Regret

Chapter Ten- I'm Leaving

I caught food poisoning.

After Josh dropped me off at home from Jake's house, I caught food poisoning from a new takeaway place. Josh had been keeping me company on days that he wasn't needed at home. He would make me soup for dinner, insisting that I needed to eat before I withered away. He would stay up with me watching the Vampire Diaries even though he insisted that he hated it, but I think he truly liked it.

Things had changed between us, and for once, this feeling wasn't scaring me away, like it has done in the past. I felt comfortable around him, although he had been a little off this past day. I didn't think too much about it and presumed it had something to do with his home life.

On days that he wasn't there, the boys would show up and force me to leave my bed and join them downstairs. Even Xander showed up one of the days, which surprised me. My friend Cass had been coming around to drop off any school work I missed, and I found myself liking her even more. At first, when I let her in my house, it was a little awkward, but then we got to talking about our favorite movies, and well, we kind of hit it off from there.

I invited her to sit with me and the guys for lunch once my stomach finally got better, so now here I was, sitting in the lunch hall almost a week after I had gotten sick. Cass's cousin, Ben, and her friend Sarah had also joined us, almost filling up the whole of the table.

I was in the middle of talking to Sarah and Cass when a figure walked towards our table and stood beside me at the end of the table. I craned my neck up to look at Josh in questioning. He never came towards our table, especially when he had his own friends to eat lunch with.

"Doll, I need to talk to you," I said with a low voice so no one could hear, but I think everyone around the table got the gist of what he said. Although he used the nickname for me, his voice sounded different from usual. He sounded sad.

I knew instantly that what he wanted to talk about was serious, so I didn't have to think twice about ditching my lunch and grabbing my schoolbag off the floor. "I'll be back," I said to anyone who was paying attention but didn't wait for their response before I followed Josh out of the dining hall.

As soon as we were out of prying eyes, he wrapped his fingers around mine, squeezing my hand tight for some kind of comfort.

We didn't do this. We didn't hold hands, but I knew he needed this. So, I let him grip onto my hand and stayed quiet as he pulled me through different corridors until we finally stepped into an empty classroom. He led me towards the seats and gestured for me to sit down before letting go of my hand.

I slowly lowered my body onto the wooden stall and watched with confusion as he paced up and down the front of the classroom. My eyes scanned over his body, noticing that he wasn't in his usual clothes and instead wore sweatpants with a hoodie. His hair was a mess from him constantly running his hands through, and he had bags under his eyes that shown he needed some sleep.

This wasn't the same Josh that took care of me when I was ill.

Suddenly he stopped in his tracks and started walking in my direction until he was in front of me. He crouched down so that his eyes were level to mine, and it was then that I noticed how glossy they were, like he had unshed tears pooled in them.

"I'm leaving, doll." He finally said, but they were not the words I was hoping for.

"What?"

His hand rose towards my face, his thumb brushing my cheek gently, and he softly smiled down at me. It was a smile of sadness and paired with the unshed tears he had in his eyes, the look was enough for me to start feeling emotional.

"We found a neurosurgeon who will operate on my mom, but he said it could be years worth of treatment and healing. It was just talk that we were going to move near his practice, but my dad just confirmed it in a call, and you were the first person I wanted to tell." My heart went out to him at his explanation. I knew that this had been hard on his family, but now they had hope.

I brought my hand up and placed it onto his, gripping it tightly. "Is this why you had been a little off yesterday?" I asked, already knowing the answer. He nodded his head slowly, and I decided to ask my next question. "Where will you be moving to?"

Joshua closed his eyes at my question like he was trying to compose himself before answering. "New Jersey."

I let out a small gasp, not expecting that he was going to be moving that far away. He would be leaving his life behind here, and I knew this sounded selfish, but he was leaving me here.

I didn't want him to go.

Things were going so well between us recently, and we had finally gotten into a place where we were thinking about furthering our relationship to something more. I knew that I couldn't be selfish here. He was leaving to be there for his mom, and family was more important than a girl he got to know.

"Say something, doll." He insisted when I hadn't replied, stuck in my own selfish thoughts as I thought of life without him.

This felt like a breakup, but how could we break up when we weren't even together?

"When do you leave?"

"As soon as my dad finds us a place to move into." He sighed. His thumb continued to rub circles on my cheek.

"I don't want you to go." I finally whispered and allowed for the first tear to roll down my cheek. He caught it with the pad of his thumb, wiping it away. I could tell that he was trying his hardest not to let his emotions out.

"I don't want to go either."

"But you need to be there for your family. You need to do this." I said before he could say anything else. This was about him, not about me. He didn't need me to be emotional and selfish when he was on the verge of breaking himself.

He needed a friend right now. He needed someone to depend on while he went through this scary change, and I wanted to be that person. I wanted to be there for him.

"Would you like to skip the rest of the day? So, we can look around the town before you have to start packing?" I asked, trying to take the conversation away from sadness. I already knew of places we could visit that would probably bring a smile to his face.

He needed a distraction for a little bit before he had to go back home and help his dad out. I wanted to be that distraction. I wanted just a little time with him before he left.

"I would love that, doll."

A/N: There's a reason I have made Josh move away from this town. If you don't like his character at the moment, I'm sure it'll grow on you throughout the book. Anyways, what did you guys think?