Chapter Twenty-Two
Friday
Ruby:
I’ve been avoiding Josh and it’s starting to grate.
The rejection after we nearly kissed hurt more than I realised it would, and the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that Bonnie is the reason.
He reacts to her too strongly for there to be nothing there, and maybe that’s why he can’t give me anything more, why he keeps insisting friendship is all he has to offer.
Every day since that night, I’ve been with Brooke and Abi, and it feels awful to admit, but watching Gossip Girl with them doesn’t feel the same as watching Game of Thrones with him.
I like being with them, I do, and they make me laugh and fill the silence and stop me from sitting alone in my room thinking too much, but there’s still this constant awareness that he isn’t there, and I hate how much I feel his absence.
Tonight he’s got training and then he’s off out with the football lot. I know because Cam told me they haven’t seen much of him either, that Josh has been hiding from them too, and they’ve decided the solution is to force him into staying out whether he likes it or not.
Cam and Oscar have sort of taken him under their wing and he fits in with them, which should make me happy because he’s making friends and settling in and doing exactly what we’re all supposed to be doing here, except a horrible little part of me doesn’t care about any of that because I want my friend back.
I feel like I’m cracking at the seams over all of it, full of this restless energy with nowhere to put it, and if I sit in my room for another hour pretending I’m interested in whether Blair Waldorf should forgive Chuck Bass, I’m going to start climbing the walls.
Which is why, at nine p.m. on Friday, three weeks after Josh declared me nothing more than a friend, I decide to go for a jog.
Oscar’s always been good at every sport ever invented, annoyingly so, but I’ve only ever enjoyed the self-defence classes Mum forced me into, and running.
We are not a sporty duo. I’m too clumsy, too easily distracted and far too likely to trip over nothing, but I do like running, especially at night when campus is quieter and there aren’t people everywhere.
Oscar hates it and has spent years telling me that going out alone after dark is basically me “asking for trouble”, but trouble has never found me before and, honestly, I’m so wound up tonight I reckon I’d bounce straight off it.
I pull on my leggings, shove my hair into a ponytail and leave Brooke and Abi arguing about the morality of Chuck Bass, with Brooke calling, “Don’t get murdered!” after me as I shut the door.
Outside, it’s stopped raining, but the pavement is still slick and little puddles have gathered along the kerb. I pull my sleeves over my hands, stretch one leg for all of about two seconds, do the other out of obligation and decide that’ll have to do before setting off.
My first few strides feel clunky and uncoordinated while my ponytail smacks against my shoulder blades with every step.
After a minute or two my body settles into it, my breathing gets heavier, my calves start working properly and it feels good to be doing something after days of sitting around pretending I’m not waiting for a text that never comes.
By the time I reach the main path of the pond there’s a stitch threatening beneath my ribs, but I keep going hoping I can get five minutes of not thinking about Josh.
I think about him laughing with Cam, about Bonnie, about the way he looked at me when I crawled between his legs, and then about him calling me his friend and how stupidly, painfully lonely the last few weeks have felt without him.
It’s odd to me how little I’ve been depressed since getting here.
I’ve barely had any episodes, and it feels like my life is finally going in the direction I wanted it to.
For once, I’m enjoying things. I like my course, I like my friends, I’m going out and reading again and doing things because I actually want to do them.
I like my life.
I’ve even started reading properly again.
Books have always been somewhere I could disappear into, but romance became unbearable for a while because reading about people falling in love when I could barely get through the day only made me feel worse, whereas in the last two weeks alone I’ve read six different books and enjoyed them.
I run harder. I would really love for my brain to shut the fuck up.
I must run a little too hard because as I round the corner by the pond and tiny section of trees, a cramp shoots through my calf so sharply I nearly trip over my own foot.
I hiss through my teeth and slow to a limp, heading towards the wooden bench near the bit of grass Bernardo usually patrols, then plant one hand on the backrest and stretch my leg behind me until the muscle starts to loosen.
The cramp is almost gone when I hear a man talking somewhere close by, his voice slurred and irritated. “Why have you gone all cold?” he demands. “You were all over me in there.” I turn towards the pond, then the trees, trying to place the voice. “Kiss me again.”
