Pre-Chapter Note: Hi all and welcome back to Part 8 of The Impossible Odds!
WE'RE FINALLY HERE! I'm at that part I've simply been itching to write since Day 1!
I've nothing else to say other than the obligatory language & spoiler warning.
ON WITH THE SHOW!
9:25 PM, 2 days later...
The 2 days had come & gone very fast, but the time was near. I had to lie to JoAnne about where I was going (I told her I had an overnight shift at City Hall and may not be coming home), but had enough trust in Reid to tell him what I was actually doing.
"Oi! Sam! Good luck to you mate! Hope this ends well for you... I don't want to put up with another broken hearted family member." Reid said as I left. Oh yeah, he was the only one that knew I broke up 2 nights ago. However, I placed enough trust in one another to keep this a secret, I may have also told him about Ember & I mixing, as Reid was one of the only few people I could deeply trust with this kind of information.
The fact that Ember & I mixed was something I actually opted to say tonight. Even if the end result was disastrous.
Meanwhile... The Fireplace (Soon to be Ember's Fireplace when I'd show up) was BEYOND PACKED! A full on celebration was occurring. I've been under the assumption that this'd be a small gathering of sorts, NOT A WHOLE PARTY. I'd get there a good 15 minutes after I left my penthouse. The whole time, I was internally freaking out. "This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy!" I kept saying back to myself. I knew Ember hated me the last 2 days (Or did she?), so I went under the impression this'd get her to confess to her parents, but in true reality, I think I was about to make everything worse, a lesser chance of her taking me back, if you will.
Walking down those stairs that'd take me to The Fireplace (ahem... Ember's Fireplace), I started getting second thoughts.
"Maybe I should've just called her!"
"What am I doing!? There's NO way she's taking you back! ABORT MISSION!"
That was about the gist of it, but then I remembered how I acted on the day my parents divorced... so fearless & whatnot, I finally manned up, took several deep breaths to slow down my heart rate, then out of nowhere...
"OH YEAH!? Two can play this game Ember! I too have thought of reasons why this wouldn't make sense!"
Immediately after I said this, the waters went away and I could see EVERYTHING clearly! Yup, the second I saw the packed out crowd, my eyes widened like a lost puppy in the headlights. "Oh no..." I muttered.
Oh no, I wasn't the only person who was concerned. "Oh boy..." I could hear Cinder reply to this whole situation. I knew Cinder wanted us together since that damn smoke reading. She had to hide the fact she knew me from Bernie, imagine how hard THAT was to do when I was clearly in the open to everyone!
"Sam? What are you doing here!?" Ember asked. Yeah, I wasn't exactly ready to do this in front of 250-ish people.
"Ember, I've completely thought about everything after that attempted heartbreak attempt. If memory serves, you said that me indirectly not understanding was one of the single reasons this whole relationship wouldn't come to fruition, but I have more than that." I started. That part of me indirectly understanding why my relationship wouldn't make sense was only half true, I never said anything about it never making sense.
"First of all, yes, I'm water! I can't change that either, even if I wanted to! I mean, does that alone sound crazy or what?" I went on. I didn't realize I directed that to a random fire civilian there, who just nodded their head. "Oh, sorry, that wasn't for you." I told them. Meanwhile, Ember looked rather less than impressed that I was even here in the first place.
"Second, I show up unannounced, I mean, if that doesn't make me a jerk then, then how big am I of one now!?" I still went on extremely frantically, but absolutely wasn't ready for Ember to finish that one with "A pretty big one".
"Okay... yeah! I deserved that one." I responded, right before Bernie tried to cut me off, but I still persisted, despite what my brain was telling me. "Third, I can't even enjoy the life style y'all share! Even enjoying your culture's delicious foods!" I said, taking a small thing of Kol-Nuts to prove my point, and once again, had the same reaction as when I had it the day I was "food inspector" for The Fireplace. "DAMN IT, DAMN IT, DAMN IT!" I'd react to the pain on my own. "Anyway, that's that I guess." I said to myself before Bernie knew who I was, again.
"Whoa whoa whoa! What do you think you're doing here!?" Bernie asked.
I knew right then, I could finally express how I felt about her ashfa, for the better of the water community.
