JOSHUA

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Joshua had believed for as long as he could remember that there was beauty in everything and everyone. Beauty was in the eye of the beholder; and while he might find the beauty in someone's smile, someone else might find their beauty in their eyes. But he had believed everyone had beauty somewhere.

Until he met Owen. Though he didn't outwardly seem abusive, he could see how entwined Amelia was in him. He supposed it was natural if they had known each other since birth, but Joshua found it difficult all the same. He could feel the guilt rolling from her as they kissed, he could feel the shame hidden beneath her excitement and arousal as she clambered off his lap and told him she didn't want to make him second best.

"I don't want to make you second best," Amelia said.

He chuckled. "That's the funny thing, Amelia, I know I'm not. I haven't been since we were in the coffee shop." His words were the truth: she'd run after him, she'd scolded Joshua, she'd realised she was not Fated to him.

Whatever was happening, she'd admitted to falling in love with him, and he could feel it. She'd said for so long that she didn't really believe you could have one soulmate in life, yet he could feel her own words biting her.

And he loved that fact.

"It's not that easy, Joshua," she whispered.

He stood from the sofa, acutely aware she could feel his arousal, but he didn't care at that point. They could feel each other's, it was thick in the air as well as their minds like fog.

"It might not be, but I can feel you questioning everything you ever knew about him. You were embarrassed in that meeting with him, you ran away from him, and the first thing you did was tell him that you weren't going to shut me out, and then you ran after me when we were done. I'm not... I don't expect you to leave him right now, or at all in fact, as much as I'd love you to—"

"Joshua," she cut in.

He shook his head. "You need the truth, and you need to hear it from him. But the thing is, Amelia, you might think you love him, I can feel your confusion over it. But can you honestly love a man who fucked you over? If the government finds out about him... well, he'd be risking both his life and yours. You'd be Segregated, or worse, and it won't matter if you knew about him faking or not."

She blinked, her mouth moving to reply, but she thought better of it.

"I don't think he's done it out of malice, but he clearly didn't give you one thought. What is even worse is that he was faced with the truth, and he just laughed it off, threw it away and decided for you that you'd pick him. He might have been your childhood sweetheart, Amelia, but you're not a child anymore."

Joshua felt proud of himself; his argument was fool-proof. He was giving her the choice, but they both knew she had no choice. She either faced the truth or she Segregated herself. The fact was, he might have been backing her into a corner, but he was doing it because she'd confessed her love for him, and he could feel it shining like glitter around them. Every moment since she got off his lap, he could feel her resisting the urge to go back to him.

"You're not giving me the choice either," she argued quietly. "The government clearly have been tricked into thinking Owen is my Fated. My card says Owen, look—" She grabbed her purse, a hot pink leather thing, and pulled out the baby blue card everyone got alongside their Knot Art. She unfolded it and showed it to him.

In calligraphy handwriting, it said clearly Owen, England.

He snorted. He grabbed his wallet out of his back pocket and found his. Baby blue and folded, he took it out. Amelia, England.

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