Rising from the Ashes

by Jessica Prince

  “Well, hey there, you two. Don’t you look all cozy?”

  I’m gonna punch her in the throat.

  “Hey, Emmy,” Ben replied with a bright smile. “How are you today?”

  “I’m fantastic,” she responded.

  She turned to face me, and I could see her evil mind working.

  “So…is this a date?”

  Then, I’m gonna stab her with my fork.

  “Wow. You’re as subtle as Liberace,” I deadpanned.

  “When have you ever known me to be subtle? That would be like you claiming not to be a drama queen.”

  Ben attempted to stifle a laugh behind his hand, but he failed miserably. Choosing to ignore him, I kept my glare on Emmy.

  “Ben and I are just friends, Emerson.” I used her full name, hoping to get my point across that she was walking on thin ice.

  No such luck.

  “If you say so. But if it matters for anything, I think he’s fine as hell, girl.” With that, she sauntered off.

  “You didn’t even take our order!” I hollered after her.

  “You’re getting the meatloaf because that’s what you always get, and Ben is getting the pork chops because they’re awesome!” she yelled back as she made her way to the kitchen.

  “She’s like a food ninja,” Ben said, totally in awe of Emmy’s gift at guessing people’s orders.

  “Yep, being annoying clearly isn’t her only skill.”

  “I didn’t find her all that annoying,” Ben said with a smile.

  “That’s because she called you fine.”

  He glanced over at me with a little grin. “Well, she’s obviously a very smart woman.”

  Ben and I sat for a while longer, enjoying each other’s company and our delicious lunch. Of course, Ben loved the pork chops, and Emmy couldn’t help but come by to gloat a little.

  Shortly after we finished eating, Ben excused himself and headed to the restroom. I’d just finished putting the rest of our lunches in a to-go container when the chair across from me squeaked loudly against the tile floor. Looking up, I was surprised to see Jeremy sitting in Ben’s unoccupied seat.

  “So, you two dating now?” were the first words out of his mouth.

  No hello or how’s your day going? Nothing like that.

  It didn’t take a genius to realize this conversation was going to go downhill fast.

  I rolled my eyes and leaned in to prevent the other diners from eavesdropping. “No, we aren’t dating, not that it’s any of your business. We’re just two friends who had lunch together.”

  I could see the muscle twitching in his jaw as his brows furrowed.

  “That guy wants in your pants, Savannah.”

  My anger was starting to slowly boil beneath the surface. If Jeremy pushed me any further, I was going to go off. “Again, Jeremy, that’s none of your business,” I snapped.

  I started to stand, but he reached across the table and grabbed my wrist, keeping me in my seat.

  “So, you are screwing him then.” It wasn’t a question.

  I jerked my wrist out of his hold and leaned in close enough for only him to hear. “Despite what you might think of me, I don’t fuck every guy I’m seen in public with.”

  “I didn’t—”

  I raised my hand to cut off his protest. “When I said it was none of your business, I meant that you have no right demanding to know who I am or am not sleeping with because you have a girlfriend, Jeremy. The day you got into that relationship, you lost all right to worry about my sex life.”

  “We’re still friends, Savannah. Or have you forgotten that?” he said between clenched teeth. It was obvious he was having a hard time keeping his anger in check.

  Unfortunately for him, I didn’t have that kind of strength. “No, I’m not the one who’s forgotten we were friends. You’re the one who’s been AWOL for months. You’re the one who runs away the minute your girlfriend snaps her fingers. And you’re the one who hasn’t said more than a handful of words to me since you and Charlotte got together. I knew that things would be different when you started dating, but I didn’t expect you to act like we hardly know each other.”

  “That’s not how I’ve been acting,” he insisted.

