Page 155 of Almost Ours

“Then lower your voice.”

“Oscar,” I cut in, not needing them to start on each other. “Please. I’m fine.”

“I need air.” Josh takes another uneven breath and starts backing towards the hallway. “I’m going for a walk.”

Panic and fear grip me harder. He’s leaving. He’s seen the real me and it’s too much for him. All my worst nightmares are coming true. “Josh—”

He keeps going until he reaches the front door, but instead of opening it he stops with his hand on the latch, shoulders rising and falling beneath his pyjama top. “Don’t follow me, please.”

“Josh.” I can feel myself wanting to cry, wanting to grab hold of him and make him stay, while another part of me knows he’s clearly overwhelmed and needs space.

He doesn’t leave though; he turns around and marches right back towards me. Both hands come up around my head, covering my ears through my hair as he bends and presses a kiss against my forehead, holding it there long enough that some of the fear loosens inside me. “I need some space, okay?” His voice is thick and laden with emotion. “I need to think.”

I search his face, unease coursing through me. “Will you come back?”

His hands stay around my head and his eyes close briefly, like the question hurts him. “Yeah, Rubes. I’ll come back.” His thumb moves once against my hair. “I’ll always fucking come back.”

Then he’s gone, and I’m stood there thinking we’ll probably never be the same again.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Saturday

December 26th 2015

Joshua:

Ruby tried to kill herself.

The words have been going around and around my head since I heard them come out of Oscar’s mouth, getting louder every time they repeat. Ruby tried to kill herself when she was sixteen. Oscar found her. Oscar has panic attacks because he found his twin half-dead on the floor.

Oscar nearly became me.

I’m halfway down a road I don’t recognise, still in tartan pyjama bottoms with my coat thrown over the top and trainers shoved onto bare feet, and I realise I have no idea where the fuck I’m going.

Ruby nearly became James.

I pull my phone out and ring a taxi, giving the driver the name of the cemetery when he asks where I’m going. I need to see James. I need to talk to him. I need to clear my head, get rid of the sheer terror running through me. He would make it better. He would know what to say, or at least he would if he was still here.

Fucking hell.

I still think of him like someone I can go to when my anxiety is trying to cut my air off, when the grey wolf has my throat in a vice-like grip and I can’t think straight. Three years later and some part of me still expects James to be the person who knows how to pull me out of my own head, even though he’s the reason so much of it is fucked in the first place.

The taxi pulls up ten minutes later and I spend the journey staring out of the window, barely registering anything we pass. The driver tries to make conversation once, something about Boxing Day traffic, but I give him a vague grunt and he thankfully gets the message. By the time we reach the cemetery my breathing has settled, but my head hasn’t.

I pay, climb out and make my way across the wet grass without bothering to avoid the puddles. The cemetery is almost empty, just a few people scattered between graves with flowers and umbrellas, and I keep my head down until I reach the row I know too well. James’s stone is dark from the rain, fresh white roses sitting at the base, probably Mum’s, and seeing his name carved there still does the same horrible thing it always does.

I stand in front of him with my hands shoved into my coat pockets, staring at the stone until I feel stupid for coming.

“Alright, mate.” My voice sounds wrong out here, too loud and too small at the same time, and I scrub a hand over my mouth before letting out a breath. “I’ve had a fucking morning, I can tell you that for free.” I duck my head a bit. “I met someone.” I look down at his name and huff out a laugh. “You’d take the piss out of me for saying it like that, but I have. Her name’s Ruby and she is a complete fucking nightmare. Talks constantly, joins things because she thinks it’ll be funny, argues over nothing, forces me into social situations I’d rather avoid and somehow makes me go along with it anyway.” I swallow thickly, rubbing my thumb against the seam inside my pocket. “She makes me feel things again, which I wasn’t planning on. I was doing a decent job of not feeling much before her.”

I crouch down, then give up and sit on the wet grass. I don’t care what I look like anymore. Who is going to judge me here?

“I think I love her,” I admit out loud. “No, fuck that, I do love her. I’m crazy about her. I don’t even know when it happened, but I am so madly in love with that girl, James. Completely fucking gone on her. Which is really fucking scary. I haven’t known what to do with loving anyone since you died. Then this morning I found out she tried to kill herself when she was sixteen and her brother found her half-dead on the floor.”

My chest goes all funny and I press my hands together between my knees. “Oscar nearly became me, James. He nearly had to live the same fucking life I do. He nearly had to wake up every morning knowing his twin was gone and replay every conversation and every argument and every stupid thing he should’ve noticed. Except he got there in time. She lived.”

I look up at the stone, anger and grief tangling together until I can’t tell which one hurts more. “And I’m jealous of him. How fucked is that? I’m jealous because he found his twin after she tried to die and she lived. He got to keep her. He gets to be overprotective and annoying and lose his shit if she doesn’t text back because she is there for him to be overprotective of.”