Hearts on Fire (Book 5: Creek-Harbor)

Chapter 2// Emma

'I'm sorry your husband is gone'

'I'm sorry for your loss'

'He was a hero'

Opening my eyes as a loud bang wakes me up from my sleep. Taking a breath and sighed before climbing off the pull-out sofa in the living room and made my over to the open plan dining room and kitchen, towards the sound where the bang came from and towards screaming and shouting.

Stopping in my tracks as I see my tiny little humans fighting over a box of cocoa-pops. A broken dish on the floor next to them, I love them so much but my kids they don't make it easy on me.

"What is going on here?" I ask them and grab the box of cereal from them. Hunter and Cadence both stop yelling and turn to look at me.

"Hunter is taking my cereal" My daughter yelled out me and then growled at her older brother.

"Isn't this why I let you both pick your own cereal, when we go grocery shopping? So we avoid mornings like this" I say to them both with a motherly tone.

"Now who picked the cocoa pops last week?" I ask them, they both looked at each other and then back to me, none of them answering me.

"Fine then I will eat the cocoa pops and you two can have pancakes" I added,

"But that's not fair, I want cocoa pops"   Cadence whined and crossed her arms off her chest. Shaking my head at her and sighed, I don't know why or how but parenting feels so much harder when you do it alone.

"Tough luck, now both of you go and get ready for school. And I will make pancakes for you" I say to the kids, they both take one more look at me before defeating and heading off to their rooms to get dressed for school.

Putting the box down and took a seat on one the stools and rested my head in my hands.

I honestly thought moving here would be good for all of us, but the way the kids are acting out. It makes me feel like maybe I made the wrong choice, that maybe we should have stayed in Dallas. I mean did I take the job here for an easier way out. Did I do it for myself and didn't think of the kids? I don't know anymore, I just know that I'm sleeping on a pull-out couch, my grams lives with me and helps raise my kids and my kids are always fighting.

I feel like since Drew died all I do is fail them as a mother.

"What are you deep in thought about?" I snapped of my thoughts and look up to see my grams, shaking my head and sighed. I don't want to keep dumping my parenting problems on her. It's not fair she already does so much for me and the kids, she's raised her own kid and she then raised her daughter's kid which was me.

Grams moved here to help me and to be closer to the kids, but she still needs to live her own life and I need to show her that I'm okay.
I'm almost twenty-seven, I'm an adult she shouldn't have to worry about me anymore. She deserves to build her own life and live it the best way she sees fit too.

"I'm thinking maybe next time I should buy more cereal" I lied, but grams she doesn't buy it and she takes a stool next to me and pats my hand gently.

"Talk to me Emma" She says to me, flickering my eyes to her.

"They've been acting out a lot since we moved here-;" I cut off and moved my eyes towards the staircase, towards where my kids are and then back to her.

"Did I make a mistake moving them here ? Ripping them away from everything that they knew? Did I move here because it was easier for me after Drew?" I sighed sadly, I don't know what to do and I don't know if coming to Creek-Harbor was the best choice for us.

I mean I've been here for months; I haven't made any friends other than Dex. My kids act out and probably hate me, for taking them from their home in Dallas.

I'm also probably the reason my sixty-five-year-old grandmother, moved from the only place she's has called home. 

My job has it's ups and downs expecting with some of the people I have to work alongside and when I think about it all together.

I realise that I rushed into this job and this town, because I wanted to escape the memories of losing my husband and everyone knowing that. And maybe I didn't stop to think about what I was asking my kids to give up, what I was asking grams to give up.

Maybe I'm just selfish for not wanting to be reminded every day, that I'm a widow and that the man I love is gone.

"Emma sweetheart, you're their mother if anyone knows what's right for them it's you. And maybe you did move here to make it easier for you-;" Grams began replying "But it would have been worst for them if you stayed somewhere that just made you sad, because those kids they need you to be happy and they need to see you living again, especially with their dad gone"

"It's not that simple grams-;" I started to argue only for her to cut me off.

"It is that simple, you're the only parent they've got now. And to make sure they grow up in a happy home, you have to build one on your own happiness first" She shots back at me, I want to believe that what she saying is true but I'm just not sure right now.

"Maybe so, but I just don't think I'm there yet to believe in happiness again" I confessed, I know that it's coming up to two years since Drew died and a part of me knows I'm doing better than I was before, but I'm still broken and I'm scared that it's effecting Hunter and Cadence. And I'm scared that I'm not enough for them now, that after all of this that's happened. Losing their dad, seeing their mother so broken to the point where I wouldn't even get out of bed. And having to moved states, making new friends and start new schools.

I'm worried that all of this is going to make them see the world differently than other kids their ages.

What if we never heal from this? What if I can't heal enough to be what they need me to be for them?

I pull out of my thoughts when I feel something wet drop onto my hand, and I realise that I'm crying.

"One day Emma honey, you're going to believe in it all again. It's just going to take some time" Grams says to me, before getting up from her stool and heading upstairs to check on the kids. Shaking my head and let more tears fall from my eyes.

I'm not sure if I believe in anything anymore, I don't know how too....