SCARS by Amy Leigh McCorkle Page B

saw how scared you were that morning as you stepped out onto the bridge to try and save me.”
                  “I’m afraid I might be in over my head.”
                  “Me too.”
                  Were we at an impasse? Hardly. We were just caught in a whirlwind of intense emotion. Not the kind they wrote about in books though. In books there were the finer things like the strapping hero who was a master in bed. Was a borderline if not a straight out asshole. No in his quiet moments I could see a wounded beast trying his damndest to be a good man who clearly believed he was anything but.
                  I had stopped believing I’d been a human being worthy of love long ago. It was something I had wrestled with since then.
                  But here we were. In James’ home. As humble as it was. With only each other to care for the other. It was hard to believe a week before I’d only talked him down from the ledge. Surely, Ellen was right and I was wrong.
                  This, though, sitting in the kitchen, my hands in his, was the happiest I’d been in some time. I even felt the itch to write. Which I hadn’t felt in the longest of times. This was the happiest of moments. Well bittersweet. Because in a way it opened up a new chapter in my life.
                  “Is this what you want James? My life is complicated. I lack any real family except Ellen and I’m devastated at the thought of losing her.”
                  “You won’t lose her.”
                  “How can you be so sure?”
                  “Because I’m the interloper. I’m on probation as far as she’s concerned. She’s given me the rope and I believe she thinks she’s going to watch me destroy our relationship. She just doesn’t want me to destroy you in the process.”
                  “I get that. But I just want to float for a while, you know? I just kinda want to lose myself in you and forget myself for a while.”
                  He smiled and chuckled lightly. “Rayna you are this brilliant white light of hope and beauty and survival. I think you underestimate your effect on people. You gave me purpose. Even though I want a drink so bad I can taste it…you make me want to be a better man. At least try to. My reach may extend beyond my grasp. I don’t know. I just know you’re showing a great deal of faith in me when I don’t have it in myself.”
                  “It’s what I do. Even though I have very little of it in the tank for my own purposes.”
                  We grew quiet. He brushed my hair back away from my face.
                  “So fragile but so strong.”
                  Suddenly it was just the two of us in the world and we kissed. His hand slipped behind my head and he drew me in close. Our pasts and our troubles seemed so far away. It was us and only us.
                  There was a knock at the door. The bubble popped. My world was about to change forever.
                  James froze.
                  I froze.
                  It was as if our moment had come and passed. And our past was there to ruin whatever future we might have had. I held my breath as James stood and reached beneath the butcher block in the center of the kitchen. In his hand was a handgun. What kind I wasn’t sure. I just knew I didn’t want to be staring down the other end of it.
                  He slowly made his way to the door.
                  “If something happens the keys to the truck are on the butcher block. Grab your bag and run like hell.”
                  I slipped my hand into my pocket. Kevin had gifted me an engraved switchblade. There had been many nights when I debated taking his life with it in the aftermath of his betrayal. There had been