APRIL, The Odd Ones

April

I fight fires for a living-but I've never felt more burned than I did that night.
As a forest ranger, I live on the edge of danger and calm. My body is strong, my will even stronger, but that doesn't mean I'm unbreakable. I thought love-real love-would see through the scars I keep hidden beneath my uniform. I thought Ellis saw me. Understood me.
But all it took was one careless sentence. One drunken confession echoing through a baby monitor, turning a celebration into a battlefield.
He humiliated me in front of everyone-my friends, my chosen sisters, myself.
And now I'm standing in the ashes of something I thought would last forever, wondering if I've been lying to myself about what love really looks like.

Ellis
I was drunk. Stupid. Thoughtless.
It was just a conversation. Boys being boys, joking around in a room where I thought no one could hear. But they did. She did.
And I said things I can't take back.
I don't even recognize the man who said them-because that man humiliated the strongest, most loyal, most incredible woman he's ever known.
April is the kind of woman who runs toward danger. Who holds broken branches like they're bones and brings people back from the edge.
And I crushed her with words.
Now I'd do anything-everything-to take it back.
But the damage is done. And I'm not sure I deserve to be the one who tries to fix it.