Chapter Thirty-Eight Joshua #2
“You’re known as the scholarship girl, the genius,” I said, making her turn slightly to me. “It’s known Silverwood doesn’t offer those; why did you try to apply?”
Her head lifted slowly, as if she were debating whether to answer at all.
Then she picked up her phone, her cast hand awkwardly poking out of her sleeve, and started typing with those few free fingers.
The text blinked up on the screen a second later:
I applied and was rejected. But I emailed them about my grades and achievements back home, and they said to apply again. They gave me an interview. Then they accepted me. Full ride.
I stared at her.
“You got in after being rejected?”
She nodded once, looking back down at her phone, thumbs still moving.
They said I was persistent.
I looked up at her. “You must be so smart.”
She didn’t look at me. Just kept typing, then turned the screen back toward me again.
Smart enough to survive school. Not street-smart enough to survive people.
My chest tightened.
There was no pity in the way she wrote it, just brutal honesty, as if she’d accepted that survival came at different costs for her.
I watched the way she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, the way her eyes softened back onto her screen like she hadn’t just said something that knocked the air out of me.
Smart enough to survive.
Not street-smart enough to survive people.
God, if that wasn’t the truest thing about her.
And somehow, it hurt worse knowing that I was one of the people she hadn’t been able to survive from.
She typed something again, slow and deliberate this time, each word a tiny wound she carved into the screen before turning it toward me.
Though I’m not here to forgive you, I don’t want you to drown in guilt. So be here until my arm heals and let’s not see each other again after.
The words didn’t hit all at once.
They came in waves, small, heavy, suffocating waves that didn’t let me breathe. I read it once. Then twice. And the third time, my jaw tightened, my hands curling on my knees.
She was calm when she wrote it. Not angry. Not cold.
Just… done.
She wasn’t here to make me pay for what I did. She was here because she pitied me. Because she didn’t want to see me break under my own guilt.
And after that… nothing.
She didn’t look at me. Just turned the screen back to herself, as if the conversation was over, as if that was the last page she was ever going to write about us.
I swallowed hard, trying to keep my voice steady. “You really think I’ll just—” I stopped, bit the inside of my cheek, forced the words down before they could sound pathetic.
She didn’t answer. Didn’t even flinch.
Her cast hand rested on her notes again, trembling a little from the weight of it, and she wrote as if nothing had just happened.
And I just sat there, staring at her, the girl who’d once made every loud, angry thing in me go quiet, telling me in the calmest way possible that I’d already lost her.
Be here until her arm heals.
Then disappear.
I stared at her for a long time.
Be here until my arm heals and let’s not see each other again after.
There was nothing left to argue with, no room to fight it. No justification, no plea that wouldn’t make me look pathetic.
So all I said was—
“Okay.”
It came out quiet. Flat.
Almost as if it didn’t come from me at all.
She blinked, her eyes flicking up for the briefest second before dropping back down to her notes.
That was it. No reaction. No hesitation. Just… acceptance.
I just sat there, staring at the faint tremble in her fingers, at the shadow her hair cast across her cheek.
Okay.
That was all I could give her.
Because I’d already taken everything else.
Okay.
The word echoed in my head long after it left my mouth. It was pathetic, small, too easy for how it felt in my chest, like something vital just cracked open and bled out quietly between us.
She didn’t look at me again. Didn’t even twitch. Just turned back to her notes, focused on them as if I hadn’t just agreed to lose her.
I leaned back against the couch, staring at the ceiling, my jaw tight, hands digging into my knees.
I’d said okay. I’d accepted it.
But I didn’t mean it. Not really.
Because when I let my mom go, I told myself I could handle it, that time would dull it, that one day it wouldn’t ache.
It’s been over a decade.
It never dulled.
And then she came.
And somehow, those years I spent suffering… blurred. The edges softened, and the air didn’t feel so sharp to breathe. But now, watching her write, this quiet, fragile girl, with my guilt on her arm, I knew losing her would be worse.
This wasn’t the same kind of pain.
This was permanent.
Because there’s no one like her.
There’s no other version of Aurora.
There’s no second chance, no replacement, no other light that flickers the same way hers does.
And if she’s really going to leave after a few weeks, if this is all I get, then I’ll take it. I’ll make the next few weeks’ worth something. Even if she never forgives me. Even if she walks away and never looks back. At least when she does, she’ll know that for once—
Joshua Lockhart tried.