33. Motives

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***Trigger warnings for mentions of attempted sexual assault, PTSD, and coping with a trauma.***

Start the song. It's when the party's over by Billie Eilish.

It took an excessive amount of begging and coaxing from Hoppus to get Josh into a shower. Josh cried the whole time, watching the ice cold water turn pink as bits of blood and brain that Jude's toilet water sponge bath had left behind were washed down the drain. The water heater must have been busted during the riot because there wasn't a single drop of warmth coming out of the shower head Josh was standing under. The shower room was empty apart from Hoppus and Josh, and Josh was grateful for that. He didn't want anyone to see him sobbing like this while he was completely naked. Everything about this moment felt pathetic.

Without his clothing to hide behind, the reality of the trauma Josh's body had been through was inescapable. His torso was bruised purple on one side where his rib was tender, he was covered with blue and black blotches and harsh crimson scrapes, there were little cuts on his hips that looked like the indents of fingernails, and the skin around his previously dislocated shoulder was an absolute disaster. There was no denying the fact that he'd fallen victim to round two of the man with the blue eyes and his sick obsession with Josh.

No matter how much Josh tried to scrub away the marks on his skin, he didn't feel any cleaner. It felt like there was mold and dirt buried under his skin, and he couldn't reach it to scoop it out. He just had to accept that it lived there now.

Hoppus didn't say a single word, allowing Josh to get out the last of his tears before giving up on trying to cleanse himself. Then Josh was drying off, getting dressed in fresh clothes, and being led back to his cell.

It was disorienting to see the prison so empty and so filthy. It felt like Josh was in a parallel universe. He didn't really know how to cope with it, so he just pretended it didn't exist until he was back in the safety of his cell, which no longer even looked like his cell.

Skye had asked Hoppus to get her a list of everything that had been destroyed in Josh's cell so they could replace it, but Josh hadn't been very cooperative with that either. He didn't want them to give him things. He didn't want to become a burden to them like he was to everyone else. Besides, he already owed them too much. He didn't want to owe them money on top of everything else.

"How's the physical pain?" Hoppus asked in a fatherly tone as he watched Josh immediately climb back into bed, pulling the covers up over his head to hide away from the destruction all around him.

"Okay," Josh lied, closing his eyes tightly.

"Are you feeling mentally safe?" Hoppus pressed.

"I'm okay," Josh lied again, hating himself for shutting out the one person who cared most about him in the whole world.

Hoppus was quiet for a moment before Josh heard him sit down in the desk chair by his bed. "Buddy, I've got to say something, and I'm not saying it to be mean or to scare you or anything like that, but I need to say it. Okay?"

"Okay," Josh whispered back numbly.

His dad took in a deep breath. "You're scaring me a little. This feels a little bit like when I first met you. You're closed off again. I don't want to make assumptions about what happened to you during the riot, but I can't help but think that-"

"I don't want to talk about it," Josh interrupted quickly, every muscle in his body tensing away from the offending words.

"Josh, buddy, you said you provoked someone, so they hurt you during the riot. Was it McCarthy? Did he hurt you like he did last time?" Hoppus persisted hesitantly.

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