Chapter Six
Joshua
I was striding a few feet behind Alex as he was on his phone with his dad. Well, I’m guessing it’s his dad because of his tone and the constant sarcastic remarks.
He might be an asshole, but he didn’t speak to anyone like that apart from his dad, step mum and half-brother. Those three, he had absolutely no respect for, which to me was fair.
Hell, that was how I speak to my own dad, not that I do. I’d rather not. Speaking to him ruins my whole week. The only thing that actually makes life worth living is having a friend like Alex.
God forbid I say that out loud to him. And…
There she is.
Sitting under a tree with another girl, sunlight cutting through the leaves and lying across her face like the world had been built to showcase her.
I slowed without meaning to. My chest tightened, pulled taut, when I saw her mouth curve.
She was smiling.
Not the fake, tight ones she gave teachers. Not the polite, quick ones she gave strangers to avoid confrontation. This one was unguarded. Real. Like it had slipped out of her before she could cage it. It suited her.
Fuck. It suited her.
I stopped breathing for a second, just staring, watching how that smile shifted her whole face, softer, brighter, alive. It was new.
That smile had nothing to do with me. It was the girl, with her easy chatter and open kindness, who pulled it out of her.
Not me.
Never me. Of course it wasn’t me. Someone like me doesn’t get to make anyone happy. My hands only know how to take, how to ruin, how to push until there’s nothing left but broken edges.
What the hell could I possibly offer her?
What could I ever give that wouldn’t cut her open?
Still, still, some sick, selfish part of me wanted it. Wanted her happiness, her softness, her everything, mine. Even if I didn’t deserve it. Especially because I didn’t. Dreaming about things I can’t have.
Typical.
Always craving the impossible, like her smile could ever be meant for me.
Apart from her smiling, I noticed something else.
She was eating.
A sandwich in her hands, taking small, careful bites while the chatterbox beside her was going on and on, probably not taking any breathers between sentences. I’d never seen her eat before, not like this at least.
Aurora ate like she breathed: quietly, invisibly, barely noticeable. Usually, it was fruit tucked between classes, or some heavy drink she nursed for hours, like it was enough to trick her body into fullness. But a proper meal? Sitting there with bread, meat, and lettuce, all of it? No. Never.
No wonder she was so tiny. Five-five, and yet she looked smaller somehow. Fragile, breakable, as if one strong gust could sweep her away.
I never knew if it was her bone structure, if she was naturally small or if she was malnourished. Starving herself. Or maybe she couldn’t afford it.
My jaw clenched.
Is she not taking care of herself at home?
Is she overworking and forgot to eat, or can she just simply not afford it?
Aurora Mae Campbell. The first and only student Silverwood University ever handed a scholarship to. Silverwood doesn’t do scholarships, not for anyone. But for her?
The genius from England?
They bent their own rules. Because she’s brilliant. The way she thinks, the way her mind works, it elevates this place. Makes it shine. She drags the requirements higher just by existing, by breathing their air. She makes it harder for everyone else, forces smarter blood into these halls.
All this from the age of seventeen.
It’s not really about the tuition. Not here. If you’ve got money, enough money, you can pay your way into any place you want. No, the cost of Silverwood isn’t just dollars. It’s intellect. It’s excellence. And she has it.
But brilliance doesn’t put food on the table. Intelligence doesn’t fill an empty stomach.
If she’s the girl holding up the reputation of this entire university, if she’s the one they pinned their pride on, why the fuck is she sitting under a tree, eating a sandwich like it’s her first proper meal in weeks?
The thought coils tight in my chest, ugly and hot. Because if Silverwood won’t take care of her… if no one else will notice… then it’s me.
Always me.
I tore my eyes away before any of them could notice me watching. But the image was carved already, burned into the inside of my skull.
Aurora, smiling. Not for me. Never for me. And yet I’d spend the rest of the night imagining it was.
“Fuck.” My attention shifted back to Alex, who was seconds away from throwing his phone on the floor as if having a conversation with his dad was so bad that he had to get a new phone.
“You good?” I finally spoke, catching up to him.
