Three months after the accident (Past):

"Get your lazy ass up."

The gruff irritated voice called from near the doorway.

I should have locked the door.

My head was hidden under the weight of my pillows and blankets. If I didn't move, there was a slight chance the man standing in the doorway would give up and leave me alone. It had worked so far on my mom. Whenever she came into my room and offered me food or talked to get me to speak to her, I hid from her or pretended I was asleep.

I had barely even uttered more than two words to her since I came home.

My comforter was yanked from the corner of my bed and thrown across the room. Then the sheet went flying next. I was almost completely bare in just my boxers, freezing as the drafty, uninsulated windows did nothing to keep the winter air out. My room was always one of the coldest places in the house this time of year. It was a wonder that I ever survived childhood between the abuse of my dad and the constant uninhabitable conditions of my only sanctuary.

I wished I hadn't made it; it had been a long time since I felt differently. I never wanted to exist my whole life if I was brutally honest with myself.

I groaned and rolled over onto my back. The fuming outline of my Uncle Charlie was standing over me in the dark room. His presence was dark, large, and filled with absolute authority.

"I said you need to get your good-for-nothing, freeloading backside out of bed now." He loudly boomed like he was scolding a disobedient child.

"Fuck off and get out," I grumbled and rolled back over to my stomach.

"This ain't no bed and breakfast, kid. You and I have places to be this morning."

"I'm not going anywhere with you." I slurred.

I began scooting across the bed on my back to search for the almost empty baggie I had laid on the table next to the bed last night. I left about five pills in it for this morning. My cousin Jake had dropped them off to me three days ago and I already needed more. Hopefully, Jake was in the mood to make another house call. If not, I would have to walk to get them since I had no means of transportation other than my feet.

My hand came up empty.

Where were they?

I turned over onto my stomach and leaned the front half of my body over the edge of the bed to see if it fell on the floor while I was sleeping. There was nothing around anywhere near the spot I left it—not even under or beside it.

The pills had vanished into thin air.

Did I dose myself in my sleep?

My body didn't feel like I did. I was too alert and coherent to have used the rest of them up.

I sat back up, dizzy and nauseous from the movement, and fell back on my side, unable to support my own body for more than a few seconds as the blood came rushing back to my head.

Uncle Charlie frowned and shook his head at me with stern disapproval.

"Looking for these?" Uncle Charlie held up my baggie in his hand.

"Give them to me." I bit down on my tongue to keep from screaming at him as my body shook with anger.

They were mine. He had no right to put his filthy hands on them. The little balls of nothingness were the only thing I wanted anymore since the day I lost Riley. I needed those pills because nothing I could do ever wipe her from my thoughts.

Even if it was just in my head, hearing her name sent pain shooting up and down my body. I couldn't think about her and the baby without falling apart. It was too much to bear, which was why I needed the fix to keep the thoughts away.

I was numb when I was high. Just exactly the way I wanted to be for the rest of my life—high and numb until I wasted away into oblivion.

"If you still want them when we are finished today, you will get them back after we are done. Not one second before." Uncle Charlie answered.

"I already told you to fuck off. I'm not going anywhere with you. Give them back. I need them." I rose up and screamed like a whining teenager, striking out to snatch them from his hand.

Uncle Charlie was a half-step too quick for me in my current state. He took a step back and gently folded the bag neatly to place it into his coat pocket. His hand came up to his face and he ran it over the salt and pepper scruff sprouting out. Growing a beard was a winter ritual for him to battle the harsh elements. He also changed his taste in women with the seasons too. Redheads in the fall, brunettes in the winter, and blondes sprinkled in everywhere in between.

He had a soft spot for blondes—ones with big tits and curvy bodies.

Just like...Riley.

Fuck me. I would never be able to stop myself from thinking about her. Riley Davis was constantly racing through my mind. There was nothing that didn't remind me of everything her. Her smile was contagious and her laughter was like a siren's song caught up in the breeze. I never saw her like that enough.

The only thing I ever brought that girl was misery.

The image of her broken body came screeching into my head like a freight train off its tracks. It was the only one I could remember anymore. Riley had to have been in so much pain. She was probably still suffering this very second.

I wanted to call her just to hear her sweet voice, telling me she forgave me for what I did—even to say to me she wanted me to come back.

It was all a pipedream. That wasn't ever going to happen.

Riley wouldn't want me back after what I did to her and the baby. She could go on and be happy with a guy like Aiden who would hurt her the way I did—a guy who could make her smile the way I couldn't. Someone who loved her enough to give her the kind of life a girl like her deserved.

"We will have to tell them she lost the baby when they get here." The doctor's uncaring, clinical voice sounded in my head for the millionth time like a plague of locusts. The words were drowned out by the squeal of tires and the sound of the car smashing into itself.

I threw my body to the side to try to get to her and protect her stomach where the baby was. If I could fight the door from caving in again, then I would be able to save her and the baby this time. But I couldn't stop it. The cheap metal frame smashed in against her right as everything went still.

The loudest thing of all was the silence afterward and the one little whimper Riley made before the paramedics came to pull her out.

