Chapter 4 : Break in the hush
2154 Words
Present Day
Ember Reyes – POV
Sleep never came.
Ember lay in bed, staring at the ceiling while the pale glow of early morning crept through the slats of her blinds. The conversation from yesterday looped in her mind like a record she couldn’t scratch away.
“I should’ve stayed.”
Those four words hit harder than they had any right to.
She’d told herself for a year that Ash Callahan walking away was the best thing that could’ve happened. That he was nothing more than a pretty face and a messy storm in a leather jacket. But now?
Now his voice wouldn’t leave her alone.
By the time she dragged herself into Rosewood High, she looked as frayed as she felt—hair shoved into a half-hearted braid, hoodie zipped up over her tank top, and the dark smudges beneath her eyes unapologetically visible.
She didn’t bother going to homeroom. Instead, she wandered until she spotted her: Sadie Callahan, stepping out of the nurse’s office with a pale face and shaky hands.
Ember paused at the end of the hall, just watching her.
Sadie had changed. She used to be this wild, laugh-too-loud firecracker with braces and too many glitter stickers on her notebooks. But now… she looked smaller. Fragile.
And Ember knew that look all too well. The one where your body betrays you and no one knows how to make it better.
Her stomach twisted.
Everything about that night at the lake—the kiss, the silence, the way Ash had pulled away like he was afraid of breaking something—suddenly blurred into a bigger truth. A truth she hadn’t let herself see until now.
He wasn’t scared of her.
He was scared of losing something else.
And he had.
By lunch, Ember couldn’t take the not-knowing anymore.
She found him out back, leaning against his Mustang, head bowed as he flicked a lighter open and shut. Not lighting anything. Just… doing something with his hands.
The wind tugged at the hem of his shirt. His hair fell over his forehead in soft, messy strands. He didn’t hear her until she was right in front of him.
“Ash.”
His eyes lifted—guarded, dark.
He didn’t say anything.
“I want the truth,” she said.
Ash blinked slowly. “About?”
“That night at the lake. You didn’t leave because you changed your mind. You left because something happened.”
Silence.
Tension snapped between them like a stretched rubber band.
He stared at her. And for a moment, Ember thought he’d lie. He always did. He was better at hiding pain than anyone she knew.
But today… he didn’t.
Ash inhaled through his nose, shut the lighter with a snap, and tucked it in his back pocket.
“I missed Sadie’s call.”
Her breath caught.
“That night,” he continued, voice flat. “She had a seizure. I was supposed to be home by ten. I wasn’t.”
Ember took a step back.
Ash followed her with his eyes. “She was alone, Ember. She fell and hit her head on the bathroom floor. She was like that for twenty minutes before my mom found her.”
His voice cracked at the end.
“I was with you.”
He didn’t say it like a confession. He said it like a crime.
“Ash…”
“I kept thinking—if I hadn’t taken you there, if I’d just gone home—she wouldn’t have been alone.”
Ember’s chest hurt. “You couldn’t have known—”
“But I should’ve been there.”
The guilt poured off him like gasoline.
“That’s why you shut me out,” she whispered.
Ash looked away.
“You thought if I hated you, it’d be easier to forget.”
He didn’t answer.
She stepped forward. Her fingers brushed his arm, tentative. Testing the space between them.
He let her.
“I waited for you,” she said. “After that night. I waited for a text. A call. Anything.”
Ash looked down at her hand on his sleeve. “I didn’t deserve you after that.”
Her voice was steel. “You don’t get to decide that for me.”
Their eyes locked.
Something passed between them then—hot and unspoken.
Ash leaned in, just slightly. Like gravity was tugging him forward.
“Ember…”
And just like that, her name in his mouth was enough to undo her.
She wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to slap him. She wanted to scream, cry, press herself into his chest and ask why he only told the truth after breaking everything.
Instead, she took a shaky breath.
“This doesn’t mean anything’s fixed.”
“I know.”
“I still don’t trust you.”
“Fair.”
“But…”
He looked up. Waiting.
“I don’t hate you as much as I thought I did.”
Ash’s lips twitched.
“That’s progress.”
And in that moment—just for a second—they were sixteen again.
On the dock.
Almost kissing.
Almost something.
But now the almosts were heavier.
And the damage was already done.
---
Sadie Callahan – POV
Rosewood High | Girls’ Restroom | After Lunch
The hum of the flickering fluorescent lights overhead felt louder than it should.
Or maybe Sadie was just tired of pretending she couldn’t hear the world spinning too fast around her.
She leaned over the sink, staring at the pale girl in the mirror.
Same pale skin.
Same trembling fingers.
Same scar tucked behind her right ear, hidden beneath carefully parted hair.
But today, something cracked beneath her ribs.
She pressed her palms flat to the cold porcelain and tried to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.
“You’re doing so well, sweetheart.”
“The new meds seem to be working.”
“Ash has been so strong for you.”
They all said the same things.
But none of them asked what it felt like to know your brother had stopped living his own life just to keep you breathing.
The door creaked open, and Sadie tensed automatically.
She relaxed when she saw who it was.
Ember Reyes didn’t knock. Didn’t clear her throat. She just leaned against the wall near the sinks like she belonged there—arms crossed, expression calm, not pitying.
