Chapter Twelve
Friday
Joshua:
On Friday night, when I finally get into bed, I realise I feel empty. Not in an over-the-top way. Just sort of... numb. Exhausted. Which isn’t new to me. I seem to swing between feeling too much and not much of anything at all.
I’m trying to let it sink in that I’m at uni, that I’ve made it through my first week without James. Bonnie’s here, and I see her around more than I’d like. I’m on the Firsts. I met a girl called Ruby, and she’s become part of every day I’ve had here so far.
I know all of that has happened. I just can’t seem to feel it.
The whole thing with the swan has been the best part of my time here, which probably says a lot about the state of me.
I keep coming back to Ruby bent double laughing because I hissed at the bird, the look she gave me when I told her it hissed first, taking the piss out of my trainers all the way back to Hussey and then carrying on taking the piss out of me every day since.
On Thursday, we had Nando’s with Ewan and Brooke, drank a bottle of wine and ended in her kitchen singing Amy Winehouse’s Valerie.
Ruby coaxed me into it, and even though I’d rather chew my own arm off than sing in front of people, I relented to her.
She was dancing around the kitchen and belting it out so badly, only stopping to say, come on Josh, I know you know the words, that I ended up giving in.
By the end of it we were both half-shouting the chorus, completely out of breath and laughing so much I could barely get the words out.
For the brief moments I share with Ruby, I very rarely think of James.
Usually that's enough to make me feel guilty. It doesn't matter whether I'm laughing with Ewan or watching something on telly. The second I realise I've forgotten for a minute, it hits me. Like I'm somehow getting on with my life when he doesn't get one anymore.
It doesn’t happen when she’s around.
I don't really understand it and I’m trying not to think about it too much.
When I wake up on Saturday morning, sunlight is forcing its way through the gap in my curtains. My room is warm enough that I’m sweating a bit. I roll onto my back and find myself staring at the ceiling. It takes a few seconds to come to.
I reach for my phone, blinking at the screen until the numbers stop swimming. 11:08. Earlier than I'd have guessed considering I didn't fall asleep until after three, but late enough that I can hear cupboards opening and closing down the corridor, followed by a burst of laughter I know is Ewan.
There's a stack of notifications waiting when the screen lights up. Missed calls. Messages, most of them just my name, over and over, as if she thinks repetition will eventually get her somewhere.
BONNIE (00:00): please just talk to me
BONNIE (00:00): you can’t ignore me forever
BONNIE (00:00): there’s so much you don’t know
BONNIE (03:13): Josh, please can we talk?
BONNIE (09:40): I miss you x
I don't bother to read the rest.
Bonnie Smith can fuck all the way off.
With a heavy sigh I swing my legs over my bed and pull on the first top I find on the floor, shove my feet into a pair of trackies and head downstairs, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
My football boots are lined up beneath the radiator drying out from training giving off a funky stink, contending with the smell of bacon wafting from the kitchen.
Brooke's standing by the hob with a frying pan in front of her while Ewan's sat at the breakfast bar, phone propped up beside his mug.
"Morning," Brooke greets me brightly.
"Morning,” I grumble, heading straight for the cupboard. I pull a mug down from the shelf—the blue one Ewan insists is his despite the fact it came in a set of four—and drop a teabag into it.
Ewan looks up from the breakfast bar, a smirk spreading across his face. "Look who decided to grace us with his presence."
"Morning to you too." I grunt, filling up the kettle while he watches me over the rim of his mug.
Behind me, his chair tips back onto two legs, even though I keep telling him it will end badly one day. "Didn’t fancy coming out for a few drinks last night?"
Brooke glances over from the hob. She's in Ewan’s clothes, a deep purple bonnet on her head, making scrambled eggs and bacon, though judging by the mixing bowl, cracked shells and butter wrapper scattered across the worktop, the kitchen's taken a fair beating to get there.
"Yeah," She thoughtfully adds. "I thought you were going to come?"
"Nah, I needed some sleep."
Ewan snorts. "Likely story. What happened? Did you bring a girl back?”
I lean against the counter while the kettle boils, folding my arms across my chest. “No.”
"Are you sure? You weren’t on the pull or anything?
" Ewan asks, grey eyes assessing me. He’s the only person who knows about my depression.
He also knows I’m nearly never on the pull.
Which means he’s trying to pry without seeming like he is.
Checking in on me. Making sure I’m okay.
I can’t get angry over it because no one else is.