  “Isn’t it? We might not have been a couple, but you still picked up the phone and called me every night just to see how my day was. When was the last time you called me?” I didn’t even give him a chance to answer. I just continued to pour out everything I’d been keeping locked inside me for so long. “Tell you what—you go about your business, and I’ll go about mine. I’m officially releasing you of any obligation you might feel you have toward me. I don’t need people in my life who are only there out of a sense of responsibility. I grew up with that, and I won’t tolerate it from anyone—least of all, you.”

  I stood up just as Ben was walking back to the table.

  “Everything okay here?” he asked as he eyed Jeremy speculatively.

  “Everything’s fine,” I replied, grabbing Ben’s arm and pulling him away from the table. “We need to get back to work.”

  “You sure?” He still hadn’t taken his eyes off Jeremy. They were in some sort of stupid macho-guy standoff.

  “Positive. Let’s go.”

  We started walking and were just about to the door when Jeremy spoke again. “We aren’t finished talking, Savannah. You said your piece, and you’re damn well gonna listen to mine.”

  I glared at him over my shoulder and replied, “The hell I am! I don’t need to hear anything you’ve got to say, Jer. This conversation is over.”

  I watched as the anger slowly crept out of his beautiful brown eyes, and a slow smile spread across his lips, showing his gorgeous dimpled smile.

  God, I hate that stupid smile!

  “That’s where you’re wrong…sugar.”

  I let out an exasperated huff, and I could hear him laughing behind me as I finished pulling Ben out the door.

  “You know, one of these days you’re going to have to tell me what the story is with you two.”

  “Hmph, there’s no story to tell.”

  I could hear Ben chuckling beside me, but I refused to look at him.

  “For some reason, I highly doubt that,” he muttered under his breath.

  I didn’t know how it was possible to want to ring Savannah’s neck and bury my dick deep inside her at the same time, but that was the effect that woman had on me. How pathetic was it that her little rant gave me a semi in the middle of a crowded diner?

  I hadn’t been able to help myself. I’d known I was just trying to get a rise out of her when I called her sugar as she walked out the door. I’d needed to see her eyes flash with something other than sadness. Every time she looked at me, I could see the sorrow in those gorgeous honey colored eyes and I felt like I was dying a slow, agonizing death.

  If she was angry at me, at least that meant she still had that fire inside her. That fire made her the strong, stubborn, pain-in-the-ass girl I’d fallen for when I was fourteen years old.

  I had been a little confused after my conversation with Luke, but after getting into it with Savannah at the diner, something had just clicked in my head, and I knew what I had to do. That was why I was sitting at my kitchen table, sweating bullets.

  When I heard a knock on my front door, I sucked in a fortifying breath and prepared myself for the scene I was about to walk into.

  I opened the front door, and I was immediately assaulted by Charlotte’s perfume. She’d said it was some expensive name brand—Coco something-or-other—but to me it just smelled like an old lady’s closet, and it gave me a killer headache. I couldn’t stand the smell of it. The bad thing was that Charlotte insisted on drowning herself in the shit every time we were together. Whoever Coco was, I wanted to kick his ass.

  “Hey, sweetie,” she squealed in that nasally baby voice she thought was cute. Just the sound of it made my teeth hurt. “I missed you so much. Did you miss me?” She peppered my face with kisses, smea
ring her sticky lip gloss all over me.

  I knew I wasn’t being fair, picking out every little thing she did that annoyed me, but I couldn’t stop myself. I’d started comparing everything about her to Savannah, and there was no way Charlotte could ever measure up.

  “Hey, Charlotte. Why don’t you come in and have a seat?”

  Here goes nothing.

  Charlotte pranced into the living room like she belonged there and plopped down on my sofa. “What’s up, baby?” she asked. “You sounded kind of weird when you called earlier. Is everything okay?”

  I roughly ran my hands through my hair before bringing my eyes to hers. Everything about her was the polar opposite of Savannah. Charlotte’s hair was a light brown, and Savannah’s was a golden blonde. Charlotte had pale blue eyes, and Savannah’s were light brown, the color of whiskey. Charlotte wore way too much makeup, but Savannah didn’t need all that shit caked on her face to make her look good. She rocked the natural look, and to this day, I still thought that she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

  “Shit,” I muttered under my breath, knowing the best way to go about saying what I had to say was just to spit it out.