"And YOU! Mr. Lumen! You're no better! All you care about around here is NOTHING but tradition tradition tradition! As evident by you BANNING ME AND MY FRIEND FROM YOUR SHOP! Only difference is, ONE OF US ACTUALLY DIDN'T DESERVE TO BE BANNED ON THE SPOT! You just did so because you KNEW any and all water people are super threatening to you! OPEN YOUR GODDAMN EYES, I didn't threaten Ember once, did I? Did she threaten me? NO! She loved & appreciated me for who I was! And I think it's about damn time for you to show the same behavior! Contrary to what Ember thinks of you... you're not even a good ashfa to your own daughter!" I snapped at him.
Ember looked surprised that I knew what ashfa meant. I left out some important information but... that was the gist of it. Then he asked "Is this about you being a...", well, that's all he was able to get out. I knew he was talking about when I lied about being a food inspector, I had to tell him the truth right then.
"I AM NOT! You caught me! I'm no food inspector even if I wanted to be. I'M A CITY INSPECTOR, OKAY!? I hate that job more than anything, and I'm finally quitting that job tonight, but at least there came a good thing out of it. It was this job about a week ago that had me burst into your daughter's life!" I said, then he remembered the pipe burst that got me here.
"Please don't..." Ember was panicking inside, she didn't want anyone to know her temper caused this to happen. Unfortunately, it was too late to turn back now...
"So you caused the-" Bernie started, before I finished this. "WHOA WHOA WHOA! I said I was involved in that freak accident! I never said I had anything to do with it!" I said back, looking more pissed than he was.
Then... it was truly too far gone. I'd just pin the blame on Ember for everything... even I regretted this, as the expression I got from having my hands over my mouth said it all. "So YOU caused the..." he started, but was in too much pain from what I had just said that he couldn't even finish. Ember was in pure shock she couldn't even say anything.
"Sorry Ember, but I think I had to. TishÅk! Take your chances at this point, because there isn't any way it's lasting forever!" I said, my voice somewhat breaking.
That's when I remembered... I yet to tell the crowd we mixed...
"Oh yeah, I forgot one more thing before this lunatic cut me off! As you guys could see, there's a billion reason's why I could not make this work, but... there IS a yes somewhere along the say... we touched!" I said after yanking the microphone from the stand.
The whole crowd gasped from this, as I would've expected.
"I get it! I get it! Y'all think it's a cruel & sick joke! But it actually happened! And when we did, something damn near impossible happened. Something that I can't say the same about to all of you. We changed each others chemistry, and lemme tell you, it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever witnessed in my life! And that makes me love her all the more." I said, before turning to Ember.
"I don't care what the billion differences are in our lives that make things so impossible to be near each other normally, Ember Lumen... I still love you. And... I'm 99.9% sure you'd have the same feelings for me." I said, finishing everything then.
I'll be honest, I wasn't holding my breath whatsoever. Not after the events of 2 nights ago. In fact, I didn't deserve her anymore, and that was by my own thoughts! I half expected something interesting to happen at this point.
But things... would be going from bad to worse.
"No! I don't!" Ember responded. This was after a noticeable 30 second delay. Despite me having expected this, I was turning red with anger very, very, slowly.
"What do you mean no!? AFTER EVERYTHING I'VE DONE FOR YOU!? THIS IS THE THANKS I GET!?" I snapped. Clearly it was hard for either one of us to let each other go, even in this moment.
"Oh, and I KNOW this is a case of being something THAT I DAMN WELL KNOW YOU'RE NOT!" I responded back to my own temper loss taking the better of me. I could see it in her parent's eyes that either one of us were withholding this information. But... Cinder somehow supported this indirectly.
"But it's true love Bernie! I did a reading on them, it said otherwise! It's a perfect match!" Cinder responded. I was half expecting things to get better.
Nope!
"No, mom! Stop lying to yourself! Sam, GO!" Ember responded in just a short amount of time after this. I'd try once more to regain control of what I was here for.
"Ok... but what I'm trying to say-" I started, then... tragedy struck.
"I DON'T LOVE YOU! GO!" Her purple flames were MAD OUT OF CONTROL at this point!
But, regardless, just like that... history repeated itself in-front of my very eyes.
What's freaky about this, you're wondering? The divorce happened 10 years ago to the very date this ultimate rejection happened. Well... I kind of figured this was going to happen, given that when Ember snapped at her mom that she was lying about us being a perfect match, I knew for certain that our relationship was too far damaged, BEYOND repair of ANY kind, try as I might.
But I was shattered. These were the exact same words that ended my parents marriage, and then some.
