What Separates Me and You

Chapter 26 Am I Filthy?

Josephine slowly reached out to scoop a handful of ash off the ground. It was promptly blown away by a gust of wind. She looked up at Lewis helplessly.

But all he did was gaze back at her condescendingly, as though all he had destroyed were some worthless garbage, and that in his eyes, Josephine was no different from the garbage he had just dealt with. Her friends, even herself, and all she held dear meant nothing to him.

She picked herself off the ground and signaled. “Why? Why do you treat me like this?” Lewis took a step forward and reached out to wipe her tears away, saying softly as he did, “These things should not have appeared here in the first place. I’ve told you to stay away from Avery. Why don’t you listen?”

She even had the audacity to bite him for these pieces of trash!

“Am I not even allowed to have friends?” Josephine signed.

“You have me, and that should be enough. Why do you need friends?” His tone was gentle, but to Josephine, those words scared her to no end.

She stared into his eyes, which carried no warmth in them. They felt colder than the bone-chilling wind around them.

She unconsciously took a step back. “All this while, you were all I had. Ever since I was a child, you were the only one I had, but because you had tons of people around you, you never once looked in my direction…” Josephine signaled.

“What am I to you? A cat? A dog, perhaps?” she thought to herself.

Lewis simply stared quietly at her.

As she signed with her stiff fingers, tears fell from her eyes. “I’m human too. I’m not a cat or a dog. I am a human with a heart. I get upset and sad at times, but never once have you cared. I don’t want to be like a dog, waiting at home for you to return every day; wagging my tail with joy every time you give me a pat on the head.”

Her movements were slow, pausing after each word, venting the silent screams her shattered heart could never vocalize. She could not speak, and her movements were silent, so nobody could tell that with every motion she gestured with her hands, her heart was bleeding.

Even Lewis wasn’t aware of it, and he likely never would be.

Just like puppies that couldn’t speak, no one ever knew how sad they felt. They were

the only ones that knew how they felt, and all they could do was curl up in a corner, licking their own wounds.

stood there in the cold, harsh wind signing to him, his aloof expression made her feel like a clown amusing the audience. Her movements gradually halted, and she let her arms drop to her sides weakly. A bitter smile tugged on her lips. She was in

she hid them

pulling her into his embrace, muttering softly, “You’re neither a puppy nor a kitten. You’re my family, and family

love he had for Sierra. As she stared at Lewis, the scraps of paper

dying flames struggled among the ashes, so did

to tell him that she was no longer the

at her as he always did. He told her that he liked her, but his

tiniest scrap of his love, and even then, he would not so much as spare her a glance. But at the same time, he would tell her that this door would always be

her eyes, wiping away her tears. “Now that you’re

not understand

turned around, ran into the mansion, and hid

piece of trash was burned up

”

herself tightly as she stared-blankly out of the window. She watched as the sky gradually darkened, plunging the world

door open and made his

He crouched down in

to meet his gaze. He was quiet for a moment before reaching out to

we

She did not know which day her birthday. was, so Old Mr. Alvarez had declared the

twenty years.

saw that she wasn’t responding to his suggestion, Lewis held her hand and pulled her up. “Let’s go for

after crushing it into pieces, and no matter how cheap his love for

seem to refuse it. Because…he was

beside the car, simply

the seat

is it?”

at him. “Am

into her clear eyes, he saw the helplessness

on her hand, leading her to another car. “Let’s