"Nah." I shake my head. “Don’t be daft. I got into bed.”
"But you were awake when I came in at half-three?"
Jesus Christ. It’s like living with my parents still. I let out a sharp breath through my nose. "Yeah. I got roped into that Jack Bauer show."
“Twenty-four?”
“That’s the one.”
Brooke turns the heat down beneath the pan before scraping the eggs around it. "On your own?"
"Yeah."
"Oh? Haven’t you and Ruby been watching lots of stuff together?"
I pour the water over the teabag, watching it darken before answering. “Weren’t you out with Ruby last night?”
“Yeah.” Brooke nods. “But she left at midnight and said something about you, so I thought…”
Frowning, I look between them. "You thought what?"
Ewan smirks, his grey eyes avidly interested. “That you were alone… with Ruby.”
I glare at him "Don't fucking start any bullshit, Ewie."
He raises both hands innocently. "I’m just making sure you’re being honest."
Brooke slides the bacon onto a plate. "So, she didn’t come here?"
"No." I shrug, wrapping both hands around the mug. “She probably just went home.” Then a horrible thought occurs to me. “Wait, did you let her go home alone?”
Brooke shakes her head. “She left with her brother.”
“You’re sure?"
"Yeah. He seems a bit overprotective of her, wouldn’t let her leave without someone walking her back."
Too fucking right.
Brooke picks up the plate and brings it over to the breakfast bar. She slides one in front of Ewan, another onto the empty stool beside him and nods towards it. "Sit and eat. You're making me nervous."
“Thanks.” I carry my mug over before dropping onto the stool beside him. I've barely set it down before Ewan reaches across and pinches a rasher of bacon from my plate.
I slap his hand away, stealing the bacon back and dropping it on my plate again. "You thieving prick."
He only shrugs, reaching across again. "You snooze, you lose, mate."
“Get lost.”
“It was supposed to be mine anyway.”
“Ewie!” Brooke scolds. “You stole the last of my mum’s brown stew chicken last night. Now you’re stealing the food I made for Josh too!”
Ewan turns to her in mock outrage. “You offered me it!”
“I said you could have some.”
“And I’m saying you can have none.” I huff, shoving bacon into my mouth fast. “So shove off.”
Brooke shakes her head as she brings her own breakfast over, balancing a slice of toast on the edge of her plate before lowering herself onto the stool opposite us.
She tucks one leg underneath herself, reaches for the pepper and gives it a couple of twists over her eggs. "I really like Ruby. She’s lovely."
“Yeah.” I wholeheartedly agree. "She is."
On those words Ewan’s head snaps towards me. Brooke's hand stills halfway back to her plate, and the pair of them look at me like I've just announced I'm dropping out of uni to join the bloody circus.
I frown, looking between them. "What?"
Ewan has a smug smirk. "You like her."
"Oh, fuck off. I don't know her."
"Didn't say you knew her." He points his fork at me before helping himself to another mouthful of eggs, never taking his eyes off me. "I said you like her."
“Leave it out, I’ve known her about five minutes.”
“So what? That’s more than enough time. I knew I liked Brooke the moment I clapped eyes on her.” He reaches out and grazes the back of Brooke’s hand. “I fell in love with her within a week.”
He isn't lying either. I watched him fall headfirst. One minute we were getting ready for some house party, the next he wouldn't shut up about the ‘sexy black girl’ that he kissed there.
They've barely spent a day apart since. Might as well have her sewn into his fucking skin for all the time they spend apart.
"Yeah, well, that's you." I stab at my eggs with my fork. "You fall hard over fuck all."
"And?" Ewan demands.
"And I'm not you."
"No," he agrees around a mouthful of eggs. "You're much slower. In all aspects. Which only makes this all weirder, because normally you take a month to text someone back or spend time with and yet you willingly do both with Ruby.”
My phone buzzes on the counter. I reach for it automatically, but Ewan beats me to the notification, his eyebrows going way up to his hairline. "Hah! Did that just say Ruby?"
I shoot him a look before glancing at the screen.
RUBY (11.38): just had to run for my fucking life!!
Attached is a blurry photo of Bernardo charging across the grass, wings spread, neck stretched low, another student in the background looking terrified. I can't help it. A laugh escapes me, embarrassingly loudly.
"What?" Ewan’s leaning across, trying to see the screen. "What is it?"
"Nothing." I turn the phone face-down again, too late, because he's already caught enough of it to know it's a photo and not just a text.