"I DON'T LOVE YOU! GET OUT OF MY LIFE!" were Paul's words to Olivia after their horrible argument over the case of me being "neglected", when I wasn't!
So... without another word and with there being nothing else to do at that point... I just up & left. However, I myself was beginning to feel mentally sick as well, and it was just as bad as Ember's mental numbness, if not... worse. My whole world fell silent. My ears were ringing so bad that I couldn't hear anything. And given I couldn't hear shit whatsoever, I never got to hear the end of it, which is what I wanted to leave it at.
However, she got what she wanted, but not in the way you're thinking. She in fact was denied ANY rights to take over at all, just for causing me to come in her life, and for seeing me. Her ashfa would still run the business. Ember KNEW she deeply regretted everything, but wanted to leave me alone so as to please her parents, but her trust with them was truly too far gone, so... shortly after all of this, she'd confess to everything except for not wanting to run the shop, just like she considered yesterday. Somehow her losing business rights was the only punishment she got.
I don't even know what'd come over me at that point, I was out of control at this point with my numbness, I thought I was going to die, as when I got back to the under-portion of the bridge, I felt like I was going to pass out. And I sort of did, instead, rather, collapsing to my knees, basically getting on all four's at that point. Words couldn't describe how I was feeling. My ears were still ringing.
15 minutes later...
I was on the ground at this point. Slowly going unconscious, but only in a faint sense. This NEVER happened to anyone! This only happened to me because this was exactly 10 years after the divorce happened. The pure PTSD that washed over me was super indescribable to anyone.
However, 5 more minutes pass, and I thought I could hear my name being called out.
"Sam?"
Well, I wasn't wrong. Someone was really wanting me at this time, and I didn't even know it. My ears sort of stopped ringing, but not fully. "Ember?" I groggily asked myself. No, that voice was too deep, plus she was back in The Fireplace (No longer Ember's Fireplace at this point), and she hated my guts (This wasn't so, actually, but I wasn't wanting to take any of their BS at this point), so even if it were her, I'd finally let her go, but even then, we still couldn't. Not even overnight.
"Sam!"
The voice called out again. I for certain at this point believed it was someone I haven't seen in 10 years. "Dad!?" I tried next. Nope. I knew dad's voice when I heard it. He's still WAY far away from here.
"SAM!"
At this point, I was sure it was some ghost calling my name. So, with all other options exhausted... I did something that proved successful in the past.
"Whoever you are! I don't care if you hate me or not! Do me a favor... don't be shy, and show yourself! I'll accept anyone right now! JUST SHOW YOURSELF!" I said, taking delays in between each break in the statements, with my voice breaking. Truly I was about to cry.
The ominous person revealed himself shortly after this. This was the last person I expected to show up at all tonight...
It was Max.
Yup, the one person I didn't want anything to do with after this incident somehow got the guts to listen in on my WHOLE ranting session without my knowledge (except for Ember snapping those 4 dreaded words at me, because the train was coming, so he had to duck for safety). Apparently JoAnne must've told him somehow.
When I saw his face, I immediately thought "I'm gonna ground that little shit for being nosy again!", I texted Reid he had full permission to punish JoAnne for lying to me, long story short, she's now grounded for 3 months after she fessed up to Reid about telling Max about this event.
JoAnne was NOT good at keeping secrets at all. I was actually set to tell Max what happened at his place, funnily enough. "Max... I'm so sorry you had to see all of that." I said in a daze.
"What happened?" Max asked me back, he could tell I wasn't myself, I mean... it's not like my body attempted to shut down completely just half an hour ago. "Look, can we just go?" I asked him.
"Sam! What, happened?" Max tried again. I really didn't want to talk to him when I knew for a fact that our most hated person was nearby. Well, not all fire hated me, several fire people attempted to make sure I was okay, Bernie didn't even bother to stop a single person which was just... nice of him. Both him & Ember showed massive regrets after I was sent off and she was punished.
"MAX! Can we just go anywhere BUT here!? I really don't want to talk about what happened when someone we shouldn't even be hearing from ever again is nearby! Also Max, I know JoAnne was behind you coming here, but you've still got explaining to do!" I said, sort of raising my voice with him.
"Oh boy..." Max muttered.
10 minutes later, after having took a train back to the heart of the water portion of Element City... so essentially, at around 10:25 PM
Clearly it was less busy than usual, mostly because people were asleep by this point, I purely wasn't having it with him, but was scared to tell him that it was officially over.
