[ Judging by the expression on his face, Greer instantly knows that Embry would enjoy it — maybe even too much — if she sought to punish him, if she demanded that he drop to his knees right here and now and take whatever discipline she'd seek to mete out. So why does the thought of it appeal to her so much? Why does a part of her, the polar opposite of the part that wants to be ordered around and spanked and made to cry, inwardly yearn to dole out similar where he's concerned?
The mood shifts, however, when he starts to tell her about that morning — the one they've always danced around talking about, the one they've only been willing to revisit in so many words when they've actually spoken about it at all. In the moment, understanding instantly clicks into place for her, leads her to a new perception of the past. It's as if she's been walking through life with blinders on about the truth, and every word Embry utters makes the scales dissolve from her eyes, little by little.
Because he's right — Ash never would have been the one to choose, so Embry would have taken it upon himself to make the impossible decision, to give up the possibility of what they could have had to avoid breaking Ash's heart too. Surely now, Greer thinks, he's begun to suspect the truth about what happened between her and Embry after the party, but back then, learning that she'd given her virginity to someone else might have broken them to a degree they never would have been able to recover from, shattered what love yet remained between them beyond repair.
Greer doesn't say anything at all, for a while; instead, she just lets Embry talk, and talk, and talk, because now that the floodgates have opened it's all pouring out of him, the brutal truth, and as difficult as it may be for her to hear it now, it also crystallizes her understanding of everything. This regret has been the reason they haven't been able to move forward; this pain has been holding them in place, preventing them from the only future that makes sense. Her cards have already been played, laid out on the table since Embry rose from the dead and drew his first renewed breath, and she doesn't stand before him with an imperious lift of her chin, but she comes damn near close to demanding to see him on his knees. ]
I don't just belong to Ash. You know that. He knows that. [ He had to have known it, at the funeral, the way she'd cried on him, his hushed admission against her hair about his heart broken alongside hers. He had to have seen it, with how she'd draped herself over Embry's lap in the piano bar, surrendered herself into the cupping of their hands, the circling of their fingers around the cross of her ankles. ] I might have been saving myself for him, but he broke my heart that night. And I didn't give myself to you just to spite him, either. I gave myself to you because that choice was mine to give, and because I already loved you even if I didn't fully have the words for it yet.
[ Suddenly, she's closer, stepping down from the dais where the altar sits, standing with him along the crumbling pews, and she reaches out to take both of his hands in hers, glancing down at them. ] Even now, I... I miss you, even with you right here in front of me. You hurt me before, and you could hurt me again, but you'd hurt me most by leaving. [ Her gaze lifts to his, glassy with tears. ] Don't say no again, Embry. If you can't say yes yet, I'll understand, but... don't say no.
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The mood shifts, however, when he starts to tell her about that morning — the one they've always danced around talking about, the one they've only been willing to revisit in so many words when they've actually spoken about it at all. In the moment, understanding instantly clicks into place for her, leads her to a new perception of the past. It's as if she's been walking through life with blinders on about the truth, and every word Embry utters makes the scales dissolve from her eyes, little by little.
Because he's right — Ash never would have been the one to choose, so Embry would have taken it upon himself to make the impossible decision, to give up the possibility of what they could have had to avoid breaking Ash's heart too. Surely now, Greer thinks, he's begun to suspect the truth about what happened between her and Embry after the party, but back then, learning that she'd given her virginity to someone else might have broken them to a degree they never would have been able to recover from, shattered what love yet remained between them beyond repair.
Greer doesn't say anything at all, for a while; instead, she just lets Embry talk, and talk, and talk, because now that the floodgates have opened it's all pouring out of him, the brutal truth, and as difficult as it may be for her to hear it now, it also crystallizes her understanding of everything. This regret has been the reason they haven't been able to move forward; this pain has been holding them in place, preventing them from the only future that makes sense. Her cards have already been played, laid out on the table since Embry rose from the dead and drew his first renewed breath, and she doesn't stand before him with an imperious lift of her chin, but she comes damn near close to demanding to see him on his knees. ]
I don't just belong to Ash. You know that. He knows that. [ He had to have known it, at the funeral, the way she'd cried on him, his hushed admission against her hair about his heart broken alongside hers. He had to have seen it, with how she'd draped herself over Embry's lap in the piano bar, surrendered herself into the cupping of their hands, the circling of their fingers around the cross of her ankles. ] I might have been saving myself for him, but he broke my heart that night. And I didn't give myself to you just to spite him, either. I gave myself to you because that choice was mine to give, and because I already loved you even if I didn't fully have the words for it yet.
[ Suddenly, she's closer, stepping down from the dais where the altar sits, standing with him along the crumbling pews, and she reaches out to take both of his hands in hers, glancing down at them. ] Even now, I... I miss you, even with you right here in front of me. You hurt me before, and you could hurt me again, but you'd hurt me most by leaving. [ Her gaze lifts to his, glassy with tears. ] Don't say no again, Embry. If you can't say yes yet, I'll understand, but... don't say no.