Chapter Fifty-Six Aurora
Chapter Fifty-Six
Aurora
Five weeks.
Five whole weeks.
And somehow, it still hurt the same.
Every morning I woke up, my eyes stinging before I even opened them, swollen, heavy, tired.
I used to think heartbreak was a metaphor; you know? Something people exaggerated to make love sound poetic. But no. It’s real. It’s physical. It sits in your chest like a weight pressing down every time you try to breathe normally.
It had been thirty-five days since Joshua told me he didn’t want to see my face again. Thirty-five mornings I’d opened my eyes and, stupidly, waited.
Waited for a knock on the door.
For my phone to light up.
For anything.
But silence is loyal. It never forgets to show up. And I hated how I still looked for him in crowds. I hated that my feet still led me to the field every now and then. That I still listened for that low voice calling my name, even though I knew it was never coming again.
Aly’s voice cut my train of thought as she propped herself up on the bed. “Okay, serious business. Food.”
I glanced up at her.
She smirked. “Don’t even think about arguing. I know your favourite already.”
“You do?”
“Of course. You eat sandwiches every day—anything with bread, really, and you like strawberry milkshakes more than chocolate. I’m a good observer, babe.”
She winked and started ordering before I could say anything else.
This was my first sleepover ever, and it was nice to be able to see into another person’s life.
Aly’s world felt so different from mine.
Bright. Loud. Safe. I wondered what it felt like to grow up knowing you’d never have to fight for stability, never have to worry about money or being alone or wondering who’d stay.
Aly looked up from her phone and caught me staring. Her expression softened, and she tossed the phone aside before patting the spot next to her on the bed.
“Come here,” she said gently.
I hesitated for a second, then got up and sat beside her, cross-legged. The mattress dipped under my weight.
“Food’ll be here in twenty minutes,” she said, stretching. “Then we’re gonna talk about whatever you want. Or nothing. Your choice.”
I nodded, staring down at my hands again.
Her room felt safe.
Too safe that I didn’t feel like a burden.
My lips trembled first. A warning. Then the sting came, that hot, unbearable ache behind my eyes that I tried to blink away but couldn’t.
Aly froze up when she noticed. “Rora?”
And before I could answer, before I could even find a word, she reached over, pulled me down next to her, and wrapped her arms around me as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
That was it. That was all it took.
The sob broke out of me before I could stop it. Loud, ugly, real. My body shook against hers as she rubbed my back gently, whispering, “Hey, hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe.”
But I wasn’t okay.
I wasn’t okay at all.
“H-he’s gone,” I choked out between uneven breaths. “He’s—he’s gone, Aly.”
She stiffened. “Who?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to hold back the next wave, but it was useless. It broke through like a dam giving up.
“He said—” My voice cracked. “He said he doesn’t want to see me again.”
Aly went quiet. The silence that followed wasn’t judgemental, just… stunned. Then, softly, she whispered, “God, please don’t tell me it’s Joshua.”
And I just nodded, the movement jerky, desperate.
Aly’s eyes widened, her lips parting in disbelief. But before she could say anything else, I broke completely, shaking in her arms, tears soaking through her shirt, fingers gripping her like she was the only thing keeping me from falling apart.
“Oh, baby, no,” she murmured, voice cracking as she tightened her hold. “Oh, Rora…”
“I-I don’t understand,” I sobbed. “He—he was so sweet, Aly. He took care of me. For weeks. Weeks.” I pulled back just enough to look at her, vision blurred and messy.
“He cooked for me, he let me stay with him, he—he took in a stray kitten because he didn’t want me to skip meals to feed it, he—he became someone I thought I could trust again, and then he just—” My voice broke entirely.
“He left. Like all of it meant nothing.”
Aly’s brows pulled together, pain flickering in her expression.
“He kept me company,” I continued, words tumbling out uncontrollably now.
“He didn’t let me be alone. He made sure I ate, that I slept, that I didn’t fall apart, and then one day, he just told me he didn’t want to see my face again.
And I—” I hiccupped through the sob. “I love him, Aly. I love him so much, and he’s gone.
He’s gone, and I can’t even be mad at him because I still—” My voice broke. “I still love him.”
Aly’s arms tightened around me again, her hand running through my hair, grounding me through the storm I couldn’t stop.
