Shattered Glass & Broken Hearts

“Em, come on. Stop being so upset,” Ronnie frowned as he followed Emily into the hotel room. He closed the door behind him, making sure not to slam it so that the guests on either side of their room wouldn’t be disrupted.

“Don’t tell me how to feel,” she hissed, spinning on her feet. “You’re a selfish fucking jackass. I told you to wait in the fucking hall!”

“He was being horrible to you. I wasn’t going to just stand there and listen to you take that bullshit, Emily. I don’t give a shit if he’s your brother or not, he had no right to—”

“You were horrible to me too, Ronnie. Or have you suddenly forgotten about that?”

There were tears in her eyes and she was absolutely furious about everything that had happened today. She bit down on her bottom lip and she looked up at him. He had a hurt look on his face but said nothing as he stood there, hands clenched tightly at his sides.

“It’s different, Em, and you fucking know it. I—”

“Just get out, Ronnie,” she whispered, bringing her hand to her face to wipe away the tears. She couldn’t stand looking at him right now, not after everything. He’d kissed her this morning and wouldn’t even talk to her about it. He’d been there for her so much over the past few days – hell, he’d driven with her to Nevada to see Max. And yet, in the end, none of that mattered.

Ronnie was still the same boy he’d been ten years ago. It didn’t matter if he’d gotten clean, or if he was more successful than he had been. It didn’t matter that he had a different circle of friends and it didn’t matter that his body had changed in size.

In the end, he was still the same, scared little boy who’d been so guilt-ridden that he’d run away from the only girl he’d ever loved. She knew he’d never change and perhaps that was why things weren’t working.

“I’m not leaving, Emily,” he rolled his eyes as he sat down on the edge of the bed. “There’s nothing for me to do in Vegas and I don’t feel comfortable leaving you alone right now.”

“It’s not like you had a problem with it before,” she snapped at him, walking further away from him. She bit down on her bottom lip after she spoke, and she realized in an instant that perhaps she shouldn’t have said that.

“You’re wrong about that, you know. About me not having a problem,” he muttered after a few moments before he pushed his hair out of his face, lifting his eyes to look at her. “I didn’t want to leave, Emily.”

“You made the choice,” she narrowed her eyes. “You knew I was in that hospital and that I could have been dying. You knew that I would have wanted to see you when I woke up from that coma, and you knew damn well how much I fucking loved you. So don’t try and tell me you didn’t want to because you made the choice!”

Ronnie bit his bottom lip, eyes cast back down to the floor of the hotel room. He was completely shocked by what he’d said to her. Everything she said to him hurt like hell because the truth of the matter was, she was right. He had made the choice. Even if he’d thought it was what was best for her at the time, he had known that he didn’t have to walk away from her.

“If I could take it back…” He swallowed thickly. “Em, if I had known what would happen, I would—”

She cut him off by holding her hand up, shaking her head before she pointed to the door. He had made his choice ten years ago, and right now, she was making hers. It was getting too painful having Ronnie back in her life right now. It was too unnerving for her. It made her remember all sorts of painful memories and that wasn’t what she needed while Max was recovering.

“Just leave,” she begged him. “You did it before. Do it again. Leave.”

He didn’t move towards the door like she’d requested. Instead, he lifted his head again. When he looked at her this time, her breath hitched in her throat. There were tears in his eyes and his face wasn’t hard like she’d become accustomed to seeing from him. It was soft; almost like it had been the last time she’d seen him before the wreck.

“My heart won’t let me, Em,” he breathed out as he began walking slowly.

Emily shook her head hard, not wanting him to come closer to her. She knew that she couldn’t keep her walls strong if he touched her. Within seconds, however, Ronnie had her backed up against the wall, his hands on either side of her head as he looked down at her with more emotion than she’d ever seen from him before.

“Please,” she whispered to keep her voice from cracking.

Her heart was beating faster now; her breath shallow in her chest as she flickered her eyes up to meet his dark ones. He shook his head again before he touched his hand lightly to her cheek.

“The kiss this morning was an accident,” he mumbled, never letting his eyes stray away from hers.

Tears clouded her eyes again and she choked back a sob. Did he realize how badly his words were hurting her right now, or was it that he just didn’t give a shit anymore?

“But this?” He breathed out, moving his face even closer to hers than it already had been. “This isn’t an accident, Em.”

He didn’t give her a chance to speak as he slowly lowered his lips down to hers. At first, Emily was too shocked to do anything but stand there. It had been so long since she’d last kissed him but everything was the same. He tasted the same and he kissed her the same way he always used to. It was like they were in a time warp and she cursed silently to herself when she felt a flutter of butterflies in the pit of her stomach.

Ronnie didn’t end the kiss until she was gasping for air against his neck, his arms wrapped around her now. She hadn’t even realized she’d collapsed into his chest until after he’d broken it off, but she found that she didn’t want to move away from him as badly as she had prior to the kiss.

“That was me showing you how fucking sorry I am, Emily,” he whispered after several long, tense moments. “That was me putting my heart on my sleeve. I…”

He bit his bottom lip and then looked down at her, tilting her chin up with his fingertips. “I never should have walked away, Emily. I’m sorry. If you want me to go now, I will and you’ll never see me again.”

She still didn’t speak, too shaken up to comprehend words. Had he really just done that? She raised one of her fingertips up to touch her lips and then made eye contact with Ronnie again, her stomach still swimming with butterflies.

She would regret this, she knew. It would cause her even more heartbreak and she was certain of it. What she was about to say would ruin the rest of her life, but she found that she didn’t care because whenever she was in Ronnie’s arms, she felt safe and secure and she could almost pretend like their past had never happened.

“Don’t leave,” she breathed out, raising her hand to touch the side of his face before she swallowed hard. “I…We’ll start over. Start slowly, see how things go?”

The shock on his face wasn’t able to be hidden as he listened to her words. He’d been expecting her to tell him to leave; that the kiss didn’t mean anything to her. He had expected his heart to break even more, but she’d done everything opposite of that. A smile crept onto his lips as he nodded, unable to stop himself from pecking her lips lightly.

“Slow…Not my style,” he admitted, biting down on his bottom lip. “But for you? We can do that.”

She nodded and then stepped out from in between Ronnie and the wall, needing a little time to breathe. Everything had just happened so fast and she had no idea what she was supposed to think of it all. God only knew that it was going to piss Max off, and she knew that Joss and Hanna would be completely thrown for a loop.

But in the end, she realized, they weren’t the ones that she needed to think about. Right now, it was time to think of herself for once and what she wanted. And the only thing she could think of that she desired was Ronnie to be back in her life. It would take awhile to trust him again, she knew. And maybe it wouldn’t work out. All the odds were against them, but she knew Ronnie had a record of beating the odds anyway.