Page 25 of Embers in Autumn
I picked up my glass, took a slow sip. “I don’t need to know every detail. But I know what it’s like to have your chest ripped open and nothing left to patch it with. My heart broke a long time ago. I had years to let the scars settle. Yours… yours are still bleeding. Deep down your soul is still screaming. Angry at something it can't control and can't change.”
Something flickered across her face then—anger, sadness, a raw mix she couldn’t quite hide. She sank into the chair opposite me, shoulders drawn tight, as though the only thing holding her together was the table between us.
And watching her sit there, so guarded, I felt something hard coil low in my gut.
I’d never even met the bastard who had done this to her. But I hated him. Hated the thought of his voice tearing her down, of his hands giving nothing but weight. The idea of her standing in front of him with those same hazel eyes and him not seeing what was right there—God, it made my jaw ache from clenching.
All I wanted was to tear every last trace of him out of her life. To pull down those walls brick by brick and replace them with something better, safer. To give her back the ground he’d stolen.
She thought she was broken, but she wasn’t. She was fire, banked low. And sitting across from her, all I could think was that no man would ever get close enough to dim that flame again. Not while I was in the room. Not while I had anything to say about it.
Amber finally looked at me, really looked, as though she was weighing whether to push me away or let me stay.
And in that moment, I knew—I would wait out every wall she threw at me.
She sat across from me, her fork untouched, the steam from the pie curling between us. Her shoulders eased just enough that I could tell she was about to let something slip.
“You’re right,” she whispered finally, her eyes fixed on the pie instead of me. “I’m still angry deep inside… And I know it makes me look guarded and cold, but the truth is, I’m just…” She exhaled, shaky. “I’m just embarrassed. At myself. At the things I did after it ended.”
Her hand toyed with the edge of her napkin, twisting it until it nearly tore.
“Two months after I moved here, I made a fake Instagram account.” She laughed once, short and bitter. “To stalk him. Pathetic, right?”
The laugh slipped into silence, and I kept my gaze steady, giving her the space to keep going.
“I told myself I’d deleted him from my life, but there I was, scrolling through her page. His new girl. The one he cheated with.” She blinked hard, jaw tight. “And three months later, I saw his picture from Greece. On one knee. Proposing to her.”
Her voice cracked on the last word. She gripped the napkin tighter. “He never did that for me. Ten years together, and he never even thought about it. But her? She got the attention, the trip, the ring, the flowers. It’s not that he moved on. That’s natural. It’s that…”
She trailed off, like she couldn’t force the words out.
I leaned forward, catching her gaze, my voice low. “It’s that he never put in the effort for you. And you deserved it.”
Her eyes snapped up to mine, wide and wet, like I’d just spoken a truth she hadn’t let herself believe.
“Amber,” I said, steady and sure, “it wasn’t about you. It was about him. You could’ve given him everything, and it still wouldn’t have been enough. Not because you weren’t enough. Because he wasn’t.”
Her lip trembled, and for a moment I thought she’d cry. But instead she laughed again, small and broken. “God, I hate that it still hurts.”
I swallowed hard, fighting the urge to reach across the table and pull her into my arms. To erase every memory of him with my hands, my mouth, my body. I wanted to give her the kind of devotion she’d never tasted. To prove that someone could look at her and see nothing but worth.
But for now, I just held her eyes. Let her see that I meant every word.
Amber smiled faintly, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. The ice cream had already melted, a sweet pale river running down the side of the hot pie. Maybe we should’ve let it cool longer, but I knew she’d been rushing to move us past that kiss, past the way I had her pressed against me like I might never let go.
She took a bite, winced when the filling burned her tongue, then grabbed her wine glass. A long swallow, a swirl, and when she set it down again her gaze had sharpened with something like courage.
“Your turn,” she said.
For a moment, I thought about lying. About skimming the surface, giving her the polished, practiced version of my past. But she’d given me her raw edges, and the least I could do was give her mine.
I leaned back, cradling the glass in my hand. “Her name was Melissa. We met young. Too young. I thought she was everything. Wild, funny, beautiful in that way that makes you feel lucky just standing next to her.”
Amber listened, chin propped on her hand, those hazel eyes steady on me.
“She got pregnant with Lana fast. Faster than either of us expected. I was over the moon. Scared as hell, but ready to do whatever it took. She… wasn’t. She wanted to be an actress. She said the baby ruined her chances, ruined her timing. I thought it was postpartum depression, thought if I got her help, it would ease. But she didn’t want help. She wanted her old life back. And no matter what I said, no matter how much I tried to shoulder the weight, she blamed Lana for everything she lost.”
I stared down at my glass, the wine reflecting the amber glow of the lamps. My throat tightened.
