Our fingers met halfway, and the second I wrapped my hand around hers, it hit me: warmth.
Real human warmth that I hadn’t felt in so long.
“Joshua,” I said.
That’s all I could manage.
But it was enough.
Her lips curved into something soft, something that made her look angelic to me. Something I didn’t want to look away from.
And she didn’t let go.
God, shedidn’tlet go.
Her hand stayed in mine, small and sure, as if maybe we could both pretend for just a minute that we hadn’t broken each other. Like maybe this was what healing looked like: quiet, hesitant, still trembling.
She then let go.
Slowly. Gently. Like she didn’t really want to, but knew she had to. Her fingers slipped from mine, leaving that ghost of warmth behind, just enough to make my palm ache when the cold air hit it again. And then she turned back to the view, shoulders rising and falling with a soft exhale, her hair brushing against her cheek as the wind caught it.
Friends.
That word still echoed in my head as if it didn’t belong to me.
Joshua Lockhart doesn’t get friends. Not one like her. One that gives second chances, one that was too kind for someone like him. He ruins things. Breaks them. Pushes them away before they can leave first. But right here, tonight, I tried. For the first time, I actually tried. And she saw that. She didn’t have to. She could’ve walked away after everything I did, after all the ways I’d hurt her, but she didn’t. She reached out instead.
She didn’t let me go.
Not when I was at my lowest. Not when I thought I’d lost her for good. She stayed long enough to hold out her hand and offer friendship, as if I meant something.
I stood there behind her, watching the city lights flicker below us, and I couldn’t stop the small curve of my lips. It wasn’t a grin. It wasn’t even a full smile.
Just this small, quiet pull that felt foreign and heavy at the same time. Because now, it didn’t feel like I was the villain in her story.
Not the bully.
Not the mistake.
Not the stranger she regretted ever meeting.
Just Joshua.
Her friend.
And maybe that’s all I’d ever get. Maybe that’s all I deserved. But standing there under that sky, beside the girl who taught me what it meant to feel again, it felt like enough.
She’s my friend.
Myfriend.
And I think that’s a win for someone like me.
—
The ride back was quiet, but not an awkward quiet.
It was… calm. The kind that sits warm in your chest and hums softly in the silence.
