Part 28 (1/2)

My eyes are half closed as I concentrate on turning the key in the lock. My whole body is ready to give up as I pull back the handle and swing the door open.

To find something that doesn't make sense. There's someone in the van- No, two someones.

I don't- ”f.u.c.k! Ruby!” It's Lee.

”s.h.i.+t!” Not Lee. Not Owen. Not a boy I know.

My brain hasn't yet processed what I'm seeing, but my body has decided that we're going to respond by running and I'm away from the van, darting between rows of cars, beyond the sight of my brother, who's shouting my name. I collapse against someone's car and press my face into my knees and try to think of something to block out what I've just seen.

My brain comes up with the faded photo that's up in the lounge it's of all of us, taken when we were kids: seven-year-old Ed and four-year-old Callum, toddler Lee, and baby me, sitting on the floor in front. I'm zooming in on us, me squidged up and giggling in Lee's lap as he tickles me. It's like we don't even know someone's taking a photo; we're too busy hanging out. When I think about family and what it means to have one, I think about Lee's expression in that picture.

That look is my definition of love.

”Ruby?”

Lee is someone I have always trusted. He is a flake and a s.h.i.+t-stirrer. An infuriating p.i.s.s-taker who can wind me up like no one else not even Callum. But he is Lee. He's the person I wanted to be when I grew up.

I feel like I'm the one he's cheated.

”Ruby? Where are you?”

Lee's close by and I clench my teeth to stop myself from letting out the slightest sound as my shoulders shake.

”Please...”

He steps into view beyond my hiding place, his skinny white torso almost luminous in the moonlight. His shorts are still undone.

”Ruby.” His voice is quiet enough that I wouldn't have heard him if I weren't so close. ”Please...”

For a second I think I might call out, but then the other boy steps into view. I don't know him. I don't want to. I wish I could unknow his very existence. He puts a hand on Lee's shoulder and murmurs something.

”What?” Lee brushes him off. ”Get a f.u.c.king clue. She's my sister, not my girlfriend.”

The boy takes a step back and I catch sight of his features in the moonlight. He looks like all the boys Lee fancied before he met Owen. Wide-eyed and boyish. Slim. Lee doesn't even try to stop him as he walks away, just turns in the opposite direction.

I don't know how long I wait before I stand up and start walking. Long enough for my tears to have dried on my skin. Time's moved on and the campsite's heaving because the arena's tipped out and I walk, careless of where I'm actually going, until I wind to a halt near a hedge and step out of the lights marking the path until I'm deep in darkness, where no one will notice me. I slide onto the gra.s.s.

I can't talk to Kaz.

I can't talk to Lee.

And Owen...

I could never lie to him and I can't tell him the truth. Guilt and sadness sweep over me and I think how pathetic this makes me when Owen's the only one who has a right to this pain.

Dimly, I realize that someone's standing near by.

”You all right, pet?”

I shake my head and will him to leave.

He doesn't. ”You shouldn't be here on your own. It's not safe.”

Glancing up, I see that he's old. Mid-thirties. Skin pink from the sun, eyes pink from booze. Or weed.

”Not safe from people like you?” I say.

He shakes his head. ”I'm not a crazy rapist. I've got chips.” He holds a cone of chips towards me.

”Crazy rapists eat chips too.”

The man shrugs and sits down a respectable distance from where I am. ”Well, I'm not crazy and I'm not rapey. I'll just sit here. You sit there and I'll watch out for the rapists. OK?”

”Thanks,” I say, and suddenly I'm pushed over the edge and I find myself sobbing into my hands, tears and snot squidging in the gaps between my fingers. He shuffles closer.

”I'm going to put an arm round you. Just shove me off if that's not OK.”

But I don't. I lean in and I let this kind stranger hold me in a one-armed hug as I cry onto his shoulder, letting out everything that hurts until I'm just a Ruby-shaped sh.e.l.l of a human.

When he offers me a chip again, I take it. And then another until I find that I've eaten most of them.

It feels better to be full of chips than to be full of shame.

”You should find your friends.” He folds the paper up and asks if there's someone I'd like to call. I tell him my phone has died.

”Use mine.” He hands it to me and waits. Of the three people whose numbers I know, it seems there's only one left I can call.

I'm beyond grateful when he answers and agrees to meet me at his camp. It isn't far from my hedge. The camp is dark and silent when I get there, right down to the figure standing by one of the tents. He doesn't move until I step into the circle.

”Ruby?” It is the voice Stu uses when there are no more games to be played.

”I have nowhere else to go.” I'm s.h.i.+vering and he steps closer, but not close enough to hold me.

”What's wrong? Have you had a fight with Kaz or something?”

I nod. A fight with silence instead of words.

”Lee?”

My body does a violent judder at the mention of my brother and Stu steps forward then, his hands clamping round the tops of my arms to hold me steady. I wish he would pull me closer.

”You can't just ring me on a stranger's phone, tell me you need me and expect me to come running.”