She cried out in agony and I couldn't help her.

Three months later, I was still trapped in that car with Riley and our baby as it died inside her—I had never left.

Over— and over—and over again, it replayed like a scratched record.

The sorrow and despair flowing through me was exhausting. It circled again and again until I was dizzy and blind.

How much longer would my body be able to go on living like this?

"Ezra? Ezra? I am talking to you." Uncle Charlie bellowed.

"Huh?" I blinked away the tears from the memory of the bloody girl lying lifeless in the car seat next to me. I fought to draw more air into my lungs as I clutched my pillow tightly to my chest.

Uncle Charlie sighed and strolled too casually to the side of the bed where I was lying. He placed his hand on my shoulder before I could shrink away. I squeezed the pillow tighter, wishing he would stop.

"Bug, I see this going one of two ways. Option one is you get up off this bed, put a smile on your face, and go downstairs. Next, you will kiss your momma on the cheek and sit down at the table to eat breakfast with us like the good boy you were raised to be. Finally, you will smother her with praise for being a saint by cooking you another glorious meal to fill your ungrateful, unworthy belly. Or, you could just be a dumbass and go with the second choice." He cocked his eyebrow up and stared down at me coldly.

"What's the second option?" I asked, trying to hide my wet cheeks from him.

"Choose and find out. Let's just say the Sheriff wouldn't mind any excuse to lock you up for a few nights after he finds out you deflowered his precious angel." He threatened and patted my shoulder.

"You know I never touched her. That was all Jake." I argued.

"He doesn't know that." Charlie smiled and let go of me, making his way towards the door.

"Motherfucking bastard," I grumbled at him when I thought he was out of earshot. I flopped over on the bed and put my feet on the floor for the first time in three days.

"Now that's the spirit. See you in five." He chuckled. Uncle Charlie started to disappear around the doorframe and yelled at me from the other side. "Oh, and Bug, make sure you dress warmly. Your momma will kill me, cook me, and feed me to Potato if you catch a cold on my watch."

"I'll feed your decrepit, old ass to him myself," I grumbled.

"Heard that," Charlie yelled again and laughed.

I could barely stand up on my own feet to make it out of my self-created prison cell. I was weak from the drug binges and lack of food consumption. I never wanted to eat a bite of anything, no matter how much food my mom shoved under my nose. The drugs not only dulled the ache but they also took away my basic survival instincts.

I was fading away more and more each day.

I had been lying in the same spot for as long as I could remember. As soon as I got home the night of the accident, I found myself stumbling in the house with my mom's distorted voice echoing in my head, chasing behind me as I struggled to get myself up the stairs. She was terrified and yelling at me, but I didn't even hear what she was saying.

She spent the last few months trying to get me to open up to her. About three weeks ago, I thought she had finally given up on me like everyone else did. Mom stopped asking what was going on with me and started dropping a food tray off at my doorstep—three times a day—no words, just a plate of food that I never touched.

It turned out she hadn't quit trying at all. She just roped in my Uncle Charlie to help.

It wasn't going to work—I didn't want it to.

I stood up off the bed and stretched my arms over my head. My rib bones jutted out sickeningly like I was made of nothing more than skin and bone. My internal organs were liquified and gone. My neck and shoulder cracked as soon as I moved. Since the accident, they had been as misaligned as my head.

I felt lopsided, like a badly drawn portrait of myself—fucked up and all wrong.

I walked over to the closet and pulled on a pair of jeans without bothering to change the boxers that were glued to my skin. The jeans were too loose and barely stayed up by themselves. I grabbed a black belt and fumbled with the end to slide into the loops. The last time I had taken anything was a few hours ago and I already had withdrawal tremors shutting down my normal dexterity. Doing even the simplest tasks took so much extra effort.

I grabbed a black t-shirt and slipped it on over my head, covering it up with a black hoodie. Next, I stepped into socks and boots, somehow figuring out how to tie them with the clubs at the end of my arms.

As I started walking out my bedroom door, I snatched a black beanie at the last second and pulled it down over my head. My unwashed hair was smashed down and hanging down over my eyes. I pulled the hood over my head as I walked down the hall to the stairs.

The hat and hood weren't just for warmth—they would help me hide.

About halfway down the stairs, I heard Mom and Uncle Charlie talking in hushed voices in the kitchen. This scene had played out a hundred times before. Mom would be at the stove furiously frying some sort of meat to a burnt crisp and Uncle Charlie would be sitting back on a stool watching her with a cup of black coffee in his hand.

It wasn't much of a shock when they were positioned exactly like I thought they would be.

"I have tried everything, Charlie. He won't even talk to me. I don't know what else to do." Mom's voice hit the high-pitched range it did when she was upset. It was something I was far too used to hearing.

"He is going through something right now. Be patient with him. He will come around soon. Ezra is a good kid. He just gets a little lost from time to time. We'll be there to help him find his way back." Uncle Charlie tried to soothe her.

"I just hate watching him suffer. He's already been through too much. I just want him to get better and get the chance to be happy." She sniffed.

"I know, Lulu. I do too."