Chapter Thirty-Three Aurora
Chapter Thirty-Three
Aurora
The room was still dim when I opened my eyes.
For a second, I didn’t know where I was. The sheets under me were soft, warm, too warm. The scent in the air was faintly familiar. Soap. Mint. Something sharp and clean that wasn’t mine.
Then I turned my head.
Joshua.
He was on the floor.
Head resting against the edge of the bedside table, one arm bent awkwardly, still dressed in the same clothes he’d worn last night. Still wet. His shirt clung to his shoulders, his sweatpants dark and stiff with dried water.
He didn’t even move when I shifted.
Didn’t flinch. Didn’t wake. Just breathed.
My chest tightened.
My throat did that thing again, the thing it does right before tears.
Why?
Why did he do this?
Why would he pull me out, carry me here, stay on the floor all night when he could’ve just left?
It hurts.
It hurts to look at him. Because the same hands that hurt me were now the same ones that saved me. The same voice that broke me was the one whispering I was safe.
And I didn’t know what to do with that.
I didn’t know how to feel.
My fingers brushed over the cast. The ache was dull now, but it pulsed every few seconds, like my body was reminding me who put it there.
A small sob slipped out before I could stop it. Quiet. Barely a sound.
A tear fell, hit the blanket, and spread into a tiny dark spot.
Then another.
Then another.
He hurt me.
And then he hurt himself to make sure I was okay.
He was confusing.
He was tiring.
One moment, he was cruel enough to make me want to disappear.
Next, he was gentle enough to make me stay.
Does he care or not?
Does he even know what he’s doing?
I pulled my knees up, holding them close, trying to quiet my shaking breath.
Because watching him change again and again was exhausting. And I didn’t know if I wanted to keep hoping for the version of him that was soft, if the cruel one would always find a way to come back.
I slid off the bed slowly, the floor cold against my knees. My cast knocked against the wood, but I didn’t care. The blanket dragged with me, heavy and warm.
He was still sleeping, if you could even call it that. He looked too uncomfortable to be having a good rest.
I swallowed hard and reached for him, pulling the blanket over his shoulders. The fabric slipped from my hand a few times because I was shaking so much, but I kept trying.
He stirred.
Eyes opening, slow and confused.
“Aurora…?” his voice came out rough, like gravel.
I froze. My fingers were still clutching the blanket near his neck.
He blinked up at me, and when he realised what I was doing, trying to cover him, he sat up quickly, catching the edge of the blanket before it could fall again.
“Hey,” he whispered, almost panicked, “stop—”
“S-stop,” I choked out before he could.
My voice cracked on the word, the stutter clawing its way out of my throat.
“S-stop—please.”
The last word barely made it out.
My vision blurred, breath coming out shaky and small.
He just stared at me, eyes wide, like I’d hit him harder than any of the punches from last night.
I hated the way he looked at me. Like he was sorry. Like he cared. Because that’s the problem, isn’t it?
He does care.
Sometimes.
And then he doesn’t.
And it’s breaking me in ways I can’t explain.
I could feel him move closer, just barely, but he didn’t touch me.
His eyes softened immediately. There was no coldness there, no sharp edge, no control. Just… guilt.
He ran a hand down his face, exhaling shakily. “I didn’t mean it,” he said quietly, voice almost hoarse. “I swear to God, Aurora, I didn’t.”
I froze, my breath catching.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head bowed as if the weight of the words hurt to hold. “That day on the field—I wasn’t aiming for you. I wasn’t trying to hit you. I just…” He stopped, jaw tightening, trying to find the words. “I wanted your attention.”
My heart twisted.
He let out a humourless laugh, one that cracked halfway through.
“You were right there, but you weren’t looking at me.
You were looking at them. Jennie, Alex… anyone but me.
And I—” he broke off again, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead.
“I just wanted to be in your line of sight. To have you see me the way I’ve been seeing you since day one. ”
I didn’t move.
Couldn’t.
His voice was low now, shaking as if he were forcing every word through his teeth.
“I didn’t mean to hit you, Aurora. I swear I didn’t. When it hit your arm, when you—” he stopped again, shaking his head. “I froze. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to run to you, but I couldn’t move. Because I knew what you’d think of me. I knew I’d just given you the perfect reason to hate me.”
He looked up finally. Eyes red, rimmed with exhaustion. “And you should. You should hate me. I keep trying to stop myself, to not want to be near you, but I don’t know how. Every time I try, I end up doing something worse. I didn’t know how to ask for it without ruining it. Without losing you.”
He laughed again, quiet and broken. “Didn’t even know how not to get attached.”
The room was too quiet.
My throat hurt.
He rubbed his hands together, looking down again. “I wanted you to look at me, that’s all. Not Miles. Not anyone else. Just me.”
And in that moment, it wasn’t Joshua Lockhart, captain, heir, arrogant, cruel.
It was just a boy.
When he finally spoke again, it wasn’t cold. It wasn’t even defensive. It was wrecked.
“When you fell into that pool…” his voice cracked mid-sentence, barely a whisper, “I—I saw her again.”
My breath hitched.
He dragged in a deep breath, knuckles whitening against his knees.
