THAT FIRST BREAK (Broken Redemption Prequel 1)

Chapter 16

Lucas

How did I get here?

From innocence and possibilities, to hopelessness and broken dreams.

Rock bottom.

It's the only way to describe my newfound reality. Gone is the boy who strove for bigger and better things... anything he could think of to make his parents proud. Gone is the 17-year-old kid who dreamed of football, scholarships, and a successful future. Most of all, gone is the man who fell in love with a girl not meant for him, but who was certain that in the end, she would eventually be his.

"I killed them. Me going after you that night is the reason my parents are dead!"

"No..." she sobs into her hands. Her whiskey eyes drowning in disbelief as she stares back at me with a look that's almost pleading. "I don't believe that. You didn't cause that fire and you left them a note..."

"A note on a refrigerator door that they probably never saw."

"It doesn't matter. You did exactly what they would have expected and what happened after that is not on you."

"You're wrong," my voice breaks and it takes a second to pull myself together. "I could have woken them. Told them I was leaving, or better yet, I should have kept my ass at home so I could have been there to help save them."

"Or you could have died too!" she yells, her voice rough and so fraught with anguish it takes everything in me not to reach out to comfort her.

If I touch her now, I'll never stop. If I hold her in my arms, it will make what I have to do next that much more difficult to get through.

"You could have died with them, Lucas, and then what would Jen and I have done? We never would have survived that. We wouldn't. I wouldn't want to exist in a world where you don't, so I'm sorry. I'm glad you weren't there. That you were safe with me, Jen, and our friends at the bonfire and I am certain if your parents were here, they would tell you the same thing."

At the mention of my parents, my breath catches in my throat and the traitorous tears I've been fighting begin to fall. She's right. I know that's what my parents would have said, but here's the thing, they're not here. They're dead. Their lives were stolen from them by circumstances I could have prevented if only I'd stayed where I told them I'd be.

When she steps into my space and places a gentle hand against the side of my face, I lose the battle. I need her. Fuck, do I need her, which is why I lean into her touch, close my eyes, then pull her into my arms. The scent of vanilla and summer breezes infiltrates my lungs like a breath of fresh air. It blankets me in a cocoon of warm comfort that after the past week, I would do anything to hold on to. It's her. My Embree. The balm to my broken heart. If only it were enough to piece me back together and make me whole, but no. Nothing will ever be enough to turn me back into the man I was meant to be before that night.

"I ruined everything," I whisper through a quiet sob. "I'm so sorry I ruined everything."

"You didn't," she shakes her head and when she tries to pull back to look at me, I stop her. I cannot bear to have her look at me right now. Not with the evidence of my guilt, my faults, and my mistakes seeping out of me like the ugly pus of an infected wound. "You didn't ruin anything, Lucas. You're here. Jen's here. You're both here, safe and sound, just as your parents would have wanted."

She doesn't understand that I'm not only talking about my parents, but about us. My actions that night and what happened in the aftermath are the reasons she and I will never be. It's done. We're over. Any chance we had at a future together was reduced to a pile of ashes alongside the life I'll never have. For me, there is no coming back from this, and I refuse to drag her or Jenny down with me.