Free The Rise of Emery James by Shae Scott

that I handle her with kid gloves. She's not nearly as fragile as she thinks she is. But I still want her to trust me. I promised myself I would help her find her way back and I meant it. I'm not going anywhere. There is no way that I'm walking away from her. She needs a friend? Well, she has me. I'll be her friend until she's strong enough to look at me with new eyes.
    I should feel guilty about that thought. I should be, but I’m not. The fact is, the more time I spend with Emery, the more I remember just how good we are together. I still have real feelings for this girl. It doesn’t matter that she’s not the same Emery I knew before. My heart still knows hers. I can’t deny that, even if I have to keep it to myself for now.
    I try to push it back and ignore it. I try hard to be patient. But it’s hard to ignore the part of me that wants Emery so badly that I've grown a case of blue balls worse than anything I've had since I was a teenager.
    Funny, she caused it then too.
    But I try my best to bury that asshole when I'm around her. The last thing she needs is me lusting after her under the guise of friendship.
    So we navigate through house repairs and TV marathons and even a few beers on the back deck. I see improvement every day that I come to see her. She no longer sits in the quiet while I work. She chatters about plans for decorating one of the spare rooms as an office and about the disaster that was giving Journey a bath. I listen and I laugh and I hang on to each tiny step forward. I still worry that she spends most of her time in this house, but I think it's less hiding and more about steadying herself in a places where she feels safe. The fact that I get to be a part of it makes me feel like a superhero.
     
     
    Emery
     
    COLE'S WORDS FROM the other night have been bouncing around in my brain for days. When I see him it's all I can think about. When he's not here I replay our conversation over and over.
    I'm not him. You don't have to be perfect.
    I'm not even sure what I’m supposed to do with words like that. There are moments when I’m positive he sees right through me. It’s like he knows my make-up and every piece that makes me. . .me. Then, he challenges me to accept it.
    It cuts with the jagged reminder of how much I've changed. But then, it heals with the flicker of hope that nearly convinces me that it's okay that I have, that maybe it’s okay that I’m not the same person I was before, that maybe one day I could even be better.
    It's a tug of war.
    Then vs now.
    Expectations vs freedom.
    I’m not him. You don’t have to be perfect.
    He probably has no idea how powerful those words are.
    He has no idea how they echo deep within me, bouncing off the hollow corners of my heart, threatening to stick. Threatening to take up resident right there in the emptiness of my chest.
    He's right, he's the opposite of Gabe. And the way they make me feel is the difference between a caged bird and a soaring one.
    Until he pointed it out, I had no idea just how jumpy and unsure I'd become of my actions or how much I questioned them. I didn’t realize how much I’d based my validity on other people's approval.
    I never realized how much I had conformed to Gabe's expectations. I was always all too willing to bend. I wanted to fit the mold of his perfect wife. His perfect partner. Especially as things had started to fall apart and the distance between us had grown. I just wanted to fix it. I did everything that I could think of to try and get us back where we had started. I just wanted to get back to the place where things were easy and we were in love. When I was his partner instead of an asset to be claimed.
    For him I had to be perfect.
    I worked my ass off to be perfect.
    In the end it was never enough.
    Having Cole bring it all to light has left me feeling bruised. It stirs up the anxiety and the anger I've been trying to stomp down deep into the corners where I don't have to deal with it. But it's getting