“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.
