Fracturesandflame Stories

Some scars never fade. Some flames never die. Fifteen years of wreckage trailed behind her like smoke. Addiction had been her comfort. Drugs, porn, masturbation-whatever numbed the ache. Even theft became a thrill, a distraction from the gaping hollowness she couldn't name. Jemima had tried to anchor her. Loyal. Fierce. A friend who prayed through every relapse and held her hair through every overdose. And then there was her mother-devout, unyielding, burning with a fire that felt more like judgment than grace. But she hadn't always been alone. Somewhere along the way, love had slipped into her story. A man with kind eyes and broken dreams of his own. For a while, they'd been each other's shelter-until their cracks split them apart. She hadn't meant to find salvation. Not in the second man. Not in God. But both came uninvited-one holding her trembling wrists in the rain, the other crashing into her soul like lightning. Now, here she sat. In the same church that once condemned her. The same pulpit that echoed shame now pulsed with something else-mercy, maybe. Redemption, if she dared believe it. But behind her closed eyes, the past still whispered.