Shattered Glass & Broken Hearts

Emily couldn’t help but feel excited for Ronnie to get back to her apartment. The two of them were going out to dinner tonight. It would be their first date since they’d unofficially gotten back together, and as nervous as she was for it, she couldn’t wait. Emily knew that things would definitely be different for them now as a couple than they once had been.

Back when they’d dated before, he hadn’t been as famous as he was now. He hadn’t been as well known and that meant that not as many people had recognized him. She actually couldn’t think of a single time anyone had ever come up to him when they’d gone on dates before – back then, he and the band had only been playing small venues and no one had really known who they were except a handful of kids.

But now? Well, now everyone knew his name. Sometimes that was a good thing, but other times, Emily knew it wasn’t. She heard the rumors and the lies that people spread about him and it made her angrier than anything to know there was nothing she could do to defend him against those lies.

“Babe?”

She looked up with a bright grin when she heard Ronnie’s voice outside the apartment door before he knocked on it twice. She opened the door before he could knock a third time, her arms wrapping around his neck as he hugged her.

“I missed you,” she whispered into his neck. “Even though you were only gone for about twelve hours.”

He chuckled and she smiled warmer when he pressed his lips to her forehead. Being with him felt so good. Not only did it make her feel like she was a teenager again, it made her feel whole again. While he’d been gone, there had been a hole inside of her that nothing had ever been able to fix. For awhile, she had been tempted to follow the same path that Max had. Drugs seemed to keep him immune to feeling pain.

But she hadn’t wanted to tarnish her memory in Ronnie’s mind like that. When she’d heard he got sober and that he living a clean, happy life, she’d felt guilty for ever even feeling the urge to turn to substances to heal her heart from the turmoil he’d left it in.

“You ready for dinner?” He asked her as he slid his hand along her hip, biting his bottom lip as he took in the outfit she’d put on for him. It was nothing too fancy, since he wasn’t taking her to a big, fancy restaurant. She was wearing a flowered sundress and some flip flops, her hair in beach waves with almost no makeup. “You look beautiful, by the way,” he added with a small grin.

She blushed and then kissed the corner of his mouth before she nodded. She was definitely ready for dinner. This date was going to be one of the best things to happen to her in a long, long time.

He took her hand and led her out of her apartment and down the hall towards the parking lot below. She couldn’t help but blush when she saw that he’d brought one of his fancier cars. She didn’t know why he had, especially since she was no one important and they were driving all the way down to Orange County.

“After you,” he murmured to her once they reached his car. He opened the door for her and then helped her in before closing the door behind her and walking around to the driver’s side. The entire time she waited for him, her stomach was tied in knots. This was their first date in over ten years. What was she supposed to expect?

“I know that it’s gonna be hard for you to fully trust me,” Ronnie murmured to her as he put the car into drive so that he could start making his way towards the beach restaurant he was taking her to. “But I want you to believe in me. I’m not gonna do anything to fuck us up this time, Em.”

Her heart fluttered and she nodded as she looked up at him.

“I know you won’t, Ronnie,” she murmured as she reached for his hand, squeezing his fingers once he’d threaded them together. “I think I always knew you’d come back, you know.”

He arched his eyebrow and then briefly looked over at her for a moment before he looked back at the road. She noticed that he’d become a much more cautious person since he’d been a teenager, and it made her smile.

“You did?”

Emily nodded, licking over her bottom lip.

“Yeah,” she smiled. “I uh…I kind of always held on. I knew you loved me, even though you left. I think I always knew it was guilt that made you leave rather than anything else.”

A warm smile formed on his face and she felt good knowing that she’d put it there. A part of her had wanted to ease Ronnie’s guilt of the accident since they’d gotten back together. It was something that would always be part of their past – after all, she still lived on with some of the injuries and mental scars from the crash that had nearly killed her. And she was sure he had more than a few emotional scars from the trauma that had surrounded them, too.

But that was the amazing thing about the two of them, she realized. They’d gone through hell and back – literally – and they were back together again, just like they had been as kids. They’d overcome so much bullshit, and even if he’d had to step back for a few years to do so, he’d come back to her like he always had. Ronnie was incapable of stopping loving her.

She was in his heart, and Emily knew it.

“I felt so bad, babe,” he muttered under his breath, finally looking over at her again. “I…God,” he swallowed hard. “I nearly killed myself for almost killing you. I didn’t know how I could ever forgive myself, let alone expect your forgiveness.”

“I know,” she smiled softly, squeezing his fingers. “But you can forgive yourself now, Ronnie, because I already have. There’s no point in holding on to the toxic mistakes from our past. We’ve got a fresh slate, why not make the best of it?”

A smile formed on his face again and he nodded before he turned his attention back to the road again, focusing on driving. Emily spent the rest of the drive in silence, thinking about how things could possibly go with Ronnie in the future. She knew that this was the beginning of something good. Something about the two of them had always worked, even if it had taken awhile to realize it.

By the time he finally pulled up to the restaurant, the sun was just beginning to set and they had a beautiful evening ahead of them. He paid the parking and then helped her out of the car, a huge grin on his face as he leaned over to press his lips to hers.

“I think we’re far enough out of L.A. that nobody’s gonna really notice us here,” he murmured into her ear.

She nodded, a smile on her face even though that hadn’t been a concern of hers. Emily never worried about his fans because in the end, she knew that she still had him at the end of the night. She never minded watching him sign autographs or take pictures. It didn’t put a damper on their relationship, it just reminded her of how far he’d come since teenhood.

“It’s a beautiful night,” she told him as they started walking down the pier towards the restaurant at the end. “And you know how much I love the ocean.”

He nodded, letting her head fall onto his shoulder as they walked slowly. The restaurant wouldn’t close for at least three or four more hours, so they had plenty of time to walk as slowly as they liked. He just wanted to enjoy her company for now. This was something he’d missed out on for ten years. He’d never even done this kind of shit with his other ex-girlfriends that had come after Emily.

“It’s not as beautiful as you are, as cliché as that is,” he murmured, wrapping an arm around her waist when she shivered a little bit. “Nothing is.”

A blush tinted her cheeks, and Emily couldn’t help but be thankful that the sun was setting so that he wouldn’t see it. Something about his way with words always made Emily feel like she was a high school girl again, and that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“Such a charmer,” she whispered, looking up at his face.

He just chuckled and then kissed her forehead again, stopping at the pier railing so they could look out at the ocean. Moments like this were the ones he was going to cherish from now on. He didn’t plan on wasting a single second of time that he had with Emily. She was all that mattered to him now, and he planned on showing her that for as long as he lived.