Chapter Thirty-Three #2
“What happened to you?” I burst out, frustration getting the better of me.
“Why do you do that? Why does every shitty thing I do somehow become something wrong with you?” I let go of her hands and turn to look out the window, trying to clamp down on my temper.
“I don’t get it.” Shaking my head, I blow out a frustrated breath.
“I disappear for two days and you think it’s because you’re not good enough.
I don’t want you meeting my parents and you think it’s because I prefer Bonnie.
I tell you I’m fucked in the head and somehow you hear that as me saying I don’t want you?
You haven’t done anything, Ruby. None of this is because of you. Why do you always, always think it is?”
“Josh,” Ruby’s voice is colder than I’ve ever heard it.
“Can you blame me? We had sex a week ago and now you’re ignoring me.
You tell me I’m your favourite person. You act like I’m important to you, and then the second it starts looking like an actual relationship you panic and pull away.
” She chews her bottom lip. “So yeah. Sometimes I think there must be something about me that isn’t enough for you. ”
“I can’t keep having this conversation, Rubes. We’ve had the same argument a million times. The issue is me, not you.”
“I know you keep saying that.”
“Because it’s the bloody truth!”
“Okay, but it doesn’t magically make me stop thinking it.”
I don’t know what else I can give her without saying things I’m nowhere near ready to say.
I know I keep behaving in ways that make every word sound like bullshit.
I can’t even blame her for not believing me anymore, but I need her to believe me.
Aren’t actions supposed to be louder than words?
Am I not showing her all the ways I care?
Ruby watches me for a few seconds before her shoulders sag and she looks away. “Right. Whatever. We’re going round in circles and I didn’t drive all the way here to argue with you about this again.”
I feel fucking awful at the resignation in her voice. “Rubes—”
“No, it’s fine.” She blows out a breath, rubbing both hands over her jeans before glancing towards the back seat.
“Well, it’s not fine, but I don’t want to do this tonight.
I came because I was worried about you and because I wanted to give you something.
” She reaches around to the back seat and pulls out a box wrapped in red glittery paper, Sellotaped so neatly I’m convinced she’s had help, then drops it into my lap.
I glance down at it. “What’s this?”
“Your Christmas present.”
I feel a million times worse. “You got me a Christmas present?”
“Well,” she waves a hand towards the box, “you got me fourteen. This only seems fair.”
“What is it?” I give it a little shake.
“That’s the point of opening it, Josh.” She reaches back again and pulls out another box, one I recognise as the last present I gave her.
“I brought mine too. I thought we could open them together and have our own little Christmas.” She glances towards the house.
“That’s why I wanted to go inside. I thought we could sit by the tree and have a bit of Christmas that’s just ours. ”
I look down at the red box in my lap in horror. “Holy shit, Ruby. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“For what?”
“I’m such a dick.”
“Well, yeah.” Her brows pinch together. “But why are you saying that?”
I drag my eyes to her. “You just wanted to spend Christmas with me?”
She nervously shuffles around in her seat.
“Kind of, yeah. But I guess we’re not there yet?
I didn’t think it would be an invasion of your privacy or whatever.
I didn’t really think at all, to be honest, but now that I’m sitting here, I think you were hinting fairly obviously that you didn’t want to see me. ”
I close my eyes and let my head fall back against the headrest. “I always want to see you.”
“You’ve got a really odd way of showing it.”
She’s going to get sick of you.
You’re a disappointment who keeps making her think you don’t want her.
Sooner or later she’s going to run for the hills, and it’ll be all your fault.
I press my lips together and keep my eyes squeezed shut. I’ve spent two days hiding from her because I was scared of exactly this happening, and all I’ve managed to do is give her another reason to doubt me.
Fucking genius.
“I wasn’t hinting that I didn’t want to see you,” I say, slowly opening my eyes and staring at the roof of her car. “I was being a miserable bastard and ignoring everyone.”
“I’m lumped in with everyone now?”
“No. Sorry.” I wince. I really am a useless prat.
“I should’ve answered you. Even if all I said was that I was having a shit couple of days and didn’t feel like talking.
