All I Wanted: A Joshayley Fanfic

Chapter 15 - Conspiracy

*JENNA'S POV*

It was getting harder and harder to hold onto him. I could sense that, and it scared me.

The tighter I clung onto him, the more he slipped through my fingers. I felt powerless to stop it. A space had developed between us, and I couldn't cross it now, despite how much I wanted to. Josh had been all I wanted, and now I was losing him.

We hardly spoke. He hardly even looked at me. When he did look at me, it wasn't with that wide-eyed, boy-like adoration anymore; it was with sadness, because he could feel it too. We shared a house; we shared a bed; we shared a name; but it felt like we hadn't touched in months.

When I had first realised what was happening, I couldn't understand it. Nothing had changed; I hadn't changed. Why didn't Josh want me anymore? And then I'd located the cause of it, when I first saw them together. Her. I'd thought I was free of her, finally. I'd thought, stupidly, when Josh left Paramore, that I wouldn't have to worry again. I wouldn't have worry about her being close to him. But there she was again, like a determined boomerang. They'd just been talking in a mall; casual; nothing incriminating. But what had got me was that Josh had lied to me to see her, and worse - the way he looked at her. I could see that even from a distance. It was the way he used to look at me. Like she was the only thing in his world.

Hayley. Even her name felt like a smack across the face.

I'd tried to think nothing of it, but it was turning me sour from the inside out. I couldn't help having suspicions. They were just little things, but I noticed differences in Josh's behaviour. One day, I had come back home and found two pasta bowls in the sink rather than just one, even though it had only been Josh in the house as far as I knew; and another time, I'd returned from an art class to the smell of a perfume in the living room that wasn't mine. Little things. I picked up on them, though.

Then, recently, I'd seen the pictures. They didn't prove anything, but they made me feel like perhaps I was right, and not just insanely paranoid. They were holding hands. Josh never held my hand anymore. I'd stared at them for hours, it seemed, looking at the way she leant on him slightly; the way that Josh seemed happier than I'd ever been able to make him. I'd felt hatred boiling in my blood. If you hadn't known that Josh Farro was married, anyone would have said they looked like a couple. As it was, they were probably just friends. Right?

I didn't know. It was absurd that I couldn't just sit down with Josh and ask him about it. A wife should be able to talk to her husband, shouldn't she? She should be able to trust him to be faithful, shouldn't she? She should be able to hold him; kiss him; make love to him - something we hadn't done in a long, long time. She should be able to love him without fear.

I couldn't anymore.

Feeling like I had no control over the situation was the worst part. So was feeling like everything I had worked so hard for was being taken from me by someone else. Like she was taking my place. But I wasn't going to let her. I wasn't.

So when I found myself in the car behind Hayley's that day as I headed home with Isabelle from shopping in Nashville, I wasn't about to let the opportunity get away from me. She lived on the other side of Franklin - and it was only housing in this area, so there was no other reason for her to be there. It was obvious to me that she was headed for my house, and for Josh. I wouldn't allow her to do that. I was prepared to do anything I had to. I didn't care if it would have consequences. In that moment, I just wanted to keep her away from him. For once and for all.

*HAYLEY'S POV*

As I drove to Josh's house, the sun beating down on the back of my neck, I couldn't help feeling like a teenager who had just been let out of school for the summer. We had got back yesterday from playing the bunch of shows over in Europe, and I was relieved. This leg of the tour had definitely been the hardest for me so far. It was the longest time I had spent away from Josh, and there had been that whole drama about photos of us together ending up online. But right then, I felt careless. It was swelteringly hot, which was the way I liked it; the sunshine was baking the worries out of my mind, and I was free. In a few minutes I would be with Josh, and everything would be perfect.