Looking back now, I still don't know how those two weeks slipped by so quickly.
Tomorrow was the submission day—the day everything we had worked on would finally be judged. But the days leading up to it were anything but easy. They were filled with stress, frustration, laughter, conflict, unity… and sadness. Too many emotions packed into too little time.
Getting people to cooperate was harder than we imagined. Most students we approached were grumpy; some didn't even bother to respond. Others ignored us completely. So much for proper conversations with twenty people, as instructed. We barely made it to nine respondents—four of them being teachers.
After that came the documentation—compiling responses, arranging evidence, making sure everything was neat enough to present.
And then there was my group.
Josephine barely accompanied us during the interviews. Most of the time, it was Liam and me doing the talking. She would sit far away, watching from a distance, and only come closer when we were done. Liam was too scared to confront her. Honestly, so was I. Josephine was unpredictable—calm one moment, something else entirely the next. I didn't want to take any risks.
When it was time to decide what to do with the responses we gathered, we sat together for hours brainstorming. Surprisingly, Josephine joined us this time. Ideas were thrown around, debated, discarded—but nothing stuck. Every suggestion either Liam or I made was rejected. Josephine didn't agree with anything… yet she offered no ideas of her own.
That was when Liam snapped.
He exploded in a way I never expected—venting all his bottled anger on her. Words spilled out of him like poison.
"Grumpy. Fool. Always depressed. Feeding off other people's happiness."
I froze.
From the rumors I'd heard about Josephine, I expected her to hit him… or at least respond coldly. But instead, she stood up and walked away without a word.
That silence scared me more than anger ever could.
It was then I asked Liam what had really happened between them.
He hesitated before speaking.
"We used to be really close," he said. "Then one day, during a team presentation, she fell. Everyone laughed… and I did too. I didn't mean it seriously—I was just trying to catch fun. But she didn't take it that way."
He paused, his voice heavy.
"After that, she changed. She stopped talking to me. She stopped associating with anyone. I tried to reconcile one day, but she shoved me aside. I fell and sprained my ankle badly. Then she laughed at me… mocked my pain. Ever since then, we haven't spoken. She became someone everyone feared. She hurt others. Even Miss Paulina is afraid of her."
My heart sank.
I was Josephine's closest friend.
And I had left her.
I had run away when she needed me most. She must have carried all that pain, all that betrayal, in silence. When Liam laughed at her, it must have shattered whatever was left inside her. Yet, deep down, I couldn't stop believing—maybe she was still the Josephine I knew. Maybe nothing had truly changed.
Quietly, I stood up and walked toward her.
The moment she saw me, she tried to walk away.
I grabbed her hand.
"I was scared, Josephine," I said, my voice trembling. "I didn't mean to run away. I panicked. I overheard Miss Cathy talking to Jessica—they said the orphanage was in crisis, that some of us would be given up for adoption. When I heard my name, I broke down. I didn't know she loved me as much as you said she did. I didn't know she wasn't going to send me away."
Tears burned my eyes.
"I would never choose to leave you. Never. I know everything got messed up because of me… but we're together again now. Maybe we can still fix things. Maybe when we leave here, we can get our home back."
She didn't respond.
She gently pulled her hand away and walked off.
I returned to Liam, and once again we tried to focus on the project. We argued, thought, struggled—but nothing worked.
Then Josephine came back.
She sat with us.
"I'm sorry for what I said earlier," Liam began. "I—"
"Spare me the trouble, Liam," she interrupted calmly. "Let's just focus on the project."
Both of us stared at her, stunned.
From that day on, everything changed.
The teamwork that followed was something I never expected. Ideas flowed. We found our direction. We built our presentation piece by piece. Josephine worked with us—fully, calmly, without anger. Sometimes, when she thought no one was watching, I caught her smiling.
She didn't lash out once.
She didn't withdraw.
Maybe she had let it all go.
Maybe Josephine was finally back.
Everything felt right again—until the day we completed the project.