My voice was thick when I asked, "You never saw her again?"
Somehow, I was managing to retain my gaze on Josh, but he latched his eyes onto the darkness in front of us. There was nothing there except for the river which wasn't visible at night. He felt so ashamed he could barely even glance at me? My heart ached for him, but it also ached for the girl he never saw again.
He shook his head and with his movement, the shadows flickered across his face and illuminated the muscle jumping in his jaw. "I never saw her again." His tone was almost emotionless, but if you listened closely, you could detect the years' worth of pain and torment he was so carefully endeavouring to disguise.
Honestly, I didn't know what to think.
"Josh, this doesn't make you a bad person." It sounded lame when I uttered it, but I felt as though Josh required some sort of solace like that. He'd been burdened with this secret for five fucking years. "What happened was not only a mistake but an accident."
He exhaled loudly, but it turned into a humourless chuckle. "You're the only person I've ever told," he confessed quietly, startling me further.
A few seconds passed before I asked, "So why did you?"
For a jarring moment, I suspected he only confided in me because he felt like I was concealing a part of my wounding past too, and he believed that if he shared first, I would feel obligated to share my secret. While the logic was flawed, I already knew I would have to tell Josh at some point of my story which just so happened to have transpired five years ago too. As much as Josh makes me forget, I'd have to tell him if I ever want to get closer to him.
And after our kiss, I really fucking wanted nothing more than to be closer to him.
It felt intimate—this entire scene. Josh confessing what he believed to be his sins to me in the comfort of my car with darkness surrounding us. As much as I didn't want to push Josh too much, I needed to know more. In my heart I needed to know more about this moment that hurts him... even to this day.
"Because I want to be real with you, Madeline," he answered, and for the first time since he recalled his past, he turned to me. His gaze found mine immediately. "I'm being real with you right now. And I want to be fucking honest with you. You see me, but you don't see all of me. You don't see the ugly parts I mask." He paused. "Do you believe in burying the past or allowing it to bury you instead?"
A frown tugged at my lips. "I believe in burying the past only when you've found closure over it and you are one hundred percent ready to bury it. Not burying it only for it to be dredged up again in the future."
We held each other's gaze for a moment longer before he turned away, facing the blackness in front of us again. When he spoke again, his voice was hushed and tender. "I'll never forget the way she gripped my wrists. I felt like I stole something from her when we kissed. But I was shoved by someone right into her and we fell back against the wall. I was a little drunk—not enough to ever forget the terrified expression that marred her face as she sought the crowd for me—but to the point of having slower reaction times. She was crushed between my body and the wall and she didn't push me away."
"You don't ever have to forget it. You just learn to store the memory away and move on."
"Is that what you do?" he asked quickly.
The remaining breath escaped me in one fell swoop, the gasp wracking my body, paralysing it. Josh turned sharply to me and his expression softened for the first time since we returned to Valley Side Apartments. He appeared truly apologetic.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean...," he trailed off.
He knew.
He fucking knew I was hiding something major.