  Charlotte’s back went straight, and the smile slipped from her face. “What’s going on, Jeremy?” she asked seriously. The baby voice had disappeared, and she finally sounded relatively normal.

  Say it quick. Just like ripping off a Band-Aid. “I’m really sorry, Charlotte, but this just isn’t working for me anymore.” There—you did it. That wasn’t so hard.

  She silently sat there for several seconds. “What’s not working for you?”

  Well hell, she’s not going to make it easy after all. “This relationship,” I replied carefully. Just because I didn’t want to be with her didn’t mean I wanted to hurt her any more than what was already inevitable.

  She stared into space for what felt like an eternity before turning back to me. She hauled her hand back and slapped me on the face as hard as she could. It was like she’d morphed into a whole other person all of a sudden. Gone was the sweet, loving Charlotte, and in her place was a red-faced, shrieking banshee. I was almost scared she was going to pop a vein or something.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” she screamed. “This relationship isn’t working for you? Is this a fucking joke?”

  She was on her feet, stomping back and forth through my living room, while I sat on the couch and out of the line of fire.

  “I’m sorry, Charlotte. I really am. I’m just being honest.”

  “I thought you loved me!”

  The hell? That threw me for a loop. “Now, hold on, I never once told you I loved you. I said that I cared about you. There’s a huge friggin’ difference,” I insisted.

  “Oh bullshit!” she spit out. “Don’t give me that. I know you love me.”

  Was she delusional? I’d never said or done anything to make her think I loved her. “No, Charlotte, I don’t love you. If you were under the impression that I did, I apologize. I never meant for you to get the wrong idea. I have been totally upfront with you from the very beginning. I think you’re a great person, but I never saw this turning into something serious. I thought I’d made that perfectly clear.” I hated sounding cruel, but she needed to step back into reality—fast.

  “This is because of Savannah, isn’t it?” Her lips curled up into a sneer when she said Savannah’s name. “That bitch has been trying to break us up this whole time!”

  That was it. I wasn’t going to sit there and let her talk about Savannah that way. She hadn’t done anything to deserve being called names behind her back without the chance to defend herself.

  “Stop. You aren’t going to stand here and blame Savannah for something that had nothing to do with her. She hasn’t said or done a single thing against you, and I am not going to let you talk shit when you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I never stood a chance with you! It’s always been about Savannah. She’s not that fucking perfect, Jeremy. God, she’s not even pretty!”

  “ENOUGH!” I shouted, finally getting her attention. “You’re being ridiculous. I’ve already told you that Savannah has nothing to do with this. It is my decision. You’ve had something against her since we got together, so any problems you and her have are your own damn fault!”

  “You asshole!”

  She lunged at me, trying to scratch at my face with her perfectly manicured nails. I had to grab both her wrists and pin her against my chest until she finally stopped fighting and broke down in tears. She was sobbing so uncontrollably that her whole body was shaking.

  All I could do was stand there, feeling incredibly uncomfortable, while I held most of her weight. Her arms wrapped around my waist so tightly that I felt like she was squeezing the life out of me. Finally, she pulled herself together enough to stop the tears, but then she grabbed a hold of my neck with both hands and tried to force my lips to hers.

  “Charlotte,” I said softly as I pulled on her death grip, trying to release myself, “I think you should go.”

  It was the only thing I could think to say. I’d told her the truth, and I just needed our conversation to be over. I felt guilty about it, but the only thought running through my head was that I needed to get my ass over to Savannah’s as quickly as I could. I didn’t want to waste any more time trying to get her back.

  “I can’t believe this.” Charlotte sobbed into my chest. “I l-love you s-so much.”

  “I’m sorry,” was the only pathetic response I could come up with.