“Ivory wants to send Dylan here, and Dad requested to put him in my damn class.” He clutched his phone so tightly that I swear, I heard a crack. Maybe it was his phone, maybe his hand, who knows?
“It’s only November, he won’t be here anytime soon,” I said, trying to calm him down, but then again, I know nothing can extinguish Alex’s fire.
“Lexi.” A soft voice cut in behind us.
Alex dragged his hand down his face and turned, annoyance flaring then melting away at the sound of her.
“I told you not to call me that. It’s embarrassing.” The edge was gone; something warmer took its place. Not soft exactly, but not the usual cold either.
“You call me Blondie, so we’re even.”
“You’re blond.”
“So?” She grinned. “Joshy—”
“Nope.” I shook my head, walking over to my car.
Jennie can call Alex whatever she wants, Lexi or whatever, but I refuse to be her fucking Joshy.
I leaned against the driver’s side door, listening as they kept bantering, Jennie’s laugh bright and constant, Alex’s responses clipped but gentler now.
Alex doesn’t do gentle, but for her? It comes out almost naturally; even when he’s in a really bad mood, he can’t seem to not be soft with her.
She—by a landslide—is his favourite girl.
My hand wrapped around the car door handle, ready to shut the day out, but something pulled me back. Just one last glance.
She was still there under the tree, shoulders tucked in, listening intently, nodding along to whatever that girl was saying. Still smiling, still the only person I see among the crowd.
I slipped into the driver’s seat, jaw tight. The engine roared to life, but the sound barely touched the noise in my head. That smile was carved there now, whether I wanted it or not. And I hated it. I wanted it. Both at once.
—
I got home, the city still buzzing under my windows, and tossed my keys onto the counter. I decided to go through my phone and saw a message from the group chat.
The soccer one.
Mark: Where’s the kick-off party this year? Who’s hosting?
I scoffed under my breath, thumb hovering over the screen. Every damn season, the same question. And every damn season, I ignored it.
I didn’t host, I didn’t show up, I didn’t waste my time getting drunk with idiots who could barely hold their own in practice.
My place isn’t a playground for drunk idiots to spill their cheap beer on the marble floors. But the thought kept gnawing at me.
What if she came?
Aurora Campbell.
In my space.
The image hit fast and filthy. She’d walk in dressed differently, looser, freer, maybe her little friend would drag her into something she doesn’t normally wear.
A skirt too short, a neckline too low. She’d look out of place in the noise, and still she’d shine, every pair of eyes locked on her, but none of them mattered because she’d be in my space.
What if she stayed late? What if the crowd cleared, and it was just her and me, her notebook nowhere in sight because there’d be no one left to save her from me, no excuse to hide behind ink and paper?
My skin crawled just imagining it, my chest tightening, heat rising under my collar until I could barely breathe.
I want her.
Enough to offer up my house.
Enough to drag myself out of my carefully built walls.
Enough to break every fucking rule I live by. For her.
I stared at the words I’d sent in the chat.
Me: I’ll host.
The replies started rolling in instantly, cheers, exclamation marks, people losing their shit like I just agreed to sell them my soul. But I wasn’t paying attention to any of it. All I saw was the possibility.
Her. Here.
I leaned back, sinking deeper into the couch, one arm over my eyes, the other resting over my legs. My mind wandered far.
Filthy. Dirty. Her.
Who the hell have I become? I thought and hated the answer before it could even form.
I admitted it to myself like a sin: I want her.
I want her so badly I’ll burn down everything I’ve built to keep her near me.
I want the small, private things nobody else gets to see.
The way she eats, the way she fidgets, the tiny noises she makes when she’s concentrating.
I want her voice to say my name because I blossomed her silence into something monstrous and beautiful in my head.
But the part of me that still breathed knew the line. I wouldn’t cross it.
Not in the world.
Not without her choice.
In reality, I’d be careful—cold and patient if I had to be—because the only thing I’d learnt for certain was that I break what I hold too tight. If she gave me anything, it must be because she wanted to, not because I took it.
I’d make the party happen, and I’d wait for consent at the door.
I was a mess. But patient enough. And I didn’t care how ugly the wanting was, I would have her, one way or another, but only if she wanted it, too.