“My mum. The night of the accident… she was soaked. It was raining so hard I couldn’t tell if it was water or blood on her.
And when you slipped under—” he stopped, swallowing hard, eyes glassy.
“You didn’t even fight it. You just…let go. Like she did.”
His throat bobbed, and for a second, he couldn’t talk. The sound he made next was closer to a plea than a confession.
“I can’t—I can’t watch that again, Aurora. I can’t lose another woman who”—he exhaled through his teeth, voice shaking—“who makes everything else feel less fucking heavy. Who makes this”—he gestured to himself, his chest, his head—“a little less unbearable.”
I blinked. Once. Twice. My heart was doing something painful and confusing at the same time.
He kept going, quieter now, words trembling out of him. “You’re the only thing that shuts it off. The noise. The anger. The—whatever the hell’s wrong with me.”
He laughed once, but it sounded hollow. “And I know I don’t deserve you near me.
I know I’m the reason you’re hurting, that you flinch when I move, that I’m the fucking villain in your story.
But when I pulled you out of that water, I swear to God, Aurora, it felt like the world stopped for a second.
I thought”—his voice dropped, breaking completely— “I thought I lost you.”
He looked up finally, eyes red, guilt, and fear written all over him.
“I don’t ever want to see another body go still in front of me,” he whispered. “Not hers. Not yours.”
And in that moment, everything in me went quiet.
I was looking at a son still haunted, still drowning and terrified of losing the only person who made him feel like breathing was worth it again.
I just stared at him.
Not blinking. Not breathing. Not moving.
His words were still echoing in my head like the sound of a dropped glass that just wouldn’t stop shattering.
When you fell into that pool… I saw her again.
I can’t lose another woman who makes this less unbearable.
It didn’t make sense. None of it did.
All this time—
All those words, the humiliation, the way he cornered me, scared me, made me hate walking into that field, and underneath it all was… care?
My fingers tightened on the blanket, my chest rising and falling too fast. I couldn’t look at him anymore, but I couldn’t not look either.
He was sitting there, soaked in regret, looking more human than I’ve ever seen him. And I hated that part of me, the one that felt sorry for him. The one who wanted to understand him.
Because how do you even process that?
That the boy who broke you only did it because he was scared of losing you? That instead of asking to be your friend, he chose to make you flinch. Instead of being gentle, he chose to hurt first because he didn’t want to be the one hurting later.
My throat burned.
He… cared?
This entire time, he—what? Watched me? Wanted to be near me? Wanted me to see him?
It was like everything tilted sideways.
Maybe that was why he never let anyone close.
Maybe that was why every time I tried to step forward, he shoved harder, said crueller things, because if I got too close, he would have to admit it, to me, to himself.
And maybe that was why he looked so broken now, like caring about me was something that was killing him and keeping him alive at the same time.
I hated that realisation.
I hated the warmth crawling up my throat; the ache blooming in my chest.
Because I shouldn’t feel bad for him. I shouldn’t want to reach out. But all I could think was—
If he felt even a fraction of what I felt right now, then maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t the monster I thought he was.
Maybe he was just… human.
Terrified. Messy. And trying, failing, but still trying, to love in the only broken way he knew how.
But it still hurts. A lot.
“Y-you—” I choked out, lips trembling, “are like t-them.”
The words came out cracked, raw through the air like glass about to break. His face fell. Just collapsed. Like the ground had been ripped out from under him.
I pushed myself up, my arm screamed, my chest ached, but I didn’t care. I just needed to leave. To get away before my head started spinning again, before I started thinking about him as anything but the monster who broke me.
But the moment I tried to move past him, his hand shot out, not rough, not hard, just a desperate, shaking grip around my wrist.
“Aurora, please—”
I froze.
He was still on the floor.
Still soaked.
And when I looked down, he wasn’t standing this time. He was kneeling.
“Don’t go,” he said, voice cracking. “Please. Don’t leave like this. I’m not—I’m not them.”
I tried to pull my arm back, but he wouldn’t let go. Not tight, not painful, just holding on as if he let go, I’d disappear.
“Let me make sure you’re okay,” he whispered. “Let me—just—let me watch. Let me see you breathe, just for a little longer.”
His voice broke halfway through, breath catching in his throat. “I can’t stop seeing it. You under that water. You not moving. I can’t—I can’t go through that again.”
I looked down at him, at this boy, this man who once terrified me, now on his knees, pleading as if the air hurt to breathe.
He didn’t look powerful.
He didn’t look like the Joshua who barked orders and glared until people vanished from his path.
He looked… ruined.
“Please,” he said again, quieter this time. “You don’t have to forgive me. You don’t even have to talk to me. Just stay. So I can see that you’re okay.”
My throat clenched.
And maybe it was stupid. Maybe it was weak. But the truth was… I didn’t want to walk out either.
Not yet.
So I sank back down, slowly, shakily and watched his shoulders drop like I’d just handed him oxygen.
He wasn’t touching me. Wasn’t talking anymore.
Just breathing. Watching. Making sure I was real. And somehow, that scared me even more. Because under all that guilt, all that desperation was someone who cared too much, too late.
And I didn’t know if I was strong enough to handle that kind of care again.