It wasn't long after I dozed off that I was jolted awake by the tossing and turning of the restless girl lying next to me.  Not that sleep was coming quickly to me either, but Riley was a miniature tornado between the sheets—and not in the good, sexy kind of way. 

Riley was all over the place.  Her thrashing was doing the complete opposite of what I needed right now.  It left me on edge and on the verge of making a decision I didn't want to make.  Either get out of the bed to catch my breath or tie her to the bed frame so she couldn't move.

I knew which one I preferred. 

Riley rolled over to her back and flung her arm across my body.  One of her legs swung over me and then jerked back to the other side of the bed. I caught an elbow to the gut during her horizontal gymnastics routine. My angry stomach gurgled in protest.  The wild thing in the bed next to me packed a serious punch even while she was dreaming. 

I rubbed the sore spot on my stomach and glared at her. She flopped over again with her back facing me, slotting her naughty little ass right up against where my dick rested against my thigh. 

It was over for me when she wiggled to get more comfortable and murmured something in gibberish about being too hard. 

That was the last fucking straw.

The little move sealed her fate.

Riley was definitely getting that juicy little ass swatted red before I tied her to the headboard. Screw my resolve not to make this about getting between her legs. Pinning her down and fucking her raw was the only way either of us would get any sleep tonight. 

Licking my lips, I draped my hand over her waist and began to slip my fingers inside the top of her pajama pants to get her nice and wet for me before she even woke up. I started to lean down to nip the spot below her ear to send her over the moon when my body revolted, having other ideas about how I should spend my night in Riley's bed. 

Pain shot through my side and my stomach rolled, twisting out of place and liquifying.  Sweat coated my forehead and my pulse thrummed too hard inside the walls of my heart. Shit. Not right now. I was coming down hard, too fast. Withdrawal was already starting to settle in and it wasn't going to be a stroll through the park—more like running a marathon under the scorching desert sun with only napalm to quench my thirst.

Damnit.  I was going to be on the floor soon, writhing in crippling agony as my body reset to the factory defaults.

To make a terrible situation even worse, I was now becoming coherent enough to start feeling guilty about what I was even doing in bed with Riley.  I loved my girl and wanted nothing more than to be right where I was for the rest of my life. Nothing—fucking nothing—would ever change how much I needed her, but I didn't want to put her through any more of my bullshit, either.

I definitely didn't want her to see me like this.

Addiction and obsessive compulsion had their claws firmly entrenched in me.  Breaking away from either one was a war I wasn't sure I could win. Did I even want to win any longer? So why was I still even here?  Fucking hell, I hated my life and the person I had become. 

The only thing I didn't hate was her. I could never hate anything about Riley Davis.

Needing a minute to organize my racing thoughts, I decided to abort my seduce Riley mission to grab a glass of water from the kitchen instead. I got out of bed and stumbled through the dark apartment, not wanting to flip on a light to wake anyone up. Riley might still be asleep but she did have a roommate that I was actively trying to avoid.  Brynn was the last person I wanted to see while barely keeping myself standing.

Luckily Brynn was still a whore and didn't come back to the apartment tonight to test my patience.

I managed to find a clear glass in one of the cupboards and stuck it under the faucet.  I filled the glass once, drained it, and repeated the motion until the tension in my muscles loosened. What would have made the water even better would be a few pills filling my belly or another shot into my veins.  Then I could go back inside the bedroom and touch my girl until she fell apart for me. Too bad none of those things would have been good for me right now. 

"No pills. No heroin. No sex. Nothing. You can do this. You've done it before. It's like riding a bike. Just get on and press the pedals, you fucking loser." I gave my head a silent pep talk and leaned against the kitchen counter.  Heaviness filled my body as I waited for the first waves of nausea to hit. Vomiting and body aches were always the first sign my body was detoxing.  It was going to be a long road ahead.

"N-no...no...stop. Please." I snapped out of my self-pitying hatred when Riley's voice shrieked out into the darkness.

I heard a loud thump coming from her room and bolted down the hall straight to the screaming girl. Riley was in trouble. Time slowed as I raced into the room, imagining every vile and depraved thing my head could conjure.  Someone or something was hurting her and I would find a way to make it stop.

Riley yelped again as I skidded through the door frame, almost face-planting on the floor.  In the pitch-black room, I could just make out the outline of her body on the bed beneath the covers.  No one was there except for her; she was still completely out of it.  Her back arched off the bed and she floundered, coiling in on herself and rolling over onto her stomach—right to the edge of the bed.

Shit.

