Page 101 of Almost Ours

I kick backwards at his shin, then plant both feet and throw my weight forwards. Oscar barely moves. His trainers stay rooted to the pavement while mine scrape uselessly against it, and the realisation that I cannot physically make him release me sends another surge of fear through my body. “They’re going after them!”

“I know what they’re doing.”

“They could have knives!” I twist again, craning my neck until I can see past the people in front of us. Josh has reached the bend in the path and Cam is only a few metres behind him. “They could have anything, Oscar!”

“They know how to fight. They’ll be fine.”

“You don’t know that!” Josh disappears around the bend and my heart slams painfully against my ribs. “Josh!” I scream after him even though there’s no chance he can hear me now, fighting Oscar harder, digging my fingers beneath his forearm and trying to peel it away one finger at a time. “I can’t just stand here and wait!”

“You can.” Oscar adjusts his hold when I nearly manage to turn around, locking both arms around me and pinning mine against my sides. His mouth is close to my ear when he growls, “And you have to.”

I jerk against him once more, uselessly, but Josh is gone and Cam is gone and all I can see beyond the crowd is the empty path disappearing into darkness.

Fuck those men for attacking me. Fuck Josh for not listening when I begged him to stay. Fuck Cam for charging after him like none of them have a functioning sense of self-preservation, and fuck Oscar for being so much bigger than me that I can fight him with everything I have and he barely has to move.

I’d never realised before how weak I am compared to them. Mum put me in self-defence classes, and I learned where to hit, how to break a grip, how to use somebody’s weight against them, and tonight it worked, but only because I got the chance to make it work. If that man had held me differently, if I’d missed his foot, if my elbow hadn’t connected, I don’t know what would have happened.

Tonight has shown me that if a man really wants to overpower you, there is a terrifying chance that he can. He can be stronger, heavier, faster, and your body can become something you have to fight to keep possession of. One wrong move, one grip you can’t break, and suddenly somebody else gets to decide where you stand, whether you leave, what happens to you next.

They decided her body was theirs before I got there. Then one of them tried to decide the same thing about mine.

I stop fighting Oscar.

And start sobbing instead.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Saturday

November 14th 2015

Joshua:

Somebody hurt Ruby.

My Ruby had blood on her knuckles and a bruise taking up the entire side of her face.

I have never been the sort who gets into fights. I’ve never even understood the appeal of them. I know plenty of lads who are one joke away from swinging, but I have always walked away.

I let people say whatever shit they want to say, but tonight there’s no warning voice in my head telling me to be sensible and there’s no part of me considering what happens if I find these men and they’re bigger than me, carrying something, or willing to do worse.

They hurt Ruby.

They laid hands on her and bruised her.

The path bends around the pond and Cam shouts my name through the dark, but I keep running until the lamps thin out and the little cut-through between the bushes comes into view.

“Wait for me!” Cam yells. “I wanna beat them up too!”

Any other night I might laugh, or tell him he’s a fucking idiot, but I don’t have it in me now. I push through the gap between the bushes and come out into the clearing where it happened, finding nothing except churned-up grass, broken twigs and the tree Ruby must have been thrown against. There is no sign of either man.

They have got away.

I’m going to have to walk back to Ruby knowing the men who put their hands on her are somewhere out there laughing about it. What a fucking bitter disappointment I must be to her. I let her down, I rejected her, and now I can’t even protect her.

But then I hear footsteps pounding further ahead and a voice shouting, “Hurry up!”

I veer towards the sound, coming out to a stretch of path and two men moving along it quickly. One is limping and keeps falling behind, while the other keeps glancing over his shoulder as though he knows somebody is coming after them, and when Cam breaks through the bushes behind me shouting, “There!” both men look back and start running harder.