Before I Burn (Ashes of Us #1)

Prologue

Berkley

Past

I used to believe the world unraveled piece by piece. A hairline fracture here, a quiet shift there, until everything finally gave way. But mine didn’t crumble slowly. It shattered in an instant—with one phone call.

The day my mom died, I was out back painting the fence with my dad.

It was one of those warm spring mornings that carried the promise of something new.

Freshly cut grass, sun-warmed cedar, and the faint sweetness drifting over from Mrs. O’Hara’s garden.

I was only ten, yet I remember every detail, because it was the last moment of my life that felt simple.

Dad’s phone buzzed on the porch railing. He wiped his hands on his jeans and answered, careful not to smear paint across the screen.

“Is this Anderson Monroe?” A deep, strained voice came through the line.

“Yes?” Dad replies, uncertainty tightening his tone, as if he already sensed disaster closing in.

A beat of silence followed. Then words that didn’t feel real. Not at first.

“I’m so sorry. There’s been an accident. Your wife, Evelyn Monroe, and another woman, Daphne Calder... they didn’t make it.”

From that moment, nothing looked the same. Dad drifted through the days hollowed out, moving like a man trying to hold his own pieces together. We leaned on each other because there was nowhere else to put the weight.

The Calders were drowning in their own grief. Uncle Dean lost his wife. And Rowen, Ronan—my boys, my inseparable shadows—and Reign, my best friend, lost their mother. Our families fused into something unbreakable, bound by a hurt so deep it became its own language.

Reign was my lifeline. She never cried where anyone could see, but I heard her muffled sobs when I stayed over. We survived that year through whispered conversations in the dark, shared blankets, and long walks when the world felt too quiet to bear.

But it was the boys who changed the shape of me.

Rowen and Ronan carried a soft kind of sweetness.

Gentle hands. Quiet words. Glances that lingered just long enough to make my heart flutter.

They’d always been affectionate, but after the accident, everything held a little more meaning—their hugs a little tighter, their eyes searching mine as if they were trying to speak truths they didn’t know how to say.

And then there was Emerson.

He was different. Sharper around the edges, quieter with his emotions.

His smiles became rarer as the months passed, but when they did appear, they were golden.

After his mom spiraled—pills, vodka, missed dinners and slurred apologies—he changed too.

Hardened. Guarded. But when it was just the two of us, I could still see the boy beneath the armor.

The one who watched me like I was something fragile, something precious, something he wasn’t sure he deserved.

I kept my feelings for them buried deep, locked away where no one could reach them.

I never said a word about the way my stomach fluttered when Ronan tucked a picked flower behind my ear, or how Rowen’s arm around my shoulders felt too right to be casual.

I hid how Emerson’s quiet intensity made something in my chest tighten.

I pushed it all down, terrified of risking what we already had.

Reign and I were closer than sisters, bound together by loss and loyalty. Hurting her—or stepping away from the family we’d built—was a thought I couldn’t stomach.

But the truth grew heavier by the day. I wasn’t just their friend anymore. I was falling.

It happened in Reign’s backyard the night everything shifted.

A bonfire snapped and hissed in the pit, smoke circling up toward the stars.

The guys lounged around in worn hoodies and jeans, passing a bottle back and forth.

I sat at the edge of a blanket, letting the flames blur while my thoughts tangled.

Reign nudged me and whispered, “You’re quiet. What’s spinning in that head of yours, Berk?”

I forced a shrug. “Just tired.”

Emerson caught my eye from across the fire. One lifted brow—silent, sharp—calling me out without a single word. He wasn’t judging. He just saw me the way he always did, too clearly. I tried to look away, but his stare didn’t let me. It pinned me gently, insistently.

Then he shifted, glancing at the twins as if giving an unspoken cue. Suddenly, all three sets of eyes were on me—Rowen, Ronan, Emerson—each holding a different weight. Concern. Curiosity. Something deeper I wasn’t ready to name.

Rowen looked at me with steady seriousness, like he was bracing for whatever truth I was about to spill.

Ronan’s gaze was soft, searching, as if waiting for permission to fix whoever or whatever had hurt me.

And Emerson... his stare was the hardest to face.

