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.

she 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

she hid them behind her,

forcefully grabbed her arm, pulling her into his embrace, muttering softly, “You’re neither a puppy nor a kitten. You’re my family, and family is irreplaceable. You were back then,

his family. What she desired…was the kind of love he had for Sierra.

as the dying flames struggled among the ashes, so did the light in Josephine’s eyes. Eventually, they both

a grown-up now,” she signed. She was trying to tell him that she was

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

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 open and that

traced the corners of her eyes, wiping away her tears. “Now that you’re a

gaze downward. Did he really not understand what she was implying? No.

ran into the mansion,

in the yard until every last piece of trash was

”

of the

later, Lewis pushed the door open and

crouched down in front of her.

away, refusing to meet his gaze. He was quiet for a moment before reaching out to ruffle her hair.

we celebrate it

her birthday. was, so Old Mr. Alvarez had declared the day she came to the Alvarez household was

twenty years.

to his suggestion, Lewis held her hand and pulled her

ways of patching her heart up after crushing it into pieces, and no matter how cheap

it. Because…he

stopped beside the car, simply staring at the passenger seat, refusing

Sierra spritzing the seat with disinfectant appeared

it?”

at him. “Am I really filthy?” Josephine

her clear eyes, he saw the

gaze and tugged on her hand, leading her to another car. “Let’s use a different