Shattered Glass & Broken Hearts

By the time the group reached Ronnie’s house, she was a complete nervous wreck. When the bus dropped them off, Hanna and Jacky quickly made their way towards Ronnie’s spare bedroom and neither she nor Ronnie made any move to stop the couple, who obviously wanted to have some alone time with one another.

That left the two of them alone in a very awkward silence.

Neither one knew what to say. It had been ten years, after all, and today, they’d spoken maybe twenty words to one another in total. Neither Emily nor Ronnie had ever thought this was going to happen, and especially not on such short notice.

“I think I’m gonna go get something to drink from the kitchen,” Ronnie told her after several minutes as he stood up before he turned to face her. “Soda, I mean,” he clarified, as though he assumed she thought he meant alcohol. “Do you want anything?”

“Water would be nice,” she replied, her voice soft as she anxiously crossed her knees tightly under her body as she sat on the lounge chair positioned near the window by the front door. It was a big apartment for Hollywood, but that didn’t necessarily make it huge. It was probably a good size for Ronnie, though. Especially since from what Ryan and Jacky had said, he lived alone with just his dog.

Ronnie nodded and left her alone in the living room as he made his way towards the kitchen. She heard him open the fridge and then close it, along with the sound of ice being put into two glasses. It didn’t take him long to return, and when he did, she was surprised to see two pieces of lemon floating on top of her water.

“You…” She started, biting her bottom lip. “You remembered that?”

Ronnie shrugged. “It’s not like I just forgot everything about you, Emily,” he told her quietly as he sat across from her, next to the dog that was sleeping there.

Emily didn’t know what to say to that. For the last ten years, she’d simply assumed that Ronnie had tried to forget everything about the relationship that they had once had with one another. In a way, assuming he had forgotten made her feel better. If he’d forgotten, he had moved on. And if he’d moved on, there was no reason for her to hold on.

Not that it had stopped her.

“Emily?”

Ronnie was the one who spoke first this time, pulling Emily out of her thoughts as she lifted her head to look at him. He looked almost nervous, which was definitely a look that didn’t suit him. She was used to seeing a cocky Ronnie; an arrogant, confident Ronnie. But a hesitant, nervous Ronnie?

That was something she’d never seen before.

“I…” He frowned as he set his glass of dark soda down on the coffee table. “Fuck,” he muttered, obviously to himself. “Never mind. I…”

Nervous and speechless? It was definitely not becoming of Ronnie to be a combination of those two things. If there was one thing that Emily knew about Ronnie, it was that he always had something to say, and he always knew how to say it. It was just how he was. It was one of the reasons his lyrics were always so well thought out, and why they flowed so well.

It was one of the reasons she had always loved him.

“This is Charlie.”

Emily looked up at Ronnie again, who was nodding to the dog lying next to him as he scratched it behind it’s ears, earning an approving sound from the animal before it plopped its head back down.

“Oh,” she murmured. “That’s nice.”

It was all she could say. It was three words, that was all. It said nothing of how she felt; of what she really wanted to say to him, to ask him. Her heart was so full of unanswered questions and unspoken truths, but she didn’t know how to get them out. Instead, she settled for those three meaningless words.

“He’s…He’s helped me a lot since I got out of prison. You knew about that, right?” Ronnie asked her, his voice almost nervous, like he was wondering what her reaction would be if she hadn’t indeed known that he’d been in prison for a few years.

“I knew. I knew a lot of things, Ronnie,” she sighed, biting her bottom lip. “Just because you walked away didn’t mean I stopped caring.”

Ouch.

If she’d been aiming to hurt him or make him feel even more guilty, those words had definitely done the job. She could visibly see Ronnie cringe, obviously feeling worse than he had prior to tonight.

“It was complicated, Emily.”

“How complicated could it be?” She asked, her voice almost snapping at him. “I was in a coma, on death’s door. You? You just walked away. Doesn’t sound too complicated to me,” she added in a whisper before she turned her head so that she wasn’t looking at him. She couldn’t stand seeing the guilt in his eyes, and if he was going to cry…well, dammit, she couldn’t stand to see that, either.

