Chapter Thirty-One Joshua
Chapter Thirty-One
Joshua
It was late.
The kind of late where the halls go silent, and every sound echoes too loudly.
Almost seven. Everyone was gone, the lights half-dimmed, that faint hum of the heating system filling the empty space.
I was heading to the field, boots in hand, ball under my arm. I wasn’t planning to practise, not really. Just needed something to do after skipping today. The quiet was starting to rot my head, and the walls of my apartment were getting smaller by the hour.
But halfway down the corridor, I stopped.
A sound.
Faint, soft, like a whisper against water.
Splash.
Pause.
Splash.
Slow. Unsteady. Not the kind of rhythm that came from someone swimming.
More like… drifting. Existing.
My chest tightened before my mind even caught up. No one should be here this late. The pool closes at six. And still, my feet turned on their own.
Toward the noise.
The locker room was half-lit, one light flickering at the far end. The smell of chlorine hung heavy in the air, sharp and cold.
The splashing was louder now.
My pulse thudded in my throat.
I reached the door to the pool; the glass fogged with humidity. My hand hovered over the handle, just for a second. Then I pushed it open an inch, peeking through.
And froze.
Aurora.
Sitting at the edge of the pool, her legs dipped into the water, hair falling loose over her shoulders.
The lights from the water shimmered across her face, soft and broken all at once.
Her cast—my doing—was wrapped carefully in a plastic bag to keep it dry. She was tracing lazy circles in the water with her toes, like she was somewhere else entirely.
Zoned out. Quiet. Alone.
My chest sank.
I gripped the edge of the door, hard enough that my knuckles whitened.
That cast, seeing it, made something inside me twist.
Because it was me.
I did that.
The ball was supposed to hit the bleachers.
Not her.
Never her. And yet here she was, sitting in the dark, looking so small it made my throat ache.
I wanted to say her name.
Wanted to walk in, sit beside her, ask her why she was still here, why she was hurting alone instead of letting anyone see it.
But what the hell would I even say? Hey, sorry I broke your arm. Mind if I join you for a late-night swim?
Yeah, no.
She’d flinch. She always flinched.
Even when I didn’t mean to scare her.
But I couldn’t move either. Couldn’t leave.
So I just stood there, half-hidden behind the door, watching her reflection ripple in the water.
The girl I hurt.
The girl who still showed up to class.
The scholarship girl who can’t afford to not show up.
And maybe she didn’t know it, but I’d trade every game, every win, every ounce of pride I had left just to take that moment back.
The way she sat there, lost and silent, it felt like punishment. And I deserved every second of it.
I couldn’t move, didn’t want to leave… a part of me didn’t want to leave her alone. I wanted to be close, really close to her again. But right now? This was as close as I could get.
She then shifted, making me step back a bit, hoping she wouldn’t notice me. I didn’t want to scare her again.
Her body slipped, her body slipped in.
Slow… so slow that at first, I thought she was just going in to feel the water.
Then her shoulders sank under. Her head followed.
My breath stopped.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four—
Five.
Too long—
Everything in my hand hit the floor before I realised I let go. I was running. My shoes screeched against the tile, my chest burning.
I didn’t even think. I just jumped.
The cold tore the air from my lungs as I hit the water.
I kicked down, eyes open, chlorine stinging.
There, her hair fanned around her face, eyes closed, arms loose. Still.
Fuck—fuck, fuck, fuck—no.
I grabbed her by the waist, hauling her up, lungs screaming until we broke the surface.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?!”
My voice cracked. I didn’t care.
She coughed, water slipping from her lips, but she wouldn’t look at me.
“Are you insane?! Are you—fuck! Do you wanna die or something?!”
Nothing.
The way her silence hit me was worse than any scream.
“Look at me!” I shook her once, not hard, just enough to make her eyes open. “Do you think this is a game?! That I wouldn’t notice if you disappeared?!”
Nothing.
My throat caved in.
“Don’t,” I whispered, voice breaking as my arms tightened around her trembling frame. “P-please don’t do that. D-don’t leave. Don’t go where I can’t follow.”