That was why Sadie liked her. Ember didn’t treat her like she might shatter.
“You skipped last period,” Ember said simply.
“I wasn’t in the mood to pass out during Chemistry again,” Sadie replied, dry.
A beat passed. Then both girls smirked—just barely.
Sadie turned back to the mirror.
She hated her reflection today. Her skin was dull. Her eyes sunken. She could see the exhaustion carved into her face like someone had chiseled it there.
“Let me guess,” she muttered. “Ash said something stupid again.”
Ember raised an eyebrow. “When doesn’t he?”
That earned a soft, real laugh from Sadie.
Then silence.
Ember waited. Sadie could feel it—like an open hand extended without being forced.
Sadie exhaled.
“I lied to him,” she said quietly. “That night.”
Ember’s posture changed subtly. Still calm, still composed, but alert now. Listening fully.
“I told him the seizure happened after he left. That he couldn’t have stopped it. But he never really believed me.”
Her fingers curled around the edge of the sink again.
“I remember lying there on the floor, head bleeding, arms twisted under me—and all I could think was don’t ruin this for him. Don’t let this be the reason he stops being okay.”
Ember swallowed. “But he did stop.”
Sadie nodded. “Yeah. He did.”
Her voice shook, but she didn’t stop.
“He quit football. He stopped hanging out with people who made him laugh. He started hanging out with people who made him bleed. Started throwing punches in parking lots and coming home with cracked knuckles and that dead look in his eyes.”
Her throat closed.
“And I let him.”
“You were a kid too, Sadie.”
“I still am,” she whispered. “But I feel like I’ve been watching the people I love break themselves for me since I was thirteen.”
Ember stepped closer. Quiet, careful. Her tone was low, steady.
“What Ash did… that was his choice. And yeah, maybe it was about you. But maybe it was about how he doesn’t know how to deal with pain that doesn’t have someone to blame.”
Sadie looked up.
And Ember added softly, “That night at the lake? You weren’t the only one he was trying to protect.”
Sadie blinked back the sting in her eyes.
“You know he’s in love with you, right?”
The words landed like thunder in a still room.
Ember froze.
Sadie tilted her head, a tired kind of smile curling at the corner of her lips.
“You’re the only person he doesn’t lie to. And believe me, my brother lies like it’s an Olympic sport. But with you? He hurts. Because he can’t figure out how to want you without destroying what little good he thinks he has left.”
Ember’s voice cracked. “I don’t know if I can trust him again.”
“I know. And I’m not asking you to.”
Sadie shrugged, turning back to the mirror.
“I just want you to know… he didn’t leave you that night because he didn’t care.”
A pause.
“He left because he cared too much.”
The silence stretched between them again. But this time, it was softer.
Heavier.
Then Ember said, “Maybe it’s not about saving him.”
Sadie looked at her.
“Maybe it’s just about being the one person he doesn’t have to lie to.”
And with that, Ember walked out.
Leaving Sadie alone with her reflection—and a truth she’d buried for too long finally bleeding into the light.
---
Ash Callahan – POV
One Year Ago | The Lake
The world was quiet.
Too quiet.
The dock creaked under Ash’s boots as he stood at the edge, watching Ember hug her knees to her chest. Her lips were still swollen from his kiss. Her fingers still smelled like his cologne.
He should’ve felt like a king.
Instead, he felt like a goddamn thief.
Because while she was still catching her breath, still whispering “I didn’t expect that” with a small, stunned smile…
His phone had lit up with three missed calls from Mom.
And one voicemail that changed everything.
“It’s Sadie. I found her on the bathroom floor—she’s hurt, Ash, she’s bleeding, she hit her head—where the hell are you?”
Time stopped.
He didn’t remember climbing into his car.
Didn’t remember peeling out of the parking lot so fast his tires screamed.
The only thing he remembered was the echo of Ember’s voice calling after him—
“Ash? What happened?”
And the look on her face when he didn’t answer.
Not then.
Not ever.
---
2:14 a.m. | The Hospital
Ash sat on the vinyl waiting room bench, fists clenched so tight his nails cut into his palms. His knuckles were still raw from punching the steering wheel.
Sadie was stable.
She had a concussion, a butterfly bandage above her eyebrow, and a warning from the neurologist that seizures could still sneak up on them—even when they thought they had control.
His mom hadn’t spoken to him since they arrived.
She didn’t need to.
The look on her face said everything: You weren’t there. Again.
Ash had always thought he could juggle everything. Sadie. School. Football. The pressure to be the reliable one. The protector. The brother who always showed up.
But he hadn’t shown up.
He’d been kissing a girl on a dock, her fingers tangled in his hoodie, whispering his name like it meant something.
And Sadie had been bleeding.
He stared down at his hands.
The same hands that had held Ember’s waist.
The same hands that hadn’t caught his sister before she hit the floor.
Something broke in him that night.
He didn’t go back to the lake.
He didn’t text Ember.
He didn’t let himself want anything after that—because want led to distraction.
And distraction got people hurt.
So he stopped calling.
Stopped smiling.
Started fighting anyone who looked at him too long—because at least bruises faded faster than guilt.
And when Ember looked at him in the hallway like he was a stranger, like he’d become the villain in her story…
He let her.
Because it was easier to be hated than forgiven.
---
- Writer