"Max... why did JoAnne have to tell you everything? Neither you OR JoAnne were supposed to have knew about the grand re-opening, in which the whole thing ended up being one shit-show after another. Reid was the only one I told about this damned event, AND I WANTED IT TO STAY THAT WAY! YOU NEED TO EXPLAIN WHAT YOU WERE DOING THERE OR SO HELP ME GOD..." I had white anger flowing in me, and I just let it all out on Max. The whole time, he was trying to get me to calm down.
"SAM! SAM! SAM! No need to raise your voice like that at me! And I can assure you JoAnne had nothing to do with this! You can have a look through my text messages with her if you want, you won't find anything about tonight's events! I swear to god!" Max said, panicking in this response. So, through his texts with JoAnne I went through... essentially Max was her tutor of sorts. I was surprised to see this, so, I contacted Reid about this again and got her punishment removed. Not mentioning the break-up whatsoever. I wanted to tell him myself.
"Then what were you doing there tonight!?" I asked again, still mad at him. Before Max finally gave up and said, "Look... I only listened in on everything because I was worried about you... I knew about this event because I heard you talking about it yesterday, so, I'm sorry if this was out of the blue or anything... but I wanted to make sure you were okay during everything tonight. Even wanted to get you to bail out of it... but seriously though, what happened?"
I finally felt like I was ready to tell him... "Max... it's over"
However, Max took this the wrong way, as I expected. "Wait, Sam... what'd I do?"
"NO MAX! Why would I ever call it quits with you? You're my closest friend, I'd never let you go even if I wanted to! No... sorry, I meant that it was over with Ember... imagine confessing your feelings to one another, then getting told the exact same words that my dad gave to my mom 10 years ago today. Those words being... I don't love you. Yeah. We broke up." I said, with me getting more upset as I went. Some tears flowed out of me.
"Sam... you what!?" Max was flabbergasted. I had to repeat what I just said which was the hardest thing to do that night...
"Oh my god... Sam... I can only imagine what you must be feeling right now. Even when I saw her a few days ago... the way you two showed affection for one another, the way she looked at you with heart eyes during the crying game that night... I thought you two were inseparable from that point on. Truly, I am very sorry to hear this happening..." Max responded, still trying not to remember when he lost Estelle from the water contamination disease. This too proved difficult.
"Max, it doesn't matter anyway, it wasn't going to make sense in the first place, even you knew this, I should've took your advice the night I told you about her for the first time... AKA, the day I met her. I'm sorry I dragged you into this." I reminisced when I told Max I met Ember, and also I remember him telling me it was crazy and that I probably shouldn't have fell in love with her. Who knows, maybe Ember would be better off without me.
"Sam, stop! Do NOT start comparing yourself to a nobody! I know you! You'd NEVER say anything like this, not even when you're on the verge of a massive mental breakdown as that of what you just had or when you lose your temper, and that's MOST CERTAINLY not what you said when you finally gave Bernie Lumen a piece of your mind! Which by the way, I was more than happy to hear everything you said about him." Max said, trying to stop me from crying, to almost no avail. I ended up crying in his arms for about 5 minutes, which the whole time, I imagined him being Ember. Yeah, I know, petty move, right?
5 minutes later, and I finally calm myself
"Right... sorry Max, I couldn't help myself." I said, still in a breaking-like voice that I was slowly regaining control over, then remembering what I'd say I do tonight. Finally give up my City Inspector job. This became evident when I asked Max, "Hey... how far are we from City Hall?"
When Max asked why he wanted to know back, I finally give him my intentions. "I'm quitting tonight! I instead will be all set to work for you come 2 weeks time!" I said, making myself perk up a little, but not 100%.
"AYY! THERE YOU GO! Smart choice!" Max responded, all hyped up. He KNEW he wanted me to work for him for a long time, but never got the guts to force me to quit my job. "Better choice than getting the hell out of here." I said.
Yeah... pro-tip for ANYONE! Don't leave the city over a broken relationship! Of course... I knew someone that did this once, but only because I was told about this happening, Reid was the one to witness it happening. Who was this person I sort of knew that did the very same thing many years ago? That, would have been my lost brother... Wade Ripple. I never heard from Wade whatsoever, never even made a single attempt to contact us again after he left Element City. And I only knew about him because Reid shared this information with me from family records. Wade... I sure would love to chat with you someday, wherever you may be.
