Chapter Thirty-Six
Saturday
Joshua:
Ruby tried to kill herself.
The words have been going around and around my head since I heard them come out of Oscar’s mouth, getting louder every time they repeat. Ruby tried to kill herself when she was sixteen. Oscar found her. Oscar has panic attacks because he found his twin half-dead on the floor.
Oscar nearly became me.
I’m halfway down a road I don’t recognise, still in tartan pyjama bottoms with my coat thrown over the top and trainers shoved onto bare feet, and I realise I have no idea where the fuck I’m going.
Ruby nearly became James.
I pull my phone out and ring a taxi, giving the driver the name of the cemetery when he asks where I’m going.
I need to see James. I need to talk to him.
I need to clear my head, get rid of the sheer terror running through me.
He would make it better. He would know what to say, or at least he would if he was still here.
Fucking hell.
I still think of him like someone I can go to when my anxiety is trying to cut my air off, when the grey wolf has my throat in a vice-like grip and I can’t think straight.
Three years later and some part of me still expects James to be the person who knows how to pull me out of my own head, even though he’s the reason so much of it is fucked in the first place.
The taxi pulls up ten minutes later and I spend the journey staring out of the window, barely registering anything we pass.
The driver tries to make conversation once, something about Boxing Day traffic, but I give him a vague grunt and he thankfully gets the message.
By the time we reach the cemetery my breathing has settled, but my head hasn’t.
I pay, climb out and make my way across the wet grass without bothering to avoid the puddles.
The cemetery is almost empty, just a few people scattered between graves with flowers and umbrellas, and I keep my head down until I reach the row I know too well.
James’s stone is dark from the rain, fresh white roses sitting at the base, probably Mum’s, and seeing his name carved there still does the same horrible thing it always does.
I stand in front of him with my hands shoved into my coat pockets, staring at the stone until I feel stupid for coming.
“Alright, mate.” My voice sounds wrong out here, too loud and too small at the same time, and I scrub a hand over my mouth before letting out a breath.
“I’ve had a fucking morning, I can tell you that for free.
” I duck my head a bit. “I met someone.” I look down at his name and huff out a laugh.
“You’d take the piss out of me for saying it like that, but I have.
Her name’s Ruby and she is a complete fucking nightmare.
Talks constantly, joins things because she thinks it’ll be funny, argues over nothing, forces me into social situations I’d rather avoid and somehow makes me go along with it anyway.
” I swallow thickly, rubbing my thumb against the seam inside my pocket.
“She makes me feel things again, which I wasn’t planning on.
I was doing a decent job of not feeling much before her. ”
I crouch down, then give up and sit on the wet grass. I don’t care what I look like anymore. Who is going to judge me here?
“I think I love her,” I admit out loud. “No, fuck that, I do love her. I’m crazy about her.
I don’t even know when it happened, but I am so madly in love with that girl, James.
Completely fucking gone on her. Which is really fucking scary.
I haven’t known what to do with loving anyone since you died.
Then this morning I found out she tried to kill herself when she was sixteen and her brother found her half-dead on the floor. ”
My chest goes all funny and I press my hands together between my knees.
“Oscar nearly became me, James. He nearly had to live the same fucking life I do. He nearly had to wake up every morning knowing his twin was gone and replay every conversation and every argument and every stupid thing he should’ve noticed.
Except he got there in time. She lived.”
I look up at the stone, anger and grief tangling together until I can’t tell which one hurts more.
“And I’m jealous of him. How fucked is that?
I’m jealous because he found his twin after she tried to die and she lived.
He got to keep her. He gets to be overprotective and annoying and lose his shit if she doesn’t text back because she is there for him to be overprotective of. ”
I watch as an old couple walk past, and then I train my eyes back to the grey grave.
“I didn’t get to keep you.” I stop, feeling the words wrecking me from the inside out, my whole body shivering violently.
“I should have got to you in time and I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t.
I’m so sorry I let you down.” I suck in a breath and blow it back out.
“That doesn’t mean I’m letting you off the hook, by the way.
I’m still angry with you, you know. Everyone talks about grief like eventually it becomes this faded thing, as if you get to a point where you only remember the good bits and smile about them, but half the time I’m still fucking furious.
You didn’t give me a chance. You decided I wouldn’t forgive you for Bonnie, decided I’d hate you, decided Mum and Dad would be better off, decided all of it on your own and then left me here to deal with the fallout. ”
My eyes sting and I press my palms into them until I see stars, holding the tears back.
I drag in four slow breaths, then knot my hands in front of me once I’m sure I’m not going to fall apart.
“I would’ve forgiven you. I would’ve been furious and I probably would’ve punched you and I don’t know what would’ve happened after that, but I would’ve forgiven you because you were my brother.
You were my twin. There was nothing you could’ve done that would’ve made me want this.
I never, ever would have chosen this. Life without you is fucking unbearable, James.
It’s killing me and I’ve no idea what to do with all the pain. ”
I lean forward, elbows on my knees, staring at the grass between my trainers.
