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The same one Ezra had at the engagement party after talking to his father.
The same one they both had when they would come back from those weekends I hated so much.
The weekends that left them bruised.
That left them scarred.
That left them broken.
Ezra
Two weeks before the last time I saw Emily, we took a trip out to a beach house my family owned.
It was a three-hour drive to reach it, but the property was expansive, and you could do whatever the hell you wanted out there without worry of someone finding you.
I’d wanted it to be just Em and me, but we couldn’t leave without Damon, and then Shane tagged along because he was being a little bitch and didn’t want to be left behind.
It wasn’t a problem having Shane around. He often partied with us and knew what we were doing with Emily. He wasn’t the type to give a damn about it or say a word.
Not that I cared if anybody knew, but Emily had to keep up appearances. If it ever got back to her parents what she was doing, they’d lock her down until the day she was marched down the aisle to marry Mason.
The trip was nothing more than an opportunity to get away and be alone. I hadn’t expected much more than the usual.
Emily would get to be herself for a while, Shane would most likely drink himself stupid, and Damon and I would have the entire night with a girl who’d somehow managed to carve her name into our bones with an ease that left us both stunned.
Maybe it was something as simple as like recognizing like, but six weeks with her somehow became a lifetime...and a lifeline.
For me, at least.
Damon enjoyed being around her. She calmed him down as much as she did me. But it was my leash held constantly and comfortably in her hand, even when she didn’t know it.
After one week with her, I would have done anything she asked, which is why I was panicking as time ran out. Our six weeks of fun with no strings attached was all too quickly bound by chains that I knew I’d never break.
I couldn’t let her go.
I knew it.
Yet time was running out for me to do anything about it.
Later that night, we’d built a bonfire on the beach. Shane and Damon had gone a little too far with it, and the flames were high enough to torch the stars, the fire so hot it was melting the sand into glass.
Emily laughed to see it, her pale face angled up to watch the flames lick the sky.
A song she liked came on, and she already had a few drinks in her, so she’d stood up from where she was sitting next to me to dance around that fire.
I’d watched with unbreakable fascination.
She was nothing more than a dark silhouette against the fire, her crimson hair flying around her shoulders and her body moving in a tease.
Emily, in those rare moments, revealed herself to be a queen.
One strong enough to hold me in place.
One fearless enough not to worry about the beast that kneeled at her feet.
Of all the girls in school, none of them - notoneof them - could stand beneath the pressure Emily did and still manage to laugh and dance.
She was free, unweighted by obligation, unbound by her bullshit good girl reputation, so fucking wild that I realized while watching her that it wasn’t just friendship I wanted from her.