Page 58 of Embers in Autumn
Because I was happy, wasn’t I?
The warmth of Dean’s arm, the faint brush of his breath on my neck, the ache in my body that reminded me how much I’d wanted him—how much I still did. There was a strange satisfaction lingering inside me, not just physical, but something deeper. Like a part of me had remembered what it was to feel wanted. To feel chosen.
Still, the fear gnawed. What if I was wrong again? What if this was just another story that started with tenderness and ended with scars?
I opened my eyes, staring at the sunlight cutting across the room, and tried to breathe past the knot in my chest.
I slipped from beneath the blanket inch by inch, holding my breath as though even the sound of air moving might wake him. Dean stirred once, his arm tightening, then fell still again. Relief mixed with guilt as I eased out of bed, gathering my dress from the chair and my scarf from the floor. My boots felt impossibly loud as I carried them in one hand, padding toward the door with the careful steps of a thief.
The house was quiet, the kind of quiet that pressed against your ears. I moved into the kitchen, scanning the counters for my hat. Nothing. My pulse thudded as if every second mattered, as if leaving unseen would keep me safe from the storm still churning in my chest.
Then I saw it.
Pinned to the fridge beneath a cheap magnet was a photograph. Dean and Lana, his arm curled around her shoulders, her grin wide and gap-toothed. Judging by her size, maybe two or three years ago.
The frame around the photo was bright pink, decorated with little hearts and glittery stickers, and at the bottom, in bold text that looked printed or Photoshopped, were the wordsI love Mom.
My throat tightened. A Mother’s Day gift. A picture meant for someone who never came back to receive it.
I lifted the photo gently, my fingers trembling.
When I turned it over, my heart cracked wide open.
The back was covered in a child’s messy scrawl, letters uneven, some backwards, written in the hand of someone just learning.
To the person who never left me. I love you Dad.
I pressed my lips together, the words blurring as my eyes stung. My chest ached in a way I hadn’t expected, sharp and heavy all at once. That little girl, abandoned by her mother, left clinging to the one parent who stayed. Dean carrying all of it, trying to be enough for her when someone else had chosen to walk away.
It broke me.
Because for all my fear of being hurt again, I wasn’t the only one living with scars.
And suddenly, leaving without a word didn’t feel like the right kind of escape anymore.
Never left.
The words seared into me, over and over, as if they’d been branded on the inside of my skull. My fingers tightened on the photo, the childish scrawl blurring as tears pooled in my eyes.
Was Dean that kind of person? The kind who stayed. The kind who carried the weight, who shouldered the pain, who never walked out the door no matter how hard it got.
Would he do the same for me?
The thought sent a different kind of fear through my bones, colder than the fear of being hurt again. Because if I left now, if I walked away while he still slept in the other room, I’d never know the answer to that question. I’d never know if the man whose daughter called himthe one who never leftmight also be the man who could heal what I’d thought was broken for good.
My chest tightened, a lump swelling in my throat so thick it hurt to breathe. I set the photo back against the fridge, smoothing it under the magnet as if that could erase the ache it left in me. My hat sat on the counter nearby, waiting, but I didn’t reach for it.No.
Instead, I opened the fridge and pulled out the carton of eggs, my hands moving before my mind had even caught up. Bacon, bread for toast, the skillet already heating on the stove. The simple rhythm of cracking shells, the sizzle of fat in the pan—it was grounding, something I could control when my thoughts were anything but steady.
The smell of bacon filled the kitchen, warm and rich, curling through the air like an invitation.That was when I felt it—the weight of someone watching me. I turned, and there he was.
Dean leaned against the doorframe, bare-chested, just a pair of dark trousers slung low on his hips. His hair was mussed from sleep, his arms folded, and his eyes fixed on me in a way that made my stomach flip. How long had he been standing there?
I fumbled, nearly dropping the spatula. “I… thought you might be hungry,” I said quickly, my voice too light, too clumsy.
He didn’t answer right away. Just smiled, slow and knowing. But his eyes shifted, catching on my boots by the counter, my hat resting beside them. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. He knew. He knew I’d been ready to go.
And yet, he said nothing.
