Page 5 of Ember’s Heart

Colton

E mber.

It feels like my world just tilted on its axis.

She was the last person I wanted to run into right now.

All I wanted to do before going to my parents’ house was stop in at the familiar coffee shop and get a cup of the coffee I’ve missed over the years.

I’d even told myself I needed that time to emotionally prepare myself for seeing her again.

After all, I knew, deep down, I’d run into her sooner or later.

I just hadn’t expected it to be this soon.

Staring into Ember’s eyes it doesn’t escape me the fire burning in them. One thing about my Firefly is she definitely lives up to her name.

And yeah, my little Firefly was angry alright.

It was like a punch to the gut. All the years of avoiding her and shutting her out of my life and now she was here, in front of me, and she was… breathtaking.

Ember had always been very pretty, with her blond hair and blue-gray eyes, there was no denying she was beautiful. But the girl I remembered had blossomed into a woman, a very beautiful woman who developed curves in all the right places.

My gaze flicked over her, taking in how her jeans hugged her hips.

A sudden wave of heat rushed through me, and my mouth went dry.

Good god her breasts… her breasts were noticeably fuller than I remembered.

I was hit with a rush of memories flooding back from our summer days at Rose Valley Lake, the way she’d looked in her swimsuit, her skin glistening in the sun.

I was suddenly, acutely aware of how much she had changed, how much I had missed.

I was speechless. Utterly, completely speechless. Ember, my Firefly, was standing before me for the first time in years, and I couldn’t find a single coherent thought in my head.

As the silence stretched between us, any conversations around us faded away. All the pain and hurt over the last decade, the unanswered questions, it was all like a weight pressing down on us.

After what felt like hours, but was probably only seconds, I managed to find my voice. “Ember,” I whispered, it came out rough and hoarse.

Her eyes, those stormy blue-gray eyes that had haunted my dreams for years, narrowed. There was no warmth in them, only a cold, hard anger that made me flinch.

“Colton,” she said, her voice flat, void of any emotion, like she was speaking to a stranger.

“Ember, I-” I started, but she didn’t let me finish. She raised a hand, her palm flat against my chest, stopping me in my tracks.

“Don’t,” she said, her voice sharp. “Don’t say anything, Colton. Just… don’t.”

I stumbled back slightly, like she hit me with an actual blow, my heart twisting with a pain I hadn’t felt in years.

Only in my darkest hours did I ever allow myself to think of what seeing Ember would be like.

It was something I didn’t allow myself to think about.

I’d spent the last several years convincing myself she was better off without me, that she deserved someone whole, someone who hadn’t been shattered into a million pieces.

Facing her again was something I’d dreaded and looked forward to at the same time.

I knew it was inevitable when I decided to return home though.

I knew this reunion was going to happen, I just wasn’t prepared for it on the first day back.

I tried again, my voice pleading. “Ember, please, just let me…” Let me what? Explain? I didn’t know what to say and before I could even come up with something she cut me off again.

She shook her head, her eyes blazing with fury. “There’s nothing to explain, Colton. You left. You broke your promises. You disappeared. That’s all I need to know.”

Her words were like shards of ice, piercing through my heart. In an instant I felt all the guilt, the regrets, the self-loathing that I tried so hard to bury, it all resurfaced.

I reached out, just wanting to touch her, but she flinched away.

“Ember,” I whispered, my voice raw with pain. “Please…”

She took a step back, shaking her head, her eyes hard and unforgiving.

“Just… stay away from me, Colton. I don’t want to see you.

I don’t want to talk to you. Just leave me alone.

” She continued taking steps back, further away from me.

“If you see me on the streets just do what you’ve been doing for years, ignore me. We’re strangers now.”

And with that, she turned and stormed away, leaving me standing there. The weight of my past crashing down on me.

I was no longer in the mood for coffee.