Chapter Thirty-Four Joshua
Chapter Thirty-Four
Joshua
The sound of the pan sizzling was the only thing grounding me.
The only thing keeping my hands from shaking again.
I stood at the stove, hair still damp from the shower, hoodie clinging to the back of my neck. The smell of eggs and toast filled the kitchen, something normal, something quiet, something that didn’t fit with the storm still wrecking me from the inside.
Behind me, the TV murmured softly.
A movie I didn’t recognise, just noise to fill the silence between us. But she wasn’t watching it. She just sat there on the couch, blanket around her shoulders, eyes on the screen but unfocused, staring through it.
Phone in her hand. Power bank attached. Thumb not moving. Her new cast—one I called in my dad’s private doctor for an hour ago—rested awkwardly on her lap.
Every few minutes, she adjusted it as if it hurt, but she never made a sound. And every time she shifted, every time she moved even an inch, my chest clenched.
The spatula trembled between my fingers as I flipped the eggs.
I didn’t want her to hear my voice. Didn’t want to make her flinch again.
Didn’t want her to think I was talking just to feel better about myself.
But I also couldn’t handle the thought of her walking out that door, vanishing like everyone else.
So I cooked.
Something stupidly simple.
Eggs. Toast. Juice.
I placed it all on the counter and looked at her again.
Still staring at the screen. Still lost. Still here.
She didn’t have to speak for me to know what she was thinking. She was counting the minutes until she could leave. Until she could escape the man who made her cry, then begged her not to.
I leaned against the counter, pressing the heel of my hand to my eyes.
God, what the fuck am I even doing?
Cooking for the girl I broke. Watching her like a fucking creep because I was terrified she’d slip through my fingers again.
I told her everything hours back; things I’d never said out loud before. The crash. The water. My mother’s face. The way her silence tore open something I thought I’d buried. And she looked at me like she couldn’t tell if she should run or cry for me.
Maybe both.
The worst part? I don’t blame her.
If I were her, I’d run too.
The toaster popped, and the sound made her flinch slightly.
My heart dropped.
I turned off the stove, poured her juice, and set the plate down on the counter nearest to her, not too close, not too far.
Close enough that she could see it.
Close enough that I could still see her.
“I made you breakfast,” I said quietly.
No reply. Not even a glance.
She just blinked, still staring at those meaningless pixels. And I stood there, watching her breath, forcing myself to do the same. Because as long as she was in my eyeline, I could convince myself—just for now—that she was still here. Kind of.
I decided to walk over and set the plate down on the coffee table in front of her, but she didn’t move.
Didn’t even blink.
I sat down on the floor, leaning back against the couch near her feet, not close enough to crowd her, but close enough that if she moved, I’d know.
The plate sat between us, untouched.
“It doesn’t make up for anything,” I started quietly. “And it doesn’t excuse me.”
My voice sounded… foreign. Small.
“But I was five,” I said, breath hitching a little. “Mum and Dad… they were always yelling. Every night, same thing. He’d say she was clingy, that she depended too much on him, that she was suffocating him. And she’d cry. She always cried.”
I swallowed. “Then one night, she left. Still in her nightgown, barefoot, crying so hard she couldn’t see straight. I followed her.”
I let out a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh. Just air and pain. “Little me… I thought I was her bodyguard. I used to tell her that—that I’d protect her. So I followed. But I stopped at the red light because—because you’re not supposed to cross, right? Red means stop. She didn’t stop. She just—”
My voice cracked.
“She crossed.”
The words were quieter now. Barely there.
“And that night, her tiny bodyguard couldn’t protect her.”
I leaned my head back against the couch.
“I remember the sound before I remember the sight. The brakes. The rain. Then her… lying there. And I couldn’t even scream. I just stood there, shaking.”
My hand came up to my face, pressing hard against my eyes. “Dad didn’t come to the hospital. Didn’t even show up to the funeral. Said he was busy. Said it was her fault for running off. For crossing when she shouldn’t have.”
The room was so quiet, I could hear her breathing. Small, uneven, but real.
And for some reason, that sound was the only thing keeping me from falling apart.
I turned my head toward her, slowly.
