s adventure away from Ireland before life started. They spent a year saving for the flights; Lou working as a bartender in Temple Bar while she tended tables. But then he failed his final exams, while Ruth passed with flying colors. He would have packed it in there and then, but she wouldn’t let him, convincing him he could do it, as she always did.
    In the year waiting for him to retake his classes, Ruth completed a business master’s degree. Just for something to do. She never once rubbed it in his face or made him feel like a failure. She was always the friend, the girlfriend, the life and soul of every party, the A student and achiever.
    So was that when he started resenting her? All the way back then? Was it because he never felt good enough, and this was his way of punishing her? Or maybe there was no psychology behind this; maybe he was just too weak and selfish to say no when an attractive woman so much as looked his way. Because when that happened, he forgot all sense of himself. He knew right from wrong, of course he did, but on those occasions he didn’t particularly care. He was invincible, always thinking there would be no consquences and no repercussions.
    Ruth had caught him with the nanny six months ago. There had been only a few times, but Lou knew that if there were levels of wrongness for having affairs, which in his opinion there were, sex with the nanny was pretty high. There had been nobody since then, apart from afumble with Alison, which had been a mistake. That was one that scored low on the wrongness scale. He’d been drunk, she was attractive, but he regretted it deeply. It didn’t count.
    “Lou,” Ruth snapped, breaking into his thoughts and giving him a fright.
    He looked over at her. “Morning.” He smiled. “You’ll never guess what I was just thinking ab—”
    “Do you not hear that?” she interrupted him.
    “Huh?” He turned to his left and noticed the clock had struck six. “Oh, sorry.” He leaned across and switched off the beeping alarm.
    He’d clearly done something wrong because her face went a deep red and she fired herself out of bed and charged out of the room. It was only then that he heard Bud’s cries.
    “Shit.” He rubbed his eyes tiredly.
    “You said a bad wud,” said a little voice from behind the door.
    “Morning, Lucy,” he said.
    Her figure appeared then, a pink-pajamaed five-year-old, dragging her blanket along the floor behind her, her chocolate-brown hair tousled from her sleep. Her big brown eyes were the picture of concern. She stood at the end of the bed, and Lou waited for her to say something.
    “You’re coming tonight, aren’t you, Daddy?”
    “What’s tonight?”
    “My school play.”
    “Oh yeah, that, sweetie; you don’t really want me to go to that, do you?”
    She nodded.
    “But why?” He rubbed his eyes again. “You know how