“VIV!”
The next second, Joshua’s eyes went bloodshot. He charged, a primal scream tearing from his throat. He went for the leader, sma- shing a loose brick against his head again and again. The other thugs swarmed him, stabbing him dozens of times.
But Joshua didn’t stop. He held onto the blood–soaked brick, using his last ounce of strength to crack the leader’s skull open. Then he turned to the others, his face a grotesque mask of fury.
“COME ON, IF YOU’RE NOT AFRAID TO DIE!” he roared.
His sheer, terrifying ferocity sent them scattering. They fled, disappearing into the darkness of the alley.
Only then did Joshua’s strength finally give out. He collapsed in front of me. Our eyes met. His were filled with a fierce pride. A small, triumphant smile played on his lips. “Viv,” he gasped, “I told you I’d protect you. I did it.”
“Joshua! I don’t need your protection!”
“Leave me alone!”
I screamed his name and jolted awake, tears streaming down my face. I sat on the sofa, gasping for air, my body trembling from a
fear and cold that felt bone–deep.
looked down at the journal in my lap, my mind a confused jumble. Was it a dream? Or a memory?
I lifted my shirt. My body went rigid. I frantically ran my hand over my stomach.
The scar, the one that had been my constant companion for thirteen years, was gone.
A fresh wave of tears blurred my vision.
I opened the journal again. There was a new line of text, the handwriting shaky and weak.
“Viv, ! saved you.”
Once my emotions subsided, I wrote back, my own hand steady and cold.
“It’s what you should have done.”
If it weren’t for his love.
If it weren’t for the love he was destined to betray.
Mila never would have come after me. I never would have lost the most important part of being a woman. And the thirty–year–old
him never would have had a child with my tormentor, wounding me all over again.
The letters appeared again, shaky and labored.
“Viv, is there anything else I can do for you?”
After the seventeen–year–old Joshua had written the final question mark, I replied. “I’ve already told you. Get out of my life.”
“Disappear from my sight completely. Don’t use the love you feel now as a weapon to hurt me in the future.”
When everyone else had mocked me for my infertility, it was Joshua who had held my hand, who had stood in front of me and shie-
Ided me from the world. His love had made me fearless.
But when he let go of my hand and joined the ranks of my tormentors, I had shattered. The pain he inflicted was a hundred, a thou- sand times worse than the physical wound. The heart he had so carefully mended, he had then crushed with his own two hands.
A scratching sound came from the journal, each letter gouged into the page, almost tearing through.
“That’s impossible!”
eliberately
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take a five–minute detour just to see you. Just one glance, and I feel so happy.”
1601
“Once, during gym class, I heard you had a fever. I was so worried I ran out of school to buy you medicine, just so you wouldn’t have
to suffer for a second longer…”
“And…”
I cut him off. “I know. I know all of this.”
“There was the time I got my period, and you, blushing, bought pads for me.”
“And the time the school bully was picking on me. You heard about it and went after him the same day. Neither of you were seen for a week. He ended up with a broken leg and transferred schools. You ended up in the hospital with a head injury.”
The journal paused for ten seconds before replying. “You know? How do you know all that?”
“If you know all that, then why would you say I’d betray you?”
There was a line he didn’t write, but I knew he was thinking it. I love you so much. How could I ever betray you? I could picture his
seventeen–year–old face, full of confusion and disbelief.
“I know because the future you told me. He told me everything, one story at a time. And he told me he regretted it all.”
Joshua had told me he should have listened to everyone, that marrying a barren woman was the biggest mistake of his life, a source of five years of shame. He’d said he should have let the bully have his way with me, that saving me so early had only made me ungrateful and arrogant. He paraded his “heroic deeds” around like trophies, using them to justify his every whim in our marria- ge, right up to having a child with his mistress.
A tear fell onto the journal, blurring the ink. I panicked, afraid I’d ruin it, and tried to wipe it away. But I was too rough. The page tore
in two.
In my horror, the world around me dissolved. I was no longer in my living room. I was in a hospital room.
And in front of me was a seventeen–year–old boy, a thick bandage wrapped around his abdomen. His face was pale, his brow furro- wed in pain. It was Joshua. One hand was pressed against the blood–soaked gauze, the other was painstakingly writing in the jour-
nal, his lips moving as he formed the words.
“Viv, don’t worry. I’ll protect you. I’ll never hurt you…”
He was so earnest, so determined, as if this were the most important mission of his life.
He had just finished writing when he seemed to sense something. His hand stilled. He looked up, and his eyes met mine.
“Viv?”
In that instant, I saw them again–the eyes I thought I’d lost forever, as clear and bright as a spring morning. His dry lips parted, but
before he could speak, a shrill ringing pierced the air.
And just like that, I was back in my messy house, the house the thirty–year–old Joshua had ransacked.
The phone was still ringing, a sharp, insistent sound.
It was him. The thirty–year–old Joshua. His voice was cold, commanding. “Get down to the coffee shop below my office. Now. Mila
and I need to talk to you.”
At the same time, new lines appeared in the journal.
“Please, believe me. I would never do that.”
“I love you. So much that you can have my life if you want it.”
The naive promises of a young boy, convinced his love was a rose that would never wilt.
clenched the pen in my hand my eyes downcast
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The naive promises of a young boy, convinced his love was a rose that would never wilt.
I clenched the pen in my hand, my eyes downcast.
Fine.
If you won’t believe me, I’ll let your future self tell you in person.