“And then last year…” I exhaled. “I found a girl who felt like her. Who radiated the same warmth, the same softness.”
Her eyes finally shifted, just barely but enough to see that she was listening.
“I didn’t know what to do with it. I couldn’t believe it.
I hadn’t felt that kind of… calm, that kind of light since I was five.
So instead of being normal,” my jaw clenched, “I made you my target. I told myself that if I broke you first, you couldn’t leave.
If I hurt you, then it’d be on my terms. I didn’t want to need you. ”
The words came out as a whisper. “But the closer I got, the worse it got. I couldn’t stop watching you. The way you moved, the way you stayed kind even when people didn’t deserve it.”
I ran a hand down my face, trembling. “It turned into something else. Something I don’t even want to name, because I don’t deserve to call it that. But I…”
I inhaled sharply. “I fucked up. So bad. Because by the time I realised I didn’t want to hurt you anymore…it was too late. I already did.”
I let the silence sit.
Let the words breathe between us.
She still didn’t say anything.
Didn’t have to.
The movie kept playing, its light flashing across both our faces, quiet, meaningless.
She grabbed her phone with her good hand, unplugged it from the power bank, and lifted it in front of her face. For a second, I thought she was scrolling. Or texting Jennie. Maybe even Miles. Doing anything but listening to me.
But then my phone lit up.
My Princess.
I froze.
Heart in my throat.
I opened it, and the longer I read, the more it burned.
My Princess: I’m sorry.
My Princess: I’m sorry for what happened to you.
My Princess: For losing your mum. I can’t imagine that pain, and I wish you didn’t have to live with it.
My Princess: But it doesn’t make it hurt less for me.
My fingers tightened around the phone.
My Princess: You should’ve talked to me. Not act like everyone else.
My Princess: You didn’t have to bite first. You didn’t have to push me before I could even get close.
My Princess: You don’t have to be Miles or Alex. You just had to be you. But not like this.
Each sentence hit harder than the last.
Not screamed, not angry, just true.
Too quiet to fight back against.
My Princess: If you hadn’t done that, I would’ve looked at you the same way I look at Miles.
My Princess: Maybe even more.
My Princess: You could’ve been my new beginning.
My chest ached.
My Princess: I had to move from my home because I lost my dad. My mum’s in another city. I’m alone, surrounded by memories of a perfect family that doesn’t exist anymore.
My Princess: I was bullied in England.
My Princess: I thought coming here would be a fresh start. But then I met you, and it wasn’t any different.
My Princess: It hurts because if you had just stopped for a second, if you had just given me a chance, you would’ve seen that I wasn’t trying to hurt you.
My Princess: You would’ve seen me.
I dropped the phone in my lap.
My throat felt raw.
My Princess: Being bullied from five to eighteen is tiring.
My Princess: You made me tired.
I pressed my hands into my face, shaking. The kind of shaking that comes from the inside out.
I wanted to say something, anything, but what was there left to say?
She didn’t yell.
Didn’t blame.
Didn’t even tell me to leave her alone.
She just told me the truth.
The kind of truth that doesn’t need to be screamed to cut.
I looked up at her then, still sitting on the couch, blanket slipping off her shoulder, her eyes unfocused again, but this time there was no anger in them.
Just exhaustion.
And I wished she would’ve yelled.
At least then, I could fight back.
At least then, I could pretend I hadn’t already lost her.
“I lost it all, didn’t I?”
The words barely made it past my throat. They just… fell out. Quiet. Empty. The kind of quiet that hurts worse than any scream ever could.
She didn’t move.
Her silence was the answer.
And fuck, it said everything.
But I kept going anyway because Joshua Lockhart doesn’t know when to stop. When to shut the fuck up.
Desperate fucker.
“I knew we both were going through something. Both stuck in hell—just different kinds,” I paused, trying to find the words. “But the difference is… you were trying to find the light.”
My chest was tight. “And me? There’s no hope for someone like me anymore.”
She still didn’t look at me. Didn’t need to. I wasn’t saying this for her forgiveness. I was saying it because it was killing me to hold it in.
“I didn’t want to be alone,” I whispered. “Not again. Not when you—” I looked at her, my voice cracking. “When you’re my peace. My quiet.”