"Nothing?" Ewan sputters, abandoning his breakfast. "You've just laughed. And that was a picture.”
"Is laughing a crime now?”
"Lemme see." He reaches for my phone.
I get there first, sliding it out of reach before he can snatch it. "No fucking way.”
"He's hiding it," Ewan announces to Brooke, as though she's somehow missed the exchange. “Reckon his football captain’s sister is sending him saucy pictures?”
Brooke glares at her boyfriend. “Stop it.”
He spins back to me. “Why are you hiding the picture?”
"Because I know what you're like."
My phone starts ringing then, vibrating across the breakfast bar hard enough to rattle against my mug. I eagerly snatch it up, hoping for Ruby and begging for it not to be Bonnie. The screen lights up with Dad, and the amusement I'd been trying to suppress disappears as quickly as it arrived.
Ewan notices it straight away, his eyes dancing between my face and the phone. "Everything alright?"
“Yeah." I answer too quickly, swiping to accept the call before it has chance to ring a third time. "Give us a minute."
I carry my mug into the hallway and pull the front door closed behind me, leaning against the brickwork outside as I lift the phone back to my ear. "Morning."
“Joshua." He says my name the same way he always does. Flat. Polite. Like we're colleagues who happened to answer the same conference call. "Just checking you've settled in. Your mother asked me to."
My mother could call me herself. "Yeah."
"And everything is in order?"
"Mmhm."
"So... you're fine?"
"Yep. I'm fine." Do I have any other choice?
"You haven't had one of your episodes yet?"
I close my eyes and suck in a calming breath. "You mean am I feeling depressed?"
He tuts. "You're still calling it that, are you? Depression?" A sigh crackles down the line. "You're eighteen now, Joshua. At some point you have to stop indulging it. You have to grow up."
I open my eyes and fight to keep my tone neutral. "What do you need, Dad?”
"I can tell you're in a mood."
Oh, fuck off. You egregious prick. “Am I?”
“Yes. You are. You know I won’t talk to you when you’re like this.”
“Like what?”
“This. All moody and emotional. It’s exhausting.”
I bow my head. “Sorry.”
“For the love of God. Please try and remember you’re there to get a degree, Joshua. Nothing else.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“It was hard enough after you gave up Oxford. Oxford! Josh, who does that? Don’t start fucking around whilst you’re there.”
“I understand.”
“I expect you to keep your head down and not make any more bad decisions.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from screaming down the phone.
The cheek of him.
I don't make poor decisions. I've never been arrested, never touched drugs, never been thrown out of school or wrapped my car around a tree because I was pissed behind the wheel. My one bad decision was being so wracked with grief after James, I turned down Oxford and deferred a year. That’s it. That’s all I did.
But nothing has ever been good enough for them.
I spent years doing everything I was supposed to do. I convinced myself that if I could just become enough of the son they wanted, enough like James, they'd stop hating me. And that if I shrunk myself after he died, they’d stop looking at me like the wrong twin survived.
They never did.
Dad hasn't said it since the funeral, but he doesn't have to. The words are layered into every single conversation we have, woven into every careful question about my mental state and every reminder not to embarrass the family.
If you weren't so emotionally volatile, this family wouldn't have been ripped apart.
He'd stood in our kitchen while Mum cried so hard she could barely breathe and delivered the sentence as calmly as if he were discussing the weather. She never told him he was wrong. She never looked at me at all.
My parents blame me for my twin’s suicide.
They think because I’m so emotional, James couldn’t forgive himself for sleeping with Bonnie. He couldn’t move past how it would wreck me. And in their heads, it means I’m the cause.
It's funny how quickly you can become the ghost in your own family when the person who's actually gone is the one everybody misses.
“I am keeping my head down,” I breathe out, though it’s considerably harder to breathe than it was ten minutes ago.
“Good.” There’s a long, suffering silence.
I force myself to ask, “How is mum?”
“Are you pretending to care about her wellbeing? Do you not think it might be too late?”
I will never understand what I did wrong. “I just want to know if she’s okay?”
“She is not your concern, as you have made very clear.”
“I—”
“No, Joshua. I will not indulge you anymore. You are an adult now. It’s time to start acting like it.”
When I woke up, the grey wolf of depression had been somewhere in the distance, wandering the edges of my mind where I could pretend it wasn't real.
Dad has always had a knack for whistling it back to my side, and now I can feel its breath against the back of my neck before I've even caught my breath.