Page 127 of Almost Ours

She looks at Abi. “Shot?”

Abi nods weakly. “Multiple.”

Ruby pours five into mismatched shot glasses, handing one to Abi first and then Brooke. Ewan takes his next, still looking mildly traumatised by everything he has just experienced, and Ruby comes towards me with the fourth.

Our fingers brush when she passes it over.

Ruby takes the last glass for herself and drops back into the armchair.

We all raise them.

“To condoms,” Ewan says.

“To idiotic boys who flee the scene,” Brooke adds.

“To not dying of embarrassment,” Abi mutters.

Ruby glances towards me. “Got anything?”

I think about the playlist still playing quietly through the speaker. About the argument. About everything I told her that I wish I could drag back inside myself now, and the things she said that have lodged somewhere I don’t know how to reach. I think about the fact that I have nearly kissed her multiple times and, despite all the reasons I gave her for why it was a bad idea, my strongest feeling about being interrupted is still frustration.

I lift my drink towards hers. “To things that are almost ours.”

Ruby’s eyes stay on mine. “Almost?”

“Yeah.” I knock my cup against hers. “Almost.”

The vodka burns all the way down, Abi immediately reaches for the bottle again, and Brooke starts telling her that surviving the condom doesn’t mean she should now give herself alcohol poisoning.

Ruby has tucked her feet underneath herself in the armchair, still holding the empty glass between both hands, and when she looks over at me there’s enough awareness in her expression that I know this hasn’t disappeared for her either.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Friday

December 18th 2015

Ruby:

I wake up cold down one side and know Josh has left me here before I even open my eyes. Every morning that I’ve woken with him, Josh has been wrapped around me so tightly I’ve had to physically prise his arm off my stomach just to turn over. Today there’s nothing there, no weight against my back, no leg tangled with mine, no gentle kisses against my neck.

His smell is all around me and his duvet is pulled up to my chin. My body feels like I’ve been emotionally hit by a bus, and the entirety of last night smacks back into me like a punch.

No wonder he left. We almost kissed, and he confessed things to me he’s never said before. I don’t know how he manages to be so open and so closed off at the exact same time, but he does, and now I’m lying in his bed with my head full of everything he said and no idea what the hell we’re supposed to be when I see him again.

Two weeks without him, of us being in this limbo, feels like a life sentence. I don’t know how I will get through it. I really don’t.

It’s only when I turn my head towards his pillow that I see a card.

There’s a box sitting where Josh’s face usually is, wrapped awfully, with my name written across the envelope on top.

I blink rapidly, waiting to see if it’s going to vanish but it doesn’t. “...What have you done?”

I reach for the card first, the envelope is bent at one corner and my name is scrawled across the front in black pen, the Y dipping lower than the rest of the letters. I slide a finger beneath the flap and pull the card out. It’s plain, with a picture of a dog and a Santa’s hat on it.

Rubes,

I’m sorry I left without saying goodbye. I know it’s selfish and you’re probably going to be fuming, but I couldn’t do it. I also know it’s only two weeks, but I didn’t want to pretend I’m not going to miss you. I am. Like… a shit tonne.