Page 2 of Ember’s Heart

Present

T he sun’s rays are just making their way over the horizon, painting the sky in shades of purple and orange, as I enter the one place I didn’t want to ever return to.

Scrubbing my hand down my face, over the stubble, my eyelids feel heavy, like I haven’t slept in days.

I pull my beat-up truck over to the side of the road to gather my thoughts.

Ten years. Ten years since I’d left this town with my best friend and brother by my side to serve this country.

I did it because I felt it was my duty. I followed in the footsteps of my dad, his dad, and so on.

I did it because I was looking for a purpose.

I did it as a naive kid that didn’t fully know or understand what I was actually signing up for.

I was trained for all kinds of events and attacks.

But what I wasn’t trained, or prepared for, was the aftermath of an attack.

That feeling of why I was alive and they weren’t.

I wasn’t married like some of them were.

I didn’t have kids to watch grow and teach things to.

So why was I the one who survived when others didn’t?

When I catch the reflection of myself in the rearview mirror I hate it.

It’s like looking at a stranger. I’m no longer that kid who left Rose Valley.

He’s gone and in his place is a man who’s been hardened and is haunted by ghosts I can’t outrun.

The army had taken a piece of me, and the aftermath of the nightmares and the guilt, had taken the rest.

It feels like the last four years have been a blur. When they discharged me I knew I wasn’t ready, nor did I want to return back here. I bounced around the country from town to town, state to state. From the west to east and everywhere in between, they were all just nameless towns.

Now here I was, back in Rose Valley. It wasn’t duty or obligation that dragged me back, not entirely.

It was the strain in my mom’s voice the last couple of times I spoke with her.

She sounded exhausted. I knew my parents were getting older, and they were struggling.

I also knew I couldn’t ignore this town any longer.

The truth was it was time to deal with my regrets. It was time to face her .

Ember.

Firefly.

Just the thought of her sent a jolt of fear, regret, and a lingering ache of longing through me.

She was the one thing I wasn’t ready to face.

The one promise I’d broken, the one heart I’d shattered.

I’d told myself I was protecting her, giving her space to grow, but the truth was, I was running from my own demons.

She deserved better than the broken man I was now.

Clenching my jaw, I forced my mind to go blank. I didn’t want to think about the past. I didn’t want to think about how she laughed, or the way she used to look at me like I hung the damn moon.

For years now I’ve pushed it all down, and locked it away.

I refused to think about the promises I’d broken, all the letters I’d gotten from her but I ignored.

I read each and every one, but I just simply stopped responding.

I hated myself. The guilt was a constant, gnawing ache, and I knew that facing her would be like ripping open a wound that had never properly healed.

So the thought of seeing Ember again after all these years and seeing the hurt in her eyes, knowing I was the cause, that was a different kind of torture than anything I could face in the Army.

Gripping the steering wheel, my knuckles white, I took a deep breath and pulled back onto the road. It was time to make amends, face my past and the only girl that ever owned my heart.