” I rub my palms over my thighs, annoyed that something so basic only becomes obvious after I’ve fucked it up.
“Instead, I ignored you until you were worried enough to drive here on Christmas Eve.”
“Yeah, well… I was really worried about you.”
I look at her. “I’m sorry.”
“I mean really worried, Josh.” She fiddles with a loose bit of paper on her present.
“We slept together, you met my mum on the way home, and then you gave me the silent treatment and now I’ve shown up here, unannounced, trying to force a Christmas you don’t want on you.
” Her face drops into her hands. “This is humiliating.”
“I do want it.” I wrap my hands around her wrists and tug them gently until she looks at me. “I want the little Christmas with you. I won’t be getting one otherwise.”
She frowns. “What do you mean?”
I might as well give her some of the truth.
“My parents haven’t coped with James dying.
None of us have, really. I think I look too much like him.
They can barely be in the same room as me half the time.
They’re not here tomorrow either. They’ve booked some couples Christmas retreat thing, so they leave in the morning and come back in the New Year. ”
Ruby is stricken. “You’re spending Christmas alone? In that big house?”
I shrug. “It’s not a big deal.”
“How can they just leave you like that?”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind it.” Another lie, but I’m not quite ready to admit that one out loud.
“No way.” She slams her seatbelt back on and shoves her key into the ignition.
A nervous flutter runs through me. “What are you doing?”
“You’re coming back with me.”
“What? No way. You can’t kidnap me, and I’m not imposing on your poor mum.”
“Oh, please.” Ruby rolls her eyes, checking her wing mirrors.
“The woman lives for this shit. She’ll be ecstatic there’s someone else to gush over.
Oscar can’t complain because Emma showed up last year unannounced.
” She gives a firm nod, wrapping her hands around the steering wheel. “You’re spending the holidays with us.”
I stare at her. “Ruby, you can’t just decide to throw me at your family.”
“I bloody can.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Fine,” she growls, taking the key out of the ignition and turning the full force of her glare on me. “Either I spend it here with you, or you spend it at mine with me. What would you prefer?”
I look through the windscreen at the house again, then back at her. She’s serious, and she’s stubborn, and I know when she’s set her mind to something there is no reasoning with her. “You’d stay here?”
“If you won’t come with me, yeah.”
“Ruby, your mum would kill me.”
“My mum would kill me if I left you alone.”
“She doesn’t have to know I’m alone.”
“Joshua Hardy,” she snaps, finally losing her cool with me. “You have two options and only two. You either come and spend Christmas with us or I spend it with you. That’s it. Pick one.”
I grapple with it, half tempted to point out that neither option involves her going home and having the Christmas she planned with her family, which feels massively fucking unfair, but I also know what she’ll say.
She’ll tell me it’s her choice. Then she’ll probably start the car and drag me back to hers by force if I argue much longer.
Selfishly, a week alone in the house with her sounds like a dream.
No parents, no Oscar hovering, no Ewan taking the piss, no lectures or football or anyone else pulling at either of us.
Just Ruby here with me, sleeping in my bed, wandering around the kitchen in one of my hoodies, filling every room with noise until this place feels less like a museum I happen to have grown up in.
But she has a family waiting for her. A mum who probably has half of tomorrow planned down to the minute, Oscar being annoying, Emma there, presents, food, all of it.
She has people who actually want her there, and the thought of her missing any of that because I’m selfish would make me hate myself more than I do.
I’ve taken up enough space in people’s lives by being difficult.
I’m not taking the Hollis’ Christmas too.
“I’ll come to yours.” I tell her. “Let me go and pack a bag.”
Ruby beams at me. “Excellent choice.”
I start to get out the car, pausing when I’m stood on the gravel of the road. “We’ll need to find a shop so I can get your mum some kind of present.”
Ruby leans over the gearstick. “She loves this bottle of red you can get from Asda. We’ll go there.”
“Great.” I close the door and turn, striding towards the house, feeling like I’m massively imposing but desperate to spend more time with Ruby.