“No,” a girl answers, her voice small and shaky. “Please. I just want to go home.”
“Don’t be such a fucking tease. I know you want it.”
“Please,” she cries. “Please let me go.”
My stomach drops so quickly I feel sick. “Hello?” I call loudly. “Is anyone there? Do you need help?”
“Sod off,” the man snaps back.
I follow the sound of their voices away from the main path, twigs cracking beneath my trainers as I move towards the little green cut-through between the two big bushes.
“Can you hear me?” I call to her. “Are you okay?”
“She’s fine,” another male voice calls. “She doesn’t need help.”
There are two of them? Oh shit.
I’m alone, it’s dark and nobody knows exactly where I am, but the girl whimpers again and I know I can’t leave her here.
I move closer until the shapes in the darkness start to separate and I can finally see her backed against the trunk of the willow tree with her arms folded tightly over her chest, one man right in front of her with his hand clamped around her elbow, while the other stands a few feet behind him.
She looks young, maybe my age, and so utterly frightened.
“Are you okay?” I ask her, not paying the men any mind.
She shakes her head so hard her hair sticks across her wet cheeks. “They won’t let me go!”
I look at the two men. “Get away from her.”
“Mind your own business,” the first one spits.
“She’s my mate,” the other adds, even though the girl immediately shakes her head again.
I take another step forward, making sure they can see that I’m not leaving. “She just said she wants to go home.”
“Will you fuck off?” the first man snarls, his hand tightening around her arm. “We told you she doesn’t need help.”
The girl tries to duck beneath his other arm, but he moves with her and cuts her off, while the second man turns towards me with this horrible smile and starts stalking over.
I force myself to look at him while I still can, taking in the dark brown hair, blue eyes, stubble, black jacket and jeans, because if this gets worse I’m remembering his fucking face.
“Have you come to join us?” He slurs, closing the distance between us. “You want in on the fun?”
“No fucking way!” I scream.
“Will you keep it down?” He reaches me and grabs my arm before I can step back, but instinct takes over and I twist hard against his thumb the way I was taught, wrenching myself free with enough force that he stumbles backwards.
A ridiculous little burst of pride shoots through me before he catches himself and comes straight back towards me, making it very clear that whatever confidence I got from breaking his grip was wildly premature.
“Don’t be a bitch,” he hisses, converging on me. “Four is a party.”
Before I can open my mouth, he lunges, both arms wrapping around my chest and pinning my back against his chest before he drives me into the tree.
My cheek smashes against the trunk hard enough that pain bursts through the whole side of my face and my vision swims. For one harrowing, horrible stretch of time everything becomes sound—the scrape of bark against my skin, his breath right beside my ear, the girl crying somewhere behind us, the other man shouting something I can’t make out.
No.
No, this cannot be another thing that happens to me.
I don’t know whether the thought makes me angry or whether my body is simply doing what it was trained to do, but I stop thinking altogether and stamp my heel down onto his foot as hard as I can.
He swears and his hold loosens, which gives me room to slam my elbow backwards into him, then again when he tries to tighten his arms, until his body curls slightly behind mine and I manage to wrench myself sideways.
My head goes back with the movement and connects with his face, hard enough that pain bursts through my skull, but he finally lets go and stumbles away from me with both hands flying upwards.
I don’t get to see where I’ve hit him because the other man is coming straight towards me.
“Run!” I shout at the girl. “He’s no longer got you!”
But she is frozen in place, like a deer in headlights, frozen through her terror.
The first man is shouting about teaching me a lesson and when he gets to me he swings one arm so wildly I throw both forearms up over my face.
His fist crashes into them instead, sending pain shooting towards my elbows, but all I can think is that Mum paid a fortune for those self-defence classes and I’m finally getting her money’s worth, because before he can draw his arm back I punch him straight in the nose.
His head jerks backwards and both his hands fly to his face, blood appearing between his fingers. I bring my knee up between his legs, getting him straight in the bollocks.