My reaction time was next to none. Launching myself across the room, my instincts kicked in quickly.  I caught the back of her shirt and pulled her back to the center of the bed. Riley flipped onto her back with her eyes wide open. The expression on her face was one of pure terror as she stared blankly up at the ceiling.  Leaning over her body, I tilted her head to get her to look at me. But Riley's neck stayed stiff and wouldn't budge. Her gaze remained locked on some invisible spot above my head.

"Riley, baby. Are you ok?"

Nothing but crickets. Her gorgeous green eyes didn't even blink in my direction. It was like she didn't even know I was there. 

"Hey, beautiful. Are you mad at me because I got out of bed? I'm sorry. I wasn't going to leave you. I just couldn't sleep." I played with the blond tendrils on her pillow and attempted to coax her head to mine to offer a gentle kiss as an apology.

"Ezra. No, the baby. Please. No." Riley wailed before my mouth could close in on hers. Snapping her eyes shut, she kicked out her legs and nearly destroyed my ballsack. Her limbs convulsed and swung out like she was trapped, fighting her way out of a box.

Or, more likely, a smashed-up vehicle.

Fuck—she thought she was in the car.

"Riley! Open your eyes, baby. Please.  You're not there anymore. You're here, safe in your bed with me." I jostled her shoulders, trying to wake her up from her night terrors. The once silent room sounded amplified as it echoed my screams mixed in with hers.

"Ezra, please! Stop! I can't find the baby! Where's our baby?" Her searching hands clawed and grasped for anything she could hold onto. 

"Wake up! Please, Riley, please wake up. You're having a nightmare!" I urged her to break free from it.  Tears rolled down her cheek when her eyes finally opened and her head turned to find me.  Thumbing away the tears from her face, I tried to erase them, wishing I could do more to make her happy again.

"Sorry." She whimpered, embarrassed by something she had no control over.

Riley maneuvered her body under my arm, attempting to reposition her back towards the wall to hide. Escaping from this moment was not an option for her.  I held my girl in place, wanting to take it away from her. My fingers trailed across her tear-stained cheeks and brushed her hair back off her face. The frowning, stubborn set on her face told me she was thinking about fighting me for control. If I needed to be a punching bag for her, then so be it.  Riley needed to let this out one way or another. 

She spun her head away from me, detaching the only part of her I didn't force to remain still. Grief painted every corner of the room as it seeped out of her skin. It flowed into me where our two bodies met. Hands, tears—breath, it coated everything around us like a blanket of snow. 

"Don't apologize. How long have you had them?" I whispered in Riley's ear as I stroked the side of her head, catching my fingertips in her tangled curls.  Our noses were practically touching when she turned her head back to look me in the eye. The bottom of her lip quivered when her armor finally dropped.  

"They started about a month after the accident.  It took me that long to start remembering. I forgot most of what happened that night and I still don't even remember being at the bonfire." She swallowed, gauging my reaction. I tried to temper my shock before it exploded and rebounded onto her. 

She lost so much that night, more than I even realized—much more than she probably did too. 

I cringed at the memory of the things that happened that she would never know.  Most of them, she was better off not remembering. The look of pure betrayal and disgust on JD's face when he walked in on us or the way my fingers dug into her arms were just the tip of the iceberg—both gone forever, like so many other things she would never get back from that night.

Selfish relief washed through me when I realized one of those memories she lost was when she disappeared into the house to take Aiden's cock. Riley letting Aiden inside her killed me.  It was something I would never get over, but I knew I had to figure out how to let it go. If there was a way to pull every time he touched her, kissed her, or had her moaning his name from the history books, I would erase that shit in a heartbeat without an ounce of remorse. Fuck Aiden and his miniature matchstick head.

"...doctors gave me some medicine that helps me sometimes. With everything going on, I forgot to take it tonight." Riley finished.

I was such a fucking prick, Riley was pouring her heart out to me about losing the baby and I was lying here obsessing over someone else's dick buried inside her. 

My degree of damage was off the charts. 

"I'm so sorry, Riley. I should have been there for you." Twin tears fell down both cheeks. 

How did I not even know I was crying too? I was a fucking trainwreck.

Riley rolled over, giving me her back again. I sighed and laid back down, staring up at the ceiling, trying to find something else to distract me from the physical and mental pain my body was plagued with.  After nine fucking months, I still wasn't ready to face our past. Time didn't make anything better. 

I wish I knew what the hell I was doing so I could find a way to fix us.  I just needed something—anything—from Riley to tell me she hadn't given up so I had a reason to keep fighting to find it.

"Ezra," Riley whispered after a few short seconds of me staring at a shadow over my head.

"What do you need, Beautiful?" I replied, unsure if I wanted to know what she would say next. My head could only take so many bombs lobbed at it in one day. Something had to give sooner than later.

"Will you hold me?" Riley's voice came out with an insecure squeak.