She didn’t respond, only shivered against me, droplets running down her lashes, eyes empty but alive.
I dragged her to the edge, lifting her up first, water pouring from her clothes, then pulled myself out beside her.
We sat there, both of us dripping, both of us shaking.
Her cast was soaked, ruined. My shirt clung to me like a second skin.
But she was breathing.
I knelt in front of her, forehead pressing to her knees, arms wrapped around her legs tightly, still catching my breath.
I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t deserve to.
“Don’t ever do that again,” I whispered, gripping her legs tighter like a prayer. “Even if you hate me, even if you want to run… just don’t go without me.”
The only sound left was water hitting tile.
And the small, broken rhythm of us still—barely—breathing. I felt her shaking harder against me, making me look up. Her arms were lifted up, wrapped around herself as if she were cold.
“Fuck.”
The word tore out of me before I even realised it. I turned around, my hands were shaking so hard I could barely unzip my gym bag. I tore my jacket off, the fabric slapping the wet tile, and dug through until my fingers brushed cotton, my hoodie.
I threw it over her shoulders, her whole body trembling like a leaf in a storm. She didn’t even move, didn’t flinch, didn’t breathe.
I didn’t care that her wet body was soaking up my hoodie. I didn’t care that I soaked myself. I zipped it up halfway with trembling fingers, tugging the fabric around her like it would somehow warm her. Like it would erase everything I’d done.
Her teeth were chattering, her shoulders tight, and my chest hurt just looking at her.
And then, she snapped.
The sound that came out of her wasn’t a cry. It was a scream. Raw. Ferocious. The kind that clawed its way out of a throat that had been silent too long.
Her fists hit my chest, small, sharp thuds that didn’t really hurt but made my ribs ache, anyway.
“W-why?!” she screamed, the word cracked in half by her sob.
Another punch.
“Why y-you—doing t-this to me?! What did I d-do to you?!”
I didn’t move.
Couldn’t.
Her fists kept coming, trembling and desperate, landing against me like she was trying to make me feel all the pain she couldn’t carry anymore.
And God, I did.
Her voice.
She spoke.
She fucking spoke.
The girl who never spoke, who only signed or wrote, was breaking herself open right in front of me, every word scraping her throat raw. It sounded like it physically hurt her to talk, but she still did it.
And every syllable sounded like a knife.
“I didn’t do any—anything!” she choked out, her breath hitching between every word. “I w-was kind to everyone!”
I couldn’t even breathe.
She was hitting me, sobbing, falling apart in front of me, and I just… sat there.
“Aurora—” I tried, but my voice cracked halfway through her name.
She flinched like it burned.
“No! No!”
Her voice splintered, and so did I.
Her tears mixed with the droplets on her cheeks. I couldn’t tell which was which anymore.
She was the girl I’d hurt.
The one I humiliated.
The one I made cry.
The one I punished just for being light when I was made of everything dark. And now she was breaking in front of me, and I’d done that.
“I didn’t—” I swallowed hard, my throat burning. “I didn’t mean for it to hit you.” My voice came out small. Weak. “The ball. That was—”
But even as I said it, the words tasted like ash.
It didn’t matter.
Intent never mattered when someone was already bleeding.
Her breathing hitched, sharp and uneven.
When she finally looked at me, it wasn’t anger that I saw. It was betrayal.
Quiet.
Pure.
The kind of pain that doesn’t scream, it just stops trusting.
And I’d never seen anything like it. Not even in the mirror.
“T-tired,” she whispered. Her voice cracked, but she forced it out anyway.
She paused, shaking, trying to breathe through the words.
“No one sees…m-me” Her chest heaved, her lip trembling.
My lungs locked.
I see her.
God, I’ve always seen her.
From the first day, when she sat there in her corner, writing instead of talking, shoulders small but spine straight.
When she smiled at everyone else except me.
When she got hurt, she still showed up.
She was never invisible. Not to me.
Maybe not seen, but she’s always been in my eyes.
Always.
And maybe I never said it.
Maybe I never knew how.
But she’s the only thing in my life I’ve never been able to look away from.
And that—that would never change.
Even if she never looked back.