31. Ember #2
“I loved you when you were being a grumpy, impossible statue. I loved you when you were telling me my porch wasn’t up to code.
And I definitely loved you when you had me on that counter.
I was entirely, completely in. I knew you had a daughter.
I knew you had a shift schedule that means you might leave in the middle of breakfast and not come back until midnight.
I’m not a toddler, Brooks. I’m an adult.
I saw the mess. I saw the risk. And I chose you anyway. ”
Brooks takes a step toward me. “Then why are you standing all the way over there? Ember, if you love me, we can fix this. I’m here. I’m standing right here.”
“Because you don’t get to decide this all by yourself, Brooks!”
The volume of my voice doesn’t rise, but the intensity does, the words cutting through the quiet kitchen like a blade.
“You think because you had a breakthrough, I’m just supposed to reset to Friday morning?
What, you think I’m a vending machine where you put in an apology and out comes the fun, flirty girl who makes you cheese and laughs at your rules?
I sat by that scanner app listening to your crews clear that mill, terrified that you were hurt, and when you finally came home, you used your daughter as a shield to tell me that what we had was a ‘neighborly flirtation.’”
I pace away from him, needing the space, needing to get away from the magnetism of his presence.
“You know, for the last month, I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop,” I say, my voice low and steady now.
“I know I’m loud. I know I’m bright, and I know I love glitter and stupid, impulsive things.
I’ve heard that phrase my entire life, Brooks: ‘You’re just a lot to handle, Emmy.
’ Every guy I’ve ever dated has eventually looked at me and decided that I’m something they have to contain, or regulate, or eventually, turn off. ”
He opens his mouth, his face twisting with protest, but I hold up a hand to stop him, refusing to let him interrupt the truth.
“I didn’t think you were like that. For a few weeks, I actually thought you saw the ‘lot’ that I am and liked the way it filled up your quiet, gray rooms. But Friday proved it. You confirmed every single insecurity I’ve spent my entire life trying to outrun.”
I laugh shakily, rubbing at my eyes.
“Do you know how humiliating it is to realize you were right about your own heartbreak before it even happened?”
“I was trying to protect you,” he repeats, his eyes bloodshot, his voice thick with the agony of his own logic. “I was trying to protect Sophie.”
“You were protecting yourself,” I correct him.
“You were scared of how much it would hurt to lose something you actually cared about, so you decided to kill it yourself before the world could do it for you. And that’s your choice, Brooks.
If you want to live your life like a risk-management assessment, that’s your right as a father and a chief. But you don’t get to do it to me.”
“Emmy, please,” he breathes. “Don’t do this. Give me a chance. One day. Just let me show you.”
Every part of my body—every old instinct that has spent the last month leaning toward his house like a plant toward the sun—wants to step across those four feet of floorboards.
I want to tuck myself under his arm, tell him he’s an idiot, and let the kitchen get warm again. I want the comfort of his weight, the safety of his arms, and the simplicity of us just existing together.
But I am not a project he gets to pick up and put down when he wants.
“No,” I say again, firmer this time. “I can’t do it, Brooks.”
“You’re breaking it off?” he asks, his voice cracking on the last word, his face turning an uncharacteristic, sickly pale gray. “Just like that?”
“You broke it off on Friday,” I say. “I’m just…
staying on my side of the grass, like you asked.
I’m respecting your boundaries, Brooks. You told me to go home.
So I did. And now I’m begging you—please, just leave.
Please, Brooks, just go. I don’t want to be the reason you look back and wonder if you could have been a better father, or a better man, because you were busy trying to manage me. ”
He takes a stumbling step toward me, his hand reaching out, fingers twitching. “I can’t just walk away when I know I’m the one who caused this. Let me fix it. Let me stay.”
I shake my head, my eyes burning with a fresh wave of heat.
“You want to fix it? You want to be the hero? Then have the courage to walk out that door and let me be. Don’t you dare stay here and watch me unravel just so you can feel better about the damage you did.
Your comfort isn’t my responsibility and I refuse to turn my pain into a softer place for you to land. ”
He freezes.
He searches my face, looking for even a flicker of the playful, sunshine girl he pushed away, but I hold his gaze until he sees nothing but the finality of a closed door.
He lets out a long, shuddering breath, his shoulders finally slumping under the weight of it all. The fight leaves him, and he looks like a ghost of the man who walked in here minutes ago.
As he turns to go, he stops, his back to me. He doesn’t look back, his voice barely a breath of air in the quiet room.
“I love you, city girl,” he whispers, the title hitting me differently now—less a playful nickname, more a testament to the distance between us. “And I’m going to spend every day for the rest of my life wishing I’d been brave enough to tell you that before I burned it all down.”
He doesn’t wait for a response, and I don’t give him one.
I watch, paralyzed, as he walks out.
The engine of his truck cranks to life, the low rumble vibrating through the glass of my kitchen window, shaking the frame. He pulls out of the driveway, the tires crunching against the gravel, a sound that stretches out for an eternity before it finally dies out into the valley breeze.