After the apartment door slammed shut, Riley stared at it for a long time, wishing for it to open again. I didn't share the same sentiment and was relieved that the two of us were finally alone.

Riley sucked in her bottom lip and fidgeted in front of me like she didn't know what to do or say to me. Honestly, I didn't really know how I would approach her either. All the weeks and months I spent planning out how I was going to get her back didn't help now that I was standing in front of her.

I didn't know what to say to her as she stared up at me, waiting for me to make the first move.

"So," Riley whispered and resumed biting at her lip. She was going to chew it off if she didn't stop messing with it. Watching her fuss with it nervously was giving me anxiety. I was close to opening my mouth to scold her, but luckily I was still a little slow from last night and caught myself before I could.

I took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to begin without throwing everything into a tailspin. Last night was a disaster and there was a lot I needed to fess up to, but I still wasn't completely ready to talk about my addiction or what happened the night of the accident. I was too terrified to go back there—it scared the shit out of me.

But Riley deserved to know the truth and I had to find a way to give it to her even if my diseased mind didn't agree with my heart.

The secrecy and lies had always kept me safe.

Or my version of safe anyway.

"Thanks for letting me crash here last night. I shouldn't have shown up to your work like that." I apologized to her and took a half step forward, feeling the invisible pull that only grew stronger as each second passed by. I knew touching her would steady me enough to get through this conversation.

Riley took a full step back, and I narrowed the distance between us with another in her direction. She was guarded and on edge and I hated that she felt this way around me.

I never meant to hurt her. Shit just always seemed so sideways every time I fought to hold onto her. The more I battled for her, the harder it was to keep her within my grasp. The whole world was always against us. I had to go to war every second of the day to be with the perfectly insane girl.

"I couldn't leave you out there like that." Riley ran a nervous hand through her hair as she mumbled a reply.

It was crystal clear the blond was fighting to keep her wall up as I surrounded her. I struggled against every urge to bash my fists against the solid stone between us until it was nothing but rubble. I bit my tongue until it bled to hold it in. I wanted to break the barrier down so fucking bad that I could keep it at bay any longer.

My mouth began moving on its own as the word vomit came spewing out.

"I meant it when I said I missed you. I've thought about you every second since that night." My lips stopped moving.

I knew I had screwed up when I saw Riley's angry face.

Fuck me.

My idiocy and inability to use my head was going to backfire on me catastrophically.

"Did you? Did you really think about me at all? Did you think about me when you abandoned me in the hospital?" She seethed at me with a challenge in her eyes. Riley didn't believe my words and I didn't blame her, but I had to convince her there was a reason behind my absence. With everything that happened last night at her work, I thought she would have understood there was no other choice.

It wasn't a fucking vacation with a long walk on a moonlit beach. I was suffering the whole time without her next to me, but Mark was right to take me back there—even if I still despised him for doing it.

My instinct to fight and warp the conversation away from my demented head was seeping out through my pores, but I wasn't going to let my shame and humiliation win. The angry girl deserved much more than I was giving her. Riley didn't understand that I wouldn't be standing here if I didn't return to Indiana when I did.

It wasn't all for nothing.

"Riley, I was in a terrible place when I left. We were in a car crash and you were in a hospital bed because of me. I didn't want to hurt you anymore. The only way to keep you safe was for me to go away." I tried to explain. The pitch and defensiveness in my voice came out strained and weak.

"But you did hurt me. You are still hurting me." She cried out in anger. "You left me broken and bleeding. I lost a baby, Ezra. I felt like I lost my life when my baby died."

"Our baby," I whispered as my whole body shook. It hurt so fucking bad that Riley wouldn't even acknowledge that I lost everything that night too.

"A baby you never wanted me to have!" She screamed as the tears poured down her cheeks.

It never even crossed my mind until she uttered those words that she thought I was happy that she lost the baby in the accident. It was true I never wanted to have a kid. Thinking about being someone's dad made me physically ill and still did, but I would have never crashed the car to end the pregnancy. I would never have put her in danger that way.

"Do you think I did this on purpose?" I asked with a slight defensive edge to my voice that I failed to mask.

"I don't know what to think anymore." Riley looked down at the ground, avoiding my eyes when she answered. There was nothing else she could say that her body wasn't already telling me.

She believed it and she was so fucking wrong.

"I made a mistake, a terrible mistake. It will haunt me until I die." I pulled at my hair to keep the darkness from seeping out. I thought about smashing my head against the wall over and over again until the feelings went away.

"A mistake?" The trembling blond scoffed between her tears.

"Riley, I was messed up when I drove you home that night. I didn't know what I was doing when I made you get in that car. I love you and never meant for any of this to happen. You have to believe me." I desperately pleaded with her for a tiny drop of understanding.