Sometime after turning in my immediate resignation notice to City Hall...
HELL YEAH! I finally quit that dreaded job!
But... oh god... I was still getting some intrusive thoughts about what Ember & I did 2 days ago. I knew I had to tell Max. I stopped him somewhere near his place, which is where we were set to go back to anyway. "Max... I need to tell you something..."
Max gave full attention when I said this.
"sigh, Now... I've seen people who were treated like assholes for less than what I'm about to tell you, so, en garde, you have to promise that NOTHING is going to change between us, whatsoever. I told Reid this, and I shared this in-front of over 250 Fire citizens, and only Reid was acceptant of this. You, I can deeply trust to withhold this from ANYONE! Do you understand!?" I said. And with a simple nod of his head, I went on.
"Max... we mixed." I said. Max didn't look at all appalled from this, instead, looking rather shocked that I was still here today.
"Well, don't keep me in suspense then! How was it?" Max responded after a delay.
"Dude, you should've been there. It was fucking awesome, it's like something that I've only ever dreamed about happening for a few years finally happening that night. The second we found out we didn't harm each other... it was all fun, too much fun, in fact." I said, reminiscing this. This was my last known good memory of Ember before she became a nightmare to deal with.
10 minutes later... being the next day now as it's 12:35 AM
We were back at Max's place, I was still in a daze, to the surprise of no one. Karen (Max's mom, contrary to what is said about her name, she was a highly respectable woman and I compared her to a grandmother I never had when Camila passed away 3 years ago... oh god... ALSO to the date! Man, this date was cursed! A divorce, a grandparents death, and now a mad rejection of what was once proven a perfect match!? What timeline was I living in!?) knew I was upset and had a terrible breakup, so did everything she could to try and calm me down. But all I really wanted at that point was just to see Ember again, and tell her how sorry I was for everything, it was way too much of a burden to deal with. When I expressed this idea, Max said to me, "Uh Sam? I don't think that's a wise idea at this point... plus, you have her number, right? Why don't you just call her yourself?"
It's true, I did have Ember's cell phone number. I just decided that sending her a short text would work just fine.
This read: "Hi... I know you probably don't want to hear from me right now, and I totally understand if that's the case, I just wanted to let you know how guilty I feel about what happened some time ago yesterday. If at any point you want to talk about this, please let me know and I can potentially work something out... until then, really have nothing else to say. Good night, my little fireball."
Yeah, I too had "fireball" as her nickname, in fact, I was the only person that could refer to Ember as one. During this time, Reid decided to give me a call. Yeah... telling him everything that happened a whopping 3 hours ago was hard. I did not want to remember this night at all, but felt like I had no choice. Reid, unfortunately, did have to put up with another broken hearted family member. However, he couldn't get over our grandparent's death for over a month, while it took me a mere week to recover from that. So, he can't talk shit about this if EVEN HE KNEW he was indeed a scaredy cat in this situation.
45 minutes later...
This was sort of what I needed, Reid & I planned a whole day just to make up for all of this. I won't go into specifics, but this'd hopefully get my mind off of her. When I hung up with Reid, Max gave me one last parting note for the night before I'd try and drift off, given it was way past 1 AM at this point, and I badly needed some sleep. "Sam... we'll reconcile in the moring, all right? I think that for now, you just need some rest. I mean, it's 1:20 AM for crying out loud. Even I don't stay up that late, normally." Max said, the second half was more hysteric.
"Max... Max. Thanks for everything tonight. I kind of appreciated you taking worry for me, and again... although I had a relationship be force-quitted, it was all worth every second of it." I said back. Right then, Max gave me another hug, then he parted with me for the night.
I decided to check my phone one last time before I fell asleep. And I'm glad I did, Ember got my text, and gave a promising response.
This read: "Sam... if anything, I should be the one apologizing to you. What I said was absolutely immature of me, and I knew I was only saying this because of my ashfa's wishes and promises. I never meant to break you right then, and I sure as hell didn't mean to send you away. I regret this more than you, actually. I've been thinking of starting over and giving ourselves a second chance sometime in the morning. Interested?"
Wow! I was finally perking back up. I KNEW Ember didn't mean what she said at all, she just had to act upon her parent's wishes, something she didn't want to do.
Now I just had to act like this never happened around Max... something I'd find hard
Well, until fate had other ideas...
WOW! That was kind of better than I expected! Anyway, final part coming soon!
Have a great day/night!