Page 152 of Almost Ours

“He didn’t nearly kill me.” I try to explain, but it’s something Oscar has never been able to accept. “I nearly killed myself.” Looking at the wonky clock behind his head, I see it’s five in the morning. “At some point, O, you’re going to have to accept I chose to try and end my life. I thought it was the best possible thing to do at the time. We can’t completely blame Dad for a decision I made.”

Oscar’s face is blistering. “I can blame him. If he never made you keep his affair secret, bullied you about it, made you feel like you were the problem, then you never would’ve gone into that bathroom and done what you did.”

I flinch at how bluntly he says it, but I don’t let go of the money. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“You don’t, O.” I shake my head, looking down at the notes between my fingers. “I was already struggling. Dad was part of it, a massive part, but he wasn’t the only thing going on in my head. There was so much to it. There was Ansel, and Dad, and just… life. I didn’t want to die, I just didn’t want to feel any of it anymore.” I swallow thickly, rubbing my thumb over the edge of one of the notes. “But now I think not feeling is almost the same as dying anyway. I wanted everything to stop because I couldn’t imagine it ever getting better, and at the time that felt like the only way to make it quiet.”

Oscar shudders and I know I’ve put him back in that bathroom with me bleeding out on the floor. I hate that I did that to him. Hate that for the rest of his life he will be affected by it.

“I’m not saying Dad didn’t push me closer,” I add, trying to make it sound less brutal than it all was. “He did. What he did was disgusting and making me keep it secret made everything worse. But I don’t want you spending the rest of your life telling yourself that if Dad hadn’t done that one thing, then I wouldn’t have tried to kill myself. You don’t know that, and neither do I.”

“You tried to kill yourself?” A husky voice from the doorway makes every muscle in my body lock.

Oscar and I spin in unison. Josh is standing there in tartan pyjamas, hair flattened on one side from sleep, but there’s nothing sleepy about his face. His green eyes are fixed on me with an intensity that makes breathing feel impossible.

“Josh…” I start, heart pounding. Of all the ways I wanted him to find out, it was never like this.

“You tried to kill yourself?” He demands, face flicking through a thousand emotions.

I push my chair back and slowly stand. “Yeah. A few years ago.”

Josh’s face drains of colour and his hand reaches up to press against his chest. “What? When? When did you—how old were you?”

“I was fifteen.”

“Sixteen,” Oscar corrects from the table. “You were fifteen when it started and sixteen when—”

“Oscar,” I hiss, not taking my eyes off Josh, heart pounding harshly. “Shut up.”

Josh looks like he can’t breathe at all, he’s rubbing his chest and his eyes are darting everywhere. “You were sixteen?”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” He backs up a step, shaking his head. His breathing is all out of whack and his chest is heaving. “I can’t breathe.”

I fight to keep my confusion at bay. I mean, yeah, people always have a reaction to it. Shock, pity, awkward silence, the frantic oh my God, are you okay now? thing everyone seems to default to when they don’t know what else to say. But Josh looks like a ghost has risen from the grave and screamed ‘boo’ right at him. “Josh,” I try to soothe, walking around the table. “It’s okay. It was ages ago.”

His eyes track me as I move. “You never told me.”

My blood is pounding in my ears. “I was going to.”

“When? Hm? When were you going to tell me?” Reaching up he rubs his forehead, emanating a wild, restless energy. “It all makes so much sense. All those times Oscar asked if you were okay. Your mum constantly checking in. The Wednesday thing. Fuck, even Christmas yesterday, the way everyone kept looking at you. I thought they were just protective.”

“They are protective.”

“It’s more than that though, Ruby. It’s so much more than that.” He pushes his palm flat over his heart and struggles to suck in air. “I really can’t fucking breathe.”

My own panic starts to climb tenfold. “Okay. Okay, sit down.” I usher towards him, but he doesn’t move. “Josh?” His skin has gone pale and there is a sheen of sweat gathering along his forehead. “Can you sit?”

His eyes have fixed over my shoulder, not really looking at anything, and the words seem to have emptied him out. He has gone completely stiff, every part of him locked up and frozen except for his fingers which are twitching every few seconds.

Oscar is prone to panic attacks, his therapist said it was PTSD from finding me half-dead on the floor, but Oscar’s attacks are nothing like this. He gets restless and irritable, starts pacing. Josh seems to have detached himself from reality entirely. He isn’t in the room with us anymore.

“Josh?” I move closer, trying to keep my voice steady, even if I am thoroughly freaked out. “Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you,” he answers, voice showing no emotion at all, almost robotic and totally cold.