Page 22 of The Embers That Remain

“You.” Oh. My sweet boy. There it was. The fear that one day I’d disappear too. Nothing on this earth was going to take me away from him. He was my son, and nothing could change that.

“I don’t want them thinking they know you,” he said. “They don’t.”

“I don’t even know you,” he muttered.

I swallowed.

“You’re right,” I said again. “You don’t know everything about me, and I don’t know everything about you.” His hazel gaze flicked up.

“Then tell me,” he said.

The house creaked around us. Grandpa’s faint humming drifted in through the open window. I leaned back against the counter and took a breath.

“I left Kennedy because I had to,” I said deliberately. "I was seventeen. I made choices that people didn’t like. Some of them were my fault. Some weren’t.”

He studied me carefully.

“I dated someone here,” I continued. “The whole town had opinions about it. About me. And it ended badly.”

“Coach?” he asked.

“Yes.” His eyes widened slightly.

“You dated Coach?” he asked incredulously, as if he’d wanted to believe it wasn’t true.

“Once upon a time,” I said.

He let out a disbelieving huff.

“So that’s why he looked at you like that,” he said, like he was putting together a puzzle. My fingers clenched around a spatula as I gathered the things needed to make dinner.

“Like what?”

“When you walked down the hall at school today. Like he wanted to yell at you and hug you at the same time.” So he had known about the meeting.

Heat crawled up my neck. “He doesn’t matter,” I said too quickly.

Jace’s brows lifted. “Okay,” he said slowly, clearly not believing me.

I pushed forward. “I left because, in the end, the only person who I thought was worth staying for didn’t think the same about me.”

His gaze softened just a little before his forehead scrunched in question.

“So you ran,” he said.

“Yes, in a way.”

“From him?” he asked, defensive again, his brows drawn in.

“From a lot of things.” There was no point in pretending otherwise. I cracked eggs on the edge of the skillet with one hand while butter hissed across the pan.

He was quiet for a moment. “Did you love him?”

The skillet sizzled between us. Years disappeared in seconds, and somehow I was seventeen again.

“Yes,” I answered, because we had promised each other honesty.

“Do you still love him?” he asked, toeing the floor again.