Page 90 of Almost Ours

I fucking hate it.

Logically, I know she can talk to whoever she wants.

He’s on her course, they have a project together, and from what I gathered the other night they’re friends. There is nothing remotely unusual about him talking to her in a pub full of students, and Ruby certainly hasn’t given me any reason to think I should have an opinion about it.

We’re friends.

And I don’t think I can handle more than that. She’d be better off without me anyway.

So I’m not entirely sure why Tom touching the small of her back as he moves aside for a guy carrying three pints makes me want to walk over there and fling his hand off her.

“You’re doing it again,” Ewan says beside me.

I turn my head. “Doing what?”

He’s leaning against the end of the booth with his pint held against his stomach, ginger hair sticking up in every direction because he and Brooke were putting on a proper display of PDA fifteen minutes ago.

“Josh.” His voice is taunting and I can feel myself bristling already. “Come on.”

“Come on, what?” I snap.

He lowers his voice so the rest can’t hear. “Just go over there and pull her away. She’d probably want to spend time with you over him.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“Trust me. No one is willingly spending time with Tom the Tosser.”

My eyes slide in their direction and she’s laughing. “Seems fine to me.”

Ewan lets out a long, weary sigh. “So fucking stubborn.”

Thankfully, Cam chooses to start arguing with Oscar about whether assists should count towards a drinking game they’ve invented, which drags Ewan into the debate and gives me an excuse to turn towards the rest of the pub again without my best friend verbally diagnosing whatever the fuck is wrong with me.

I can tell you what’s wrong all by myself.

I am an emotionally inept creature.

I don’t fucking work properly.

I don’t know how to talk about anything that matters. I either say nothing at all or wait until I’m so wound up that whatever does come out sounds angry, even when anger isn’t really what I’m feeling. I disappear when things get too much. I ignore messages from people I care about and then spend hours hating myself for ignoring them. I can sit beside someone I’ve known for years and have absolutely no idea how to tell them I’m having a bad day, so instead I make some shit joke, tell them I’m tired and go home.

I’m jealous when I have no right to be. I’m defensive about things nobody is attacking me over. I can hold a grudge until I’ve forgotten half the reasons I was pissed off in the first place, and when someone gets too close I start waiting for the exact point they realise I’m more work than I’m worth.

I don’t trust people easily, and when I finally do, I trust them so completely that there doesn’t seem to be anything in between. I either keep you at arm’s length or hand you every weapon you could possibly use against me and then act surprised when one of them eventually ends up buried in my chest.

I’m still angry at a dead person.

I’m still angry at myself for being angry at him.

I miss James so much there are days it feels impossible that a body can carry that much grief around and still do normal things afterwards, like go to lectures or play football or stand in Tesco deciding which fucking pasta sauce to buy. Then there are other days where I barely think about him at all, and those are almost worse because I get home and realise I’ve gone six hours without remembering my own twin existed.

I don’t know which version of me is worse.

The one who can’t let him go, or the one who occasionally does.

And underneath all of that is this horrible suspicion that Dad might be right. I’m difficult. I’m exhausting. That loving me eventually becomes a job nobody asked for, and people either leave or get hurt trying to stay.

So, yeah. Ewan doesn’t need to diagnose me.