Page 47 of Beautifully Broken
“Yeah,” I muttered. My throat was dry, and it wasn’t from the beer.
“You talk to her every day,” he said. “What’s different now?”
Everything.
“She’s wearing that dress,” I said finally.
He snorted. “You’re pathetic.”
I didn’t deny it. My feet were glued to the ground. I watched her turn a little, fingers curled around a plastic cup, and then—she looked up.
Right at me.
It was like she knew.
Our eyes met, and something shifted. Her expression softened. A small smile lifted the corner of her mouth, and her fingers gave a subtle wave.
Just for me.
My heart stuttered.
I didn’t think. I moved.
The crowd blurred around me—faces, names, voices I barely heard. I walked like a man in a dream, zeroed in on one thing. One person.
Emily turned toward me fully when I was a few steps away, her smile real, steady. “Hey.”
“Hey.” My voice came out rough.
She stepped in and hugged me without hesitation. My body tensed, startled—but I didn’t pull away. I folded into her, let my arms wrap around her slender frame, and pulled her close.
My fingers splayed across her back. Her dress was soft beneath my palms, thin enough that I could feel the heat of her skin through it. My heart pounded hard and fast. I breathed her in—citrus and something faintly sweet—and held on for half a second too long.
It was a mistake, how good that felt.
And then a voice behind us ruined it.
“I still think about Hannah sometimes,” a woman said. “She was just… special.”
Emily’s hand tensed against my side.
I turned. A couple I barely recognized stood behind us, both smiling politely like they'd just handed me a casserole and not an emotional grenade.
“Thanks,” I said, throat tight.
They moved on.
I looked down at Emily. She was watching me carefully, but not with pity. Just… knowing.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Fine,” I lied.
Her fingers slipped into mine. “Come on.”
She tugged me toward the dance floor before I could overthink it.
The music shifted. Something fast at first—people clapped, shouted, swayed. But as we stepped into the middle, the tempo changed. Slowed. A soft drawl, a steel guitar. The kind of song you didn’t just listen to. You felt it.