“I almost killed you, Em. I was the person that almost ended your life. If you’d never met me, you never would have been put in that situation. It was better if I just left you alone. That night…That wasn’t the first time I’d hurt you, but it was sure as hell going to be the last time it happened.”

“You never asked me what my opinion was,” Emily told him softly. “No one did. Not you, not Max. Not the doctors or my parents. Did it matter what I thought?”

The living room was silent for several moments, and Emily took that as a signal that she could continue speaking. It had been ten years that she’d been waiting to say these words that she’d never thought she’d have a chance to voice, and she damn well meant to say them tonight. Even if she and Ronnie never saw one another again after tonight, at least she’d feel better knowing she’d gotten it all off her chest.

“Because if any of you had asked what I thought, I would have said I was lucky,” Emily told him, causing Ronnie’s eyes to widen in surprise. He opened his mouth to speak, but Emily didn’t let him, continuing to talk anyway. “If any of you had asked what my thoughts about the accident were, I would have been able to tell you that it only made me realize that I loved you for a reason. I would have been able to thank you for making the 911 call that night, even though you hated cops. Ronnie, if you’d given me a chance, I could have saved you, too.”

Ronnie didn’t know what to say to her words. It had never actually occurred to him that Emily might feel something other than contempt towards him for the car accident that had left her permanently injured. He could still see the scars along her legs; they were never going to go away, and he knew it. The scar on the side of her face was less noticeable because of plastic surgery, but it was still there and he could remember in a split second what her face had looked like with blood and glass and tears.

It was still a vision that gave him nightmares almost every damn night.

“No one could have saved me, Em,” Ronnie frowned as he looked over at her. “Even you.”

It was true. Ronnie’s life had been a trainwreck since the first time he’d picked up a cigarette, and he’d known it. Emily had helped him a little bit, but even she never would have been able to stop his addiction to drugs. She wouldn’t have been able to stop him from getting involved in that fight in Vegas that night, and she sure as hell couldn’t have saved him from prison.

Not that he regretted prison. It had straightened him out. He was living a good life now with few regrets. In fact, he only had one regret, and it had to do with the scarred girl sitting across from him in his living room.

“You’re wrong about that, you know,” Emily frowned as she shook her head. “Not that I expect anything else from you,” she added in a mutter that had Ronnie arching his eyebrow and crossing his arms tightly over his chest.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Truth be told, he didn’t want to think of Emily being angry with him or holding anything against him because honestly, it would crush him if he found out that she did. All he had ever wanted was for her to be happy and move on with her life. It had never occurred to him that she might harbor bad feelings about him.

Emily just frowned as she folded her arms over her chest, mimicking his moments. “It means that you’ve never really gotten rid of your past, Ronnie. And as long as you keep running from it, you’re never going to really let go of anything.”

“That’s not fair, Emily. You know—”

“I know you’re strong,” she cut him off, knowing that he wasn’t happy with what she’d just said to him. “Or at least, I know you put up a front that you are. But really, Ronnie, all you are is lonely. And that’s the weakest feeling in the world, isn’t it?”

He had nothing to say anymore, and when she saw the look of anger in his eyes, she knew that perhaps she had gone a bit far. It had needed saying, however, and she wasn’t going to take it back.

“I think I’m gonna go lay down,” he told her. “Long night. Uh, there’s another extra bedroom upstairs if you want to use it.”

“Ronnie, I—” She started. She wasn’t going to apologize, she just wanted to make sure he wasn’t angry with her, that was all. He didn’t give her a chance, though.

“Charlie, c’mon, boy. Let’s get you upstairs, too. Em, the bedroom is second door to the left. I know Jacky and Hanna are in the other one, since it’s further from my room.”

He didn’t say another word as he walked out of the living room, leaving Emily feeling worse than she had in awhile. She knew he was pissed off at her, and for the first time they’d seen each other in ten years, that wasn’t a good thing.