Chapter 186 Earning It Back

Chapter 186 Earning It Back

"I joined the group so I'd have inside details," Josh said finally, his voice rough, the fight visibly draining out of him now that the phone was already out of his hands, the damage already done. "That's the only reason. I wasn't feeding them anything, Abby. I was trying to stay one step ahead of them, for your sake."

"Inside details," I repeated, my voice flat with disbelief. "Josh, you've been sitting in a chat called 'Whitaker Family Watch' for weeks, reading strangers discuss how best to weaponize me against my own stepfather, and your explanation is that you wanted 'inside details'?"

"Yes," he said, holding my gaze despite how badly his voice shook. "Because the alternative was staying outside of it completely, having no idea what Chloe and Leah were planning until it was already too late to do anything about it."

"Then why didn't you tell me?" I demanded, stepping closer, years of exhaustion and fear finally boiling into something sharp and furious. "Weeks, Josh. Weeks! And this whole time you knew what they were building against me and said NOTHING."

"Because I couldn't," he said, his voice cracking now too. "If I told you outright, if I said 'hey, I'm in a secret group chat with Chloe and Leah, don't worry about it,' what would you have thought? Exactly what you're thinking right now. That I was one of them. That I couldn't be trusted. I needed to actually prove it, not just claim it."

"Prove it how?" Beth cut in, arms crossed, her fury still simmering visibly beneath her voice. "By letting us find out on our own, by accident, in the middle of an already terrible night?"

"By doing something with the information," Josh said, turning to her, something desperate entering his voice now. "Beth, think about it. Tonight —the youth meeting. I found out through that chat that Chloe was planning to corner Abby publicly, force some kind of confrontation in front of the whole congregation. That's why I got you both out before it happened. That's why I met Abby in the chapel afterward, to warn her before Chloe could ambush her with it in front of everyone." 

He looked back at me, pleading now. "I've been using what I learn in that chat to protect you, Abby. Every single time. Getting you and Beth out before things escalated. Warning you before Ezekiel arrived tonight so you weren't blindsided. I know it doesn't look that way right now. But every move I've made since joining that chat has been in your favor, not theirs."

I stared at him, my chest heaving, trying to reconcile the frightened, desperate honesty in his face with the cold, damning evidence still glowing on the phone screen between us.

"That's convenient," I said finally, my voice quieter now but no less sharp. "A story that makes you the secret hero of every single thing that's already happened tonight. How am I supposed to know that's true, Josh, and not just something you're constructing right now because you got caught?"

"You're not," he admitted, something raw and honest breaking through the desperation. "I can't prove it to you tonight. I know that. All I can tell you is that I've never once passed information the other direction. I've never told Chloe anything real about you, about your family, about anything that could actually hurt you. I've only ever taken information out of that chat. Never put anything in."

"That's exactly what someone lying would say," Beth said coldly.

"I know," Josh said, defeated. "I know how this looks. I'm not asking either of you to just believe me tonight. I'm asking for the chance to actually prove it. Watch me. Read every message that comes through from here forward. See whether I warn Abby before something happens, or whether I ever once tip Chloe off about anything real."

I looked down at the phone still in my hand, scrolling backward through the thread with new, colder eyes, searching specifically now for any message from Josh himself rather than just the ones about me.

There were almost none. He'd apparently said very little in the entire thread, mostly reading, occasionally offering vague, noncommittal responses that gave nothing real away. A silent watcher, exactly as he'd claimed.

But silence wasn't innocence either. Silence could just as easily be someone careful enough not to leave evidence.

"I want to believe you," I said finally, quietly. "That's the honest truth, Josh. Some part of me wants very badly to believe that everything you've done since the accident has actually been in my favor, because the alternative is that I've spent weeks trusting someone who was quietly helping build a case against my own family."

There it was again — my family.

"I understand if you can't yet," he said. "I really do. I just need you to know I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to disappear and let you sort this out without me. If you want to watch every move I make from here forward, I'll let you. I'll hand you my phone every single day if that's what it takes to earn back whatever I've lost tonight."

Beth studied him for a long moment, something shifting slightly in her expression — not full trust, not yet, but the beginning of something less absolute than open hostility.

"You have exactly one more chance," she said finally. "The next time something happens in that chat that concerns Abby, you tell her. Immediately. Not after. Not when it's convenient. The second you see it."

"I will," Josh said immediately. "I swear I will."

I handed him back his phone slowly, my fingers lingering on it a moment longer than necessary, some old habit of trust warring visibly against everything I'd just learned.

"Prove it," I said quietly. "That's all I'm asking right now. Prove it."

He nodded, something like relief and grief tangled together in his expression, and pocketed the phone carefully, like it had become something fragile and dangerous all at once.

We stood in the chapel's heavy silence for a long moment, the three of us not quite looking at each other, the night's damage sitting visibly between us.

Then my own phone buzzed, cutting through the tension.

I glanced down, expecting Dan again, or maybe finally, belatedly, my mother.

Instead, a new notification blinked at the top of the screen.

'Whitaker Family Watch — 1 new message.'

I felt every muscle in my body go rigid.

I hadn't left that chat. Josh had shown it to us on his phone, but somehow, impossibly, the same notification was now appearing on mine.

I looked up at Josh, my blood running cold. "How am I getting notifications from a chat I'm not even in?"

Josh's face went pale.

"I don't know," he said. "That shouldn't be possible."