Her fingers twitched around her phone, and I swear it looked like she wanted to throw it at me. And I would’ve let her. I would’ve let her do anything.
Because I deserved all of it.
“So I chose to break you,” I continued, the confession slicing my throat raw. “Because if I broke you, then you’d have to stay. You’d have to stay because you’d be too broken to walk away.”
A tear hit the floor. I didn’t even know it fell.
“I thought—” I dragged in a shaky breath. “I thought having you broken was better than not having you at all. That, at least if I had a piece of you, I wouldn’t be alone.”
My voice dropped to a whisper. “But look at me. I lost you anyway.”
The silence between us was heavy. My lungs ached from holding in everything that still wanted to come out.
“In the worst way possible,” I finished, barely audible. “If I knew this would happen—if I knew it’d end like this—I never would’ve hurt you. I’d have just…”
I looked up at her again, blinking hard. “I’d have just let you go. In one piece. Safe. Unharmed. But I didn’t.”
I swallowed. “I was too desperate to keep you. I just didn’t want to be left behind again.”
I sat there on the floor, staring at the side of her face. The soft light from the TV flickered across her skin, catching the tears that hadn’t even dried yet. She looked so far away, like even though she was right there, wrapped up in my hoodie, she was already gone.
Gone somewhere I couldn’t follow.
Somewhere safe.
Somewhere without me.
I’d built the wall between us, brick by brick, every cruel word, every look, every time I made her flinch.
And now?
Now I was standing on the other side of it, watching her slip further and further away.
But maybe letting her slip away was better than watching her break herself because I made her tired… so tired she—
“I—” I started again, but my voice cracked halfway. “That night,” I forced out. “The pool. When I jumped in… were you trying to hurt yourself?”
Silence
The kind that stretches thin enough to snap.
She blinked at me like I’d slapped her.
My Princess: No.
She typed. Certain.
And that did something to me. It felt like a boulder was lifted off my shoulders.
My Princess: I wasn’t trying to die.
My Princess: I wanted to feel something.
My Princess: I couldn’t feel anything anymore.
My Princess: No anger, not sadness. Nothing.
My Princess: You took everything and left me with static.
My Princess: I thought if I scared myself, maybe my body would.
Remember how to fight.
My chest caved.
My Princess: I wasn’t going to let myself drown.
She typed faster now, like she was angry—angry that I could even think that she would do such things.
My Princess: I have a mother I love. Friends who care about me.
My Princess: I’m not that selfish.
“No, I—I was just—”
My Princess: My death won’t be on you. Don’t worry.
The screen blurred.
I didn’t realise my hands were shaking until my thumb slipped and nearly dropped the phone.
My death won’t be on you.
The words keep replaying. Louder each time.
I couldn’t breathe.
It’s the fact that I’d dragged her somewhere dark enough that death was a sentence we were casually stepping around.
“Don’t say that,” I whispered.
But she already had, and there was nothing left for me to say that wouldn’t sound selfish. Nothing left to say that wouldn’t hurt her again.
So I just stayed there.
Quiet.
Her phone lit up again. My own buzzed a second later. I didn’t even want to look because every time it buzzed now, it hurt.
But I forced myself to.
My Princess: Again, I’m sorry about your mum. You didn’t deserve that; you deserved to grow up with a mother’s love.
My Princess: But you can’t just use me to fill the void.
My Princess: I’m not your crutch.
I stared at the screen until the words started to blur.
She was right.
She was so fucking right.
I wasn’t trying to get better.
I wasn’t trying to climb out of it.
I was just reaching for the first bit of warmth I could find, dragging her into the same dark I was drowning in.
And she was the one who paid for it. Every bruise, every tear, every broken look, my fault.
“I know,” I whispered, even though she couldn’t hear it.
Not really.
But maybe—maybe if I said it out loud enough times, it’d finally sink in.
“I know you’re not my crutch,” I said again, voice breaking. “You were supposed to be my reason.”
But I ruined that, too.
So I just sat there, phone still in hand, reading her message over and over until the words etched themselves into my bones, because maybe that’s what I deserved.