Joshua stopped what he was going to say.
"Hazel, I really want to promise you now, but I don't want to influence your judgment." He said quietly, "Let's go to the orphanage first. Wait until everything is over and tell me your answer."
Hazel was touched. Joshua was always so considerate, and he would not force her to do anything. Maybe she really should trust him more.
"Would you like to go back to Denmark Residence with me?" He asked.
"My mom won't agree." Hazel shook her head.
"Okay." Joshua anything more, he just lowered his head.
Joshua took Hazel to the hospital to ensure she was not hurt and then took her to the hotel to stay with her mother.
***
When Hazel was walking out the door of the hotel to go to Denmark Residence, she saw Joshua waiting in the lobby.
Hazel was stunned. She asked curiously, "You did not return to the Denmark Residence last night?"
Joshua nodded. "Well, I worried about your safety, so I slept in the room next to yours."
Hazel was touched again. Joshua always liked to stand silently in a position that made her comfortable, but he would never want to disturb her.
"Let's go." She whispered.
"Is your mother not going with us?" He asked.
"She is not interested in your business." Hazel shook her head, "But I talked to her, and she said she would let me handle it."
They quietly drove to the orphanage, and when they stopped in front of it, they saw a fire. Joshua and Hazel rushed to get out of the car as the smoke billowed up into the sky.
The children were all panicked, huddled together outside in the courtyard. Several of the children were crying, and others were trying to comfort them.
Joshua and Hazel ran and found Jennie Collins. They asked her, "Aunt Jennie, what happened?"
"The orphanage suddenly caught fire. Fortunately, the children are all safe." Jennie looked at the two and frowned.
"Did you call the fire department?" Joshua asked.
"Yes," Jennie said.
As her voice just fell, a siren of a fire truck sounded, and it flew into the driveway of the orphanage.
Joshua and Hazel helped to move the children to a safer place and got them blankets. The fire was quickly put out, and once the fire department left, Joshua called his men to clean up the mess.
An orphanage helper took the children to the classroom, while Jennie took Joshua and Hazel to survey the fire's destruction.
"Only this room here was on fire, and it was burnt very badly." Hazel frowned and asked, "What is this room for?"
"This is the data room," Jennie said.
"Data room? Why did the data room catch fire, but not any other room?" Hazel couldn't help but whisper. The fire seemed to be set deliberately.
"That's because the information of everyone in the orphanage was stored in this room." Joshua said, "Aunt Jennie is not used to using computers. All the information is in paper form. If it burns, then all of the information is gone."
Hazel was shocked. "That is, someone set fire to burn all the data in this room!"
"Yeah." Joshua's eyes got darker, "It seems that some people can't let things go."
Hazel had a theory that if some people didn't want the orphanage's data to be available, what were they trying to hide?
She looked at Joshua, and she had an answer in her mind. Perhaps, the arsonist did not want Joshua's birth story to be disclosed.
"Are you on to something?" Jennie frowned at them.
"Well..." Hazel looked at Joshua, not knowing how to speak.
"Aunt Jennie," Joshua said faintly, "I want to ask you to tell Hazel what happened that year."
Jennie looked at him intricately, "Are you ready to face that?"
Joshua smiled shallowly, not answering.
"Follow me," Jennie said, and she turned and led the way.
Hazel looked at Joshua, and Joshua calmly said, "Go."
Hazel followed Jennie and came to a cemetery near the orphanage. They came to a small tomb, and Jennie looked at the tombstone with a bit of sadness.
"This child was named Jughead by his parents. Not a name I would approve of, but he liked it very much." Jennie said, "When he was ten years old, a very rich couple came to the orphanage and decided to adopt him. He was very happy, but just before the adoption was officially complete, he went to the river with a few friends to have fun, as some kind of celebration before leaving."
"But then there was an accident. Jughead fell into the river. Although he was quickly rescued and taken to the hospital, he had a fever, and later, he was diagnosed with acute pneumonia. He didn't make it through the night. Later, the couple adopted another child, that child was Joshua."
Hazel looked at Jennie in shock, she hadn't finished the story, but Hazel suddenly understood.
Jennie went on to say, "Joshua was in the group of children who went to the river with Jughead that day. He always blamed himself for not keeping an eye on Jughead. Even though the doctor said, Jughead had pneumonia before he fell into the water, and his death had nothing to do with it."
Jennie wiped her eyes and continued with her story, "The day that Jughead was taken to the hospital, Joshua followed behind the ambulance on his bike. He stayed outside of the intensive care unit and watched over him every moment until he left this earth. Since then, he has been afraid of the hospital. He did overcome that to some extent, but he had never liked to take medicine."
Hazel suddenly recalled that she used to wonder why Joshua was so afraid of taking medicine, but they were not together at that time. He just said that if she had to take care of him, she would have to take care of him to the end. He would not give in to her curiosity.
She felt so uncomfortable and that she was a horrible person. She was dating Joshua and enjoying his tenderness and thoughtfulness, but she never really cared about what he liked or what he was afraid of, she never asked about his past.
Even when the curiosity of him not wanting to take medicine was in her head, she let it go and never thought about it again until Aunt Jennie told her the story.
Suddenly, Hazel asked, "Is this child...Jughead...is he Lanny and Caroline's child?"
If this was the case, everything made sense. Joshua had blamed himself for the death of Jughead all his life, so he would naturally be unconditionally good to the Flores family to make up for what he thought was his fault.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