Heavy with understanding. Like he already knew the secret I’d been trying to smother.

For a moment, I felt seen in a way that shook me. And the part of me that always tried to run? She went completely still.

Hours later, after the fire had burned down to a slow, glowing pulse and everyone drifted inside—chasing warmth, conversation, or maybe a moment alone—I stayed outside.

The quiet steadied me. The faint hiss of the embers, the crack of settling wood, the cool breath of night air on my skin.

.. it all kept my emotions from overflowing.

I watched the remaining coals pulse like a heartbeat, mine racing far too fast.

“You okay?”

The question was soft, careful. I turned and found Rowen behind me, stepping into the halo of firelight. The glow cast warm shadows across his face, highlighting the sharp lines of his jaw and the worry anchored in his eyes.

He lowers himself beside me—not close enough to touch, but near enough that his warmth cuts through the night. It grounds me more than I want to admit.

“Not really,” I whisper. There’s no point pretending with him. He’s always seen straight through me.

Rowen doesn’t rush in with empty comfort or attempt to gloss over the truth. He simply waits, letting the silence stretch in that calm, patient way that has always made me feel safe. He knows I’ll speak when I’m ready.

I draw a slow breath and pull my knees to my chest. “Do you ever feel like everything’s shifting around you... and you’re the only one trying to keep it from falling apart? Like if you stop for even a second, the whole thing might crash down?”

I glance his way, bracing for confusion—or worse, pity—but what I find instead is something unguarded.

His expression tightens, as if I’ve reached straight into a place he doesn’t show anyone. “Every damn day,” he whispers. No hesitation. No softening.

And then his hand moves.

It’s subtle, careful. His fingers slide toward mine, barely grazing them—intentional, unmistakable. Not an accident. Not this time.

The light touch sends a shiver through me, small but sharp enough to steal my breath.

We don’t speak after that. We don’t need to. Under a sky scattered with stars, with the fire fading to embers beside us, everything unsaid feels suddenly understood.

The days that followed blurred together. I caught Ronan’s eyes dropping to my mouth when I talked. Noticed the way Emerson’s palm rested at the small of my back a beat longer than necessary. We were orbiting something big, a quiet pull none of us knew how to navigate.

And me—I was being torn open.

I loved them. Not just as friends. Not anymore. But how could I choose when each held a piece of me?

Rowen, with his steady strength. Ronan, with his gentle warmth. Emerson, with that brutal honesty that saw straight into my bones. Even Reign—her laughter, her loyalty—she was part of the gravity that kept us all tethered.

This wasn’t a story where I could claim them all... was it?

One evening, Emerson found me behind the community center, the old spot where we used to sneak snacks during town fairs. The air smelled of damp earth and aging wood, and faint traces of carnival sounds lingered in the night.

I didn’t hear his footsteps. I just felt him there.

“You hiding from me?” Emerson’s voice drifted out of the shadows, low and edged with teasing, though it couldn’t mask the heaviness beneath.

I didn’t turn. I pressed my back against the cool brick wall, folding my arms tight across my chest like I could keep myself from falling apart. “Hiding from everyone,” I murmur.

He exhaled softly, the sound of his sneakers brushing the pavement marking each slow step he took toward me.

Emerson never rushed—not with touch, not with words—but he stopped close enough that his presence wrapped around me.

His shoulders hovered near mine, hands buried in the pocket of his hoodie as if he didn’t trust them to stay still otherwise.

Silence settled between us. Heavy, but strangely gentle.

Finally, after a long stretch, he says quietly, “Things at home are worse.”

My breath hitched. This was how he always reached me—by peeling back his own armor first. He offered pieces of himself, unpolished and painfully real, like invitations to share the weight with him.

But even as he spoke, I felt it—what he wasn’t saying.

Shadows clinging to him just beyond my grasp, too tangled and dark for him to pull into the open.

And when I finally looked at him, his eyes carried a message he didn’t speak: Don’t make me say the rest. Not yet. Not to you.

Not because he doubted me—he never had—but because he wanted to shield me from the darkness he still battled in silence. The truth he feared might drag me under with him.

He kept his gaze fixed on the night, as if staring into the dark might create enough space between him and the words he was forcing out.