  After a while longer, Charlotte finally left, and I was able to take my first real breath in what seemed like hours. Hurting someone was never something I wanted to do, but I felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest.

  I was finally kicking my ass into gear and going for what I wanted. And this time I wasn’t going to let Savannah make excuses for why we shouldn’t be together. Everything in my gut told me that Savvy was my world, and I wasn’t going to live without her for another day. I didn’t care how long it took me to convince her that we belonged together. I’d drill it into her head for the rest of my damn life if I had to. I was going to get Savannah back if it killed me. Knowing her fiery personality, it just might.

  When I was a child, my mother always made me take tap dancing classes, ballet classes, piano lessons, and basically anything else that I could use as a talent in the countless beauty pageants she had forced me into while growing up. The only thing I’d remotely enjoyed was the singing lessons even though I was completely awful. People around me had constantly informed me that I was tone deaf, but I hadn’t thought I was that bad. It didn’t matter though, good or bad, absolutely loved to sing.

  That was why I was currently shaking my ass all around my living room in my Hello Kitty sleep shorts and tank top that Emmy had gotten me for Christmas last year while belting out the lyrics to Heart’s “All I Want to Do Is Make Love to You.” My taste in music normally leaned toward alternative, but I was in a self-pitying mood and Heart seemed the way to go.

  I was in the middle of the first chorus, giving it everything I had, with my eyes closed and hands in the air when I heard a noise from behind me. I spun around and screamed at the top of my lungs while simultaneously tripping over my coffee table as I attempted to run from whatever I’d heard. I finally face-planted onto the carpet with a hard thud.

  I’d like to think I would have been smart enough to continue my escape had I not knocked all the wind out of my lungs, which forced me to curl up in the fetal position while gasping for air. But who the hell knows? Knowing me, I’d probably be the dumb bitch who attempted to lock herself in the bathroom instead of going for the back door.

  “Christ, sugar, are you okay?”

  It took a couple of seconds for my brain to clear so I could figure out what the hell was going on.

  “What the hell, Jeremy? You scared the shit outta me!” I screamed. I was breathing too fast, and my heart felt like it was about to pound
through my chest.

  “I kinda figured that when you attempted to do a Superman over your coffee table.” That asshole actually had the nerve to laugh.

  I narrowed my eyes and replied, “If I wasn’t pretty sure I just broke a rib, I’d kick your ass right this second. How the hell did you get in my house anyway?”

  “You left the door unlocked. Not smart, by the way.”

  “Just because it was unlocked doesn’t mean you have the right to just walk on in, Jeremy.”

  He tried to help me off the ground, but I batted his hand away and pushed myself up. I tried really hard not to flinch in pain when I put pressure on my right ankle.

  “I heard the radio and figured you were singing. I didn’t want to interrupt. I was really enjoying the show.”

  Okay, maybe I forgave him just a little for that comment. It was kind of sweet after all. But I was stubborn and didn’t want to let go of all my anger right away. “Yeah, well, knock next time,” I replied grumpily. I was totally embarrassed that he had caught me in all my glory.

  “Will you stop being so damn stubborn?” he harrumphed when I brushed off another attempt from him to help me up. “You’re clearly in pain. Just let me help you up already.”

  “Fine.”

  He reached for my elbow and gently pulled me all the way onto my feet. Then he carefully led me back to the couch. Once I was seated comfortably, he lifted my right foot, placed it on his lap, and started inspecting my ankle. For what, I had no clue.

  All I knew was that his fingers on my bare flesh made my entire body break out in goose bumps. The skin-on-skin contact felt so familiar, yet so painful at the same time. I wanted nothing more than to grab hold of his copper colored hair and kiss the breath out of both of us, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t mine anymore, and that thought caused me physical pain.

  “What are you even doing here? I told you that we were done talking.” I was trying to sound mad, but I knew I was coming off sounding more mournful than anything else.