Riley started walking me backward with her finger buried deep into my chest. I had never seen the girl look this fierce and enraged before. The fury in her wild green eyes frightened me. I gulped and stood there without backing down, preparing myself mentally to take the brunt of her wrath while hoping I could maintain some semblance of control.

"You may not have done it on purpose, but you didn't give me a choice either. You chose to take whatever the hell you took that night and put the girl you said you 'loved' and your unborn baby in the car with you. You chose to drive too fast. You chose to leave me." She accused, blending in both the truth and what she assumed was true.

I started winding up to argue back when I noticed a shift in Riley's body.

Riley pulled her finger back off my chest and began violently shivering. Head to toe, top to bottom—her whole body was crashing in on itself. The deep breaths she filled her lungs with were shallowing and quickening as her vibrant, large green eyes glazed over. Her thousand-yard stare focused on a spot on the center of my chest.

That was until the shaking stopped and her body went unusually still.

"Fuck." I muttered under my breath and launched myself at her just in time to catch her falling body.

I wrapped my arms around Riley as her body went limp and slumped down to the floor. The girl had no strength left in her and I was too weak to keep her in my arms much longer. Riley began screaming out her sobs into my chest as I guided her down gently to the floor before she slipped out of my grasp.

Once I had Riley safely on the ground, I pulled her onto my lap and cradled her, holding her head against my shoulder.

"I'm sorry. I am so fucking sorry, my beautiful girl. I love you. I love you so fucking much. Please forgive me." I cried and kissed her forehead between the words that would never be enough.

I ran my fingertips from her temple to the spot below her ear to try to help take away her despair. With every pass with my fingertips, Riley's sobs began to fade into a soft whimper. The beautiful girl gradually started relaxing and settled down in my arms. I pressed my lips against her hair again and held them against her head, wanting to kiss away the tears I created.

My emotions were all over the place. I concentrated on a spot on the wall where the cheap off-white paint had clumped to distract me until I could calm down too.

One clump—two—three clumps forming a circle.

Riley balled up her tiny fist and snuck in a blow to my chest when I wasn't looking. Before I could block her, she started pounding her miniature fists into me. Her right palm flew up to my face and I caught her wrist before she could land another blow.

Riley gave up on freeing her right hand and twisted on my lap to swing her left palm towards my cheek. Pure adrenaline surged through me as I snatched her other wrist out of the air. My body reacted before my brain could and I flipped her to her back to pin her down before she did something she would regret—or I would do something that I would.

"Let go of me!" She thrashed around underneath me. My pulse was racing where my hands were pressing all my weight against hers.

She had to calm down because I wasn't sure if I could.

"Riley, stop! What the hell are you doing?" I tried to break through to her and appeal to her senses. If I let her go, she was going to injure herself going after me, or worse, I was going accidentally hurt her in the process of trying to keep her from beating the hell out of me.

"I love you," I told her again.

"Stop it! You don't get to say that to me anymore!" She had gone completely feral and wiggled her knee free, aiming it straight for my dick.

I held Riley's knee down to the ground with mine and slid her other leg open further to spread her thighs out around my hips. I sunk my lower body down into hers to keep her flat on the floor and provide myself a little more protection in case she started bucking again like a wild mustang.

What I failed to realize was that my new position would line my dick up against her center, smashing up tightly against her. The more she fought and squirmed against me, the more the blood began to flow.

I was so hard already that it fucking hurt.

"Riley, I love you. I would give anything to go back and undo what I did to you." I told her again.

Riley rolled her hips against mine greedily and let out a low, breathy purr. I bent down and covered her moan with my lips, wanting to savor it. Riley's mouth remained motionless against mine, but she lifted her hips to meet me. She rocked up and down against my cock, sliding the seam of her jeans against the exact spot where my ring would hit her clit if she didn't have so many damn clothes on.

Fuck, I was going to blow a load in my pants if she kept going.

The timing was terrible, but I needed to be inside her right now. Judging by the way Riley was working me over, she needed it as much as I did. We both needed to let it out and fuck each other senselessly. I wanted to tear her apart until we both lost the ability to move.

Riley and I needed to grieve what we lost together and this was the only way either of us knew how.

"No." She moaned, opening her mouth wider, circling my tongue with her new ring.

"I'm sorry. I am so sorry." I kissed her lips, then across her jaw, finally ending on the spot below her ear. I sunk my teeth into her skin, biting and sucking the spot she loved.

"Ezra. No." She whined, hungry for more.

I devoured my girl whole as soon as my name left her lips. I loved the way it sounded when she said it. I was never going to get enough of her. No matter how much I touched her, I could never get close enough.

"Ezra, I said no."