“Dad thinks maybe if I’d been less difficult, less emotional, less fucking volatile about things, you wouldn’t have thought I’d never forgive you.
Mum doesn’t say it, but she doesn’t exactly say he’s wrong either.
And maybe I was hard work. Maybe I gave you reasons to think I’d lose my shit.
But you were supposed to know me better than that.
You were supposed to know I’d choose you. ”
Ruby’s face comes straight into my head then, asking if I’m coming back, and guilt claws up my spine.
“She thought I was leaving her this morning. I could see it in her face. She told me all of this and instead of making her feel safe I made her think I didn’t know her anymore.
And the thing is, I do know her. I know she talks when she’s nervous and jokes when she’s upset.
I know she hates people treating her like she’s fragile.
I know she loves Oscar and her mum so much it drives her mental.
I know she’ll argue with me over anything and then steal my clothes five minutes later.
I know she thinks happy endings are real even after everything that’s happened to her.
And I know she loves me. I can feel her love for me as if it’s a real physical thing.
It’s like Ruby reached in that dark, frantic part of me and put her hand on it, soothing it out.
I had no idea being loved could do that. ”
I sit with that for a bit, letting it settle, letting the fuzzy feeling in my brain calm.
“How the fuck am I supposed to do this, mate? How am I supposed to love someone when I know what it feels like to lose them? How am I supposed to hear she nearly died and not spend the rest of my life waiting for it to happen again? How the fuck does Oscar do it?”
The words make me think about everything I’ve spent the last three years avoiding.
“I don’t know how to move on from you. I mean, I fucking hate that phrase.
It makes it sound like I’m supposed to leave you behind, like eventually you become this sad thing that happened when I was sixteen and not my literal fucking twin.
I don’t know. Maybe I just have to move forward with you in there and me up here.
” I wrap my fingers around my thumb and push, hoping to ease the pain in my heart.
“Maybe I’m allowed to love her and miss you at the same time.
Maybe wanting a future doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten yours ended.
Maybe being in love with her means I’m not a totally selfish bastard. What do you think?”
I breathe in slowly and let the cold air fill my lungs.
“She makes me want one, by the way. A future. I’d sort of given up on the idea of getting one and was plugging through every day.
But now?” I laugh, shaking my head at myself.
“Now, I want to go back to uni because she’ll be there.
I want New Year’s Eve and stupid parties and football and breakfast and whatever other ridiculous shit she drags me into.
I want to see what happens next. I want a life with her.
I want to grow old, and have kids with her, and watch her achieve all her dreams. I want to be standing next to her when she does great things with her life. I want her to know I choose her.”
I stare at James for a long time before finally saying the thing I came here to say.
“I just don’t know how to have that life without feeling like I’m leaving you behind.
She’ll never meet you. Never know you. The only way I can keep you alive is by telling her about you, and I simply can’t fucking do it.
You know me, I clam up. I make a hash of everything.
I’m pretty sure she doesn’t even know I feel all these things because I can’t just say it.
” Reaching forward, I trace his name with my index finger.
“I really need you, and it would be great if you could give me a sign that you’re knocking about. Watching over me or whatever.”
Pulling back and wrapping my arms around my knees, I hold my breath, waiting for some kind of indication that he’s here. People always say it happens to them, but it hasn’t happened to me. Not once.
Time passes slowly, the graveyard empties, and no special bird flies over my head, no magic rainbow appears in the sky, no plant pot falls at my feet.
I don’t really know how long I stay sitting in front of him, but the cold eventually works its way through the damp grass and into my legs, and my hands have started to ache from being clenched together between my knees.
I’m staring at James’s name when I hear footsteps on the path behind me, slow and careful over the wet gravel, and I assume it’s someone cutting through until they stop close enough that I can feel the presence of another person before I look up.
Bonnie is standing there holding a bunch of white roses. She’s wearing her cream coat she’s had forever and a little brown bobble hat.
My eyes move from the flowers in her hands to the ones sitting at the base of James’s grave. “Holy shit, Bon. The flowers are yours?”
Bonnie glances down at the roses already there. “Yeah.”
I get to my feet and brush wet grass from the back of my pyjama bottoms. “I thought Mum brought them.”
She shakes her head, giving an apologetic shrug. “She doesn’t. Your parents never come here.”
“But you do?”
Bonnie crouches and takes the older flowers away, replacing them with the fresh ones.
I watch her straighten the stems and clear a bit of mud from the edge of the stone.
“I come at least once a week. Sometimes every day if I really need to talk to him.” When she stands again, she keeps her eyes on James. “Can we talk?”
My first instinct is to tell her no. Ruby is back at her house thinking I’ve walked out because I found out she nearly died. I should leave. I should go back to her. I should do anything except open another door I’ve spent years trying to keep shut.
But Bonnie has been coming here for three years and there’s so much we need to lay to rest. Maybe when I do, I can stop feeling so fucking insane.
I look at James’s name, then at her, and let out a long low breath.
“Yeah.” I nod. “We can talk.”