Page 31 of The Embers That Remain

He delivered it like a simple question. We both knew it wasn’t.

My chair creaked as I leaned back. Jace didn’t look like me, but the thought of her building a life with someone else twisted something deep in my gut. Fifteen years later, I couldn’t kiss another woman without seeing her face.

“You don’t know anything about her.” My voice was tight.

His eyes hardened. “I know she humiliated you.”

My pulse thudded, slow and loud in my ears. “I embarrassed myself,” I bit out.

He waved a dismissive hand. “You were sixteen. You let feelings cloud your judgment.” Seventeen. Almost eighteen. But details had never mattered to Bryant Massey unless they involved him.

Julia came back with the pie, setting it down carefully between us. The smell of sugar and key lime filled the room.

“Let’s not rehash high school,” she said brightly, grasping for a peace that had already slipped out of reach.

Bryant accepted a slice with a nod. Something about the condescending way he nodded at Julia, as if she needed his approval, made me want to deck him. I tugged at my collar. Julia set a slice of pie in front of me. Our fingers brushed for half a second. She pulled back fast. Things would always be awkward between us. The pie tasted too tart, but I swallowed anyway.

“You should have kept playing instead of coaching,” he said. This wasn’t a new topic, but it was one I was tired of hearing. He didn’t like losing control of me, and I’d made the decision without consulting him first.

“I’m not you.” Bryant Massey was a legend in baseball and played until his body wouldn’t let him anymore. I realized that no matter how much wealth I accrued, it would never give me the excitement that football did. Sometimes you could be great at something and not love it enough to keep revolving your whole life around it.

The room went still. For years, I’d swallowed every word before it reached my mouth. Tonight, I let him see exactly how tired I was. Julia’s fork hovered over her plate, eyes darting between us. My father’s eyes turned stony, slow and deliberate.

“No,” he said. “You aren’t.” His words had exactly the effect he intended. They weren’t a disagreement or an opinion; they were a verdict.

The clock kept ticking as I kept each breath even. I pushed my chair back. I had to get out of here.

“I have an early practice. Thank you, Julia, for dinner,” I said as I laid my napkin on the table.

He didn’t get up; his gold pinky ring gleamed as he tipped back a sip of wine like a shot glass.

“You always were so sensitive,” he said.

I pushed in my chair anyway and walked out, unwilling to listen to his list of complaints about me as a person. Too sensitive. Too much like my mother.

Julia followed me into the foyer, while he stayed at the table.

“Lane,” she whispered, stopping a few feet away. “He doesn’t mean—”

“He does,” I cut out, because there was no point in acting like he didn’t.

She looked down at her hands. The pearls at her throat caught the light as she swallowed.

“I didn’t plan any of this,” she said.

“I know.” She was just a casualty in Bryant Massey’s life. We all were. I studied her for a long moment. Once, I’d tried to convince myself she could fill the space Cali left. She never deserved that. The thing I had not realized was that Julia wanted to be a Massey so badly that she’d marry him.

She reached out, then let her hand fall. “I’m glad the boy’s okay,” she said, as if ignoring everything that had been said in between.

“So am I.” She didn’t deserve the hand she was dealt; except she’d been the one who had a choice, and she still chose him.

I stepped outside before she could say anything else. The autumn-night air stung my face, cool and sharp. Behind me, the house stood unchanged. Windows reflective. Columns rigid. Perfect, at least on the outside.

I hurried down the stone steps as fast as I could without running. Halfway to my truck, I stopped. The fountain gurgled softly in the dark, and I looked back at the house one more time. For a second, I imagined it empty. Complete silence. No chandelier. No clock ticking like a metronome measuring my failures. Just walls that didn’t hold memories of rage and a space that held moments I never wanted to forget of my mom. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I acknowledged that the only reason I came was that it felt the closest I could be to her since she’d left.

The truck door slammed behind me, shutting out the house. The engine roared to life—loud, unrefined against the manicured quiet of the neighborhood. I bit back the smirk that I’d driven it here. As I pulled away, the house shrank in my rearview mirror. Smaller and farther away with each rotation of the tires. No longer looming in that suffocating way it always did, ‌the band of tightness around my chest loosened up barely enough to breathe.

Instead of turning toward home, I kept driving—to the pond that held so many of my favorite childhood memories. I shut off the headlights, hoping not to get caught. Cali’s grandpa, Jimmy, had let me fish whenever I wanted as a kid, and the quiet solace gave me a break from my house. Cali had already been sitting on the bank the first afternoon I wandered down here.