Page 106 of Almost Ours

Don’t cry. Please don’t cry. “Guys… this is so sweet.” I fondle the fabric of the PJs. They’re navy with funny cat faces on. “But I’m okay, honestly.” And I’m not staying with Oscar for days.

Josh picks up the blanket folded over the arm of a chair and shakes it open before draping it across my legs, tucking one side under my thigh.

“Are you okay, Rubes?” Brooke softly asks. “Did they really hurt you?”

“She beat the shit out of one of them.” Josh tells the girls.

“No,” I narrow my eyes at him. “That was you.”

Josh shrugs, lowering himself onto the sofa next to me. “It was both of us.”

“Were you super scared?” Abi moves to sit on the sofa opposite. “I wouldn’t have been able to do what you did.”

“She was very brave,” Oscar announces, moving to stand near Emma who puts a comforting hand on his arm. “She punched one of them in the face and elbowed the other. She even potentially broke one of their thumbs, before pulling the girl out and running for it.”

How does he know all that? Was he listening when I told the police? Did he hear me and the girl talk about it? Did I really do all that?

I can feel myself start to shake, my hands trembling beneath the blanket while the bruise across my face burns hotter with every heartbeat. I remember pieces of it, the grip around my arms, bark against my cheek, somebody shouting, my elbow connecting with a body, the girl’s hand in mine as we ran, but hearing it said back to me makes it sound incredibly violent.

I was only trying to get us out.

Who knows where I would be if I had never had self-defence classes. I make a mental note to thank Mum profusely.

Josh snakes an arm around the back of the sofa and moves as close to me as he can. “You were brave, Ruby. But if something had happened to you—” he cuts himself off abruptly and glances across the room at Oscar, a sort of knowing passing between them. They’re both exhausted from holding themselves together and trying not to show how much my being hurt is affecting them. With Oscar, I understand it. He’s my brother. He has known me my entire life and has spent years being terrified of losing me in ways I try not to think about. Josh is harder. Josh has known me for six weeks, and yet there is something in his face that looks far too close to the same fear, which feels impossible to make sense of when he’s also the person who told me we should only ever be friends.

Oscar looks away first, jaw tightening as Emma rubs her hand slowly up and down his arm.

I pull the blanket higher over my lap and look down at my hands, there are tiny uncontrollable movements running through my fingers even though I am trying to keep them still.

“I didn’t think,” I admit to the room, rubbing my thumbs together. “I heard her say she wanted to leave and I just went over. I didn’t stop to think about what they might do to me.”

Abi shakes her head, tears slipping down her cheeks. “That’s exactly why it was brave.”

I look up at her. “Or stupid.”

Josh’s hand moves from the back of the sofa to my shoulder. “You took on two men, Ruby. To save a random girl. It’s really fucking stupid but it’s also really brave.”

I turn to him. “That doesn’t sound like a good thing?”

His thumb moves against my shoulder. “I haven’t decided whether I’m more impressed by what you did or fucking furious that you put yourself in that situation.”

I blink up at him, feeling an overwhelm of emotion. “I really am okay, though.”

Besides, he’s hardly one to talk. He could have run straight into a knife, or another five people, or somebody bigger than him, and the fact he came back with nothing worse than split knuckles and a bruise makes him just as lucky as I am.

I wring my hands out and shoot him a look. “You can’t be mad at me for putting myself in danger when you did the same thing.”

Josh presses his mouth into a thin line. “I did that because they hurt you.”

“And if I hadn’t done what I did they would have hurt that girl.”

His eyes move over my face, taking in the bruising. “I know.”

“So,” I prissily huff. “You shouldn’t be angry at me.”

“I’m not.” He blows out a breath. “I don’t really know what I am.”

Emma comes over then with the tea she has been making and sets it down carefully on the coffee table in front of me alongside two painkillers and a glass of water, while Brooke reaches for the fluffy socks and starts peeling the cardboard label off them. Abi is looking at me with damp eyes, Cam has gone unusually quiet in the hall doorway and Oscar is hovering near the kitchen with one hand braced against the counter.