She whispered, almost to herself, “I didn’t know. I didn’t know he could be kind. I didn’t think Joshua Lockhart had it in him.” Her voice was shaking, somewhere between guilt and heartbreak. “I didn’t even know you two were okay now. I thought he still—”
“He was,” I whispered. “He was better. He changed.” I pressed my forehead to her shoulder, words spilling against her shirt. “He became someone who smiled, Aly. Someone who tried. And I saw it. I saw every piece of it. And I don’t know what I did wrong.”
Aly exhaled, long and unsteady, resting her chin on the top of my head. “You didn’t do anything wrong, sweetheart. You didn’t.”
“I must have,” I said softly, brokenly. “People don’t just leave if they care.”
Her fingers brushed through my hair gently. “Sometimes they do. Sometimes people get scared. Sometimes they don’t know how to love right, even when they want to.”
I cried harder then, because hearing it—hearing that maybe, maybe he did love me but just couldn’t handle it—hurt even more than pretending he didn’t.
Aly didn’t tell me to stop crying. She didn’t tell me to breathe or calm down or move on. She just held me through it, whispering quiet things that didn’t need to make sense.
The only thing that mattered was that she stayed.
She stayed when he didn’t.
The food came not long after the storm.
The air was quieter now, the kind that still held the ache but didn’t suffocate. Aly had queued up some random movie neither of us was really watching, and the smell of fries and garlic bread filled her room like a warm blanket.
We sat cross-legged on her bed, trays and boxes spread out between us like a small picnic. Aly’s hair was a bit messy from earlier, her eyeliner slightly smudged, but she still looked perfect in that effortless way she always did.
I tore off a piece of the bread roll and chewed slowly. It was warm, soft, buttery, exactly the kind I loved. Bread had always been my comfort food. My safe thing. And of course Aly remembered that.
She smiled, watching me eat, that knowing grin that made her eyes squint. “You and your bread obsession,” she teased, reaching over to squish my cheek. “So cute.”
I mumbled something incoherent through the bite, cheeks puffed up like a hamster, and Aly lost it. She laughed, throwing her head back, and I couldn’t help but hide my face behind my hand, smiling despite everything.
She grabbed her phone and started typing something before showing me a picture of a hamster eating bread while pointing at me. “My little bread-eating hamster.”
I blushed, turning away, trying not to laugh.
She grinned, dipping a fry into sauce, before leaning back against her pile of pillows.
“You know…” she said between bites, “brooding men usually have really cute smiles. Like… annoyingly cute. Jennie always says Alex looks so good when he actually smiles, but she’s probably the only one who’s ever seen it. ”
I froze for a second, her words hanging heavy between us.
Joshua’s face flickered in my mind, that rare moment when the corners of his lips twitched upward, when the storm in his eyes softened just enough for the light to peek through.
“He does, doesn’t he?” Aly said, smirking. “Joshua, I mean. I bet he has that same kind of smile.”
I swallowed hard, staring down at my half-eaten bread roll. My voice came out small, quiet.
“He…does.”
Aly blinked, lowering her fry. “Yeah?”
I nodded slowly, still staring at the bread in my hand. “He’s—he’s pretty. Always has been.”
The words left my lips before I could stop them. Soft. Honest.
“Pretty,” Aly repeated, as if she were tasting the word. Then she smiled faintly. “That’s a sweet way to put it.”
I shrugged, cheeks warming. “Because he is. Not just his face, but… the way he looks when he’s thinking, or when he smiles a little to himself, or when he’s trying not to.”
Aly watched me quietly, her teasing fading into something softer. Understanding.
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The only sound was the crunch of fries and the low hum of the movie in the background.
Aly wiped her hands on a napkin, leaning back into the headboard with that easy grin she always wore, confident but kind, warm in the kind of way that made people talk too much without meaning to.
“I haven’t fallen in love in a long time,” she said suddenly, almost casually. “My last relationship was, what—two years ago?”
I looked up, surprised by the openness in her voice.
She smirked a little, rolling a fry between her fingers.
“Yeah. He was… fine. A little self-obsessed, like most guys who think being rich is a personality trait.” She popped the fry into her mouth, shrugged.
“Didn’t last. Then I had this thing with a girl a few months back, but that didn’t work out either. She was sweet, but we weren’t… it.”
I blinked, quietly absorbing that.
Aly didn’t usually talk about her personal life, not like this.
She chuckled to herself, turning her head toward me, eyes shining with something playful but soft. “You know, though…” she began, her voice dipping teasingly, “if I had a type again, it’d totally be you.”
I nearly choked on my bread. “M-me?”