I went back to my room and when I tried the knob, it was locked. Ezra locked me out of my own bedroom in my apartment.

"Open the door." I hollered as I continued to turn the knob.

I pounded on the door when he wouldn't open it.

"Are you being serious right now?" I screamed. "Open the door, Ezra!"

"Go the fuck away." He bellowed at me from the other side.

"You're in my room." I reminded him.

"Fuck!" He screamed as I heard him fumble with the lock. He pulled the door open and walked away from me. Ezra grabbed his clothes out of his bag and began to get dressed.

"What are you doing?" I asked, watching him pull his pants on and button them.

"I'm going home." He responded as he made his best attempt to rip his shirt when he pulled it over his head.

"So that's it. You're leaving me again because I won't let you pop pills like candy?" I stepped in front of him as he started pulling his shoes on.

"Not everything I do is about you." Ezra pushed his hand through his hair.

I laughed.

I laughed hard so fucking hard that my sides hurt.

"That's the most honest thing you have ever said to me. You are leaving right now because you want to get high. What's the drug of choice tonight, Ezra? Are you going to swallow, shoot, snort, or smoke your life away? I'm not going to come get you this time when you call crying my name." I challenged him.

"Why do you have to be such a gigantic pain in my ass?" He grabbed his bag and headed for the bedroom door.

"Because I love you so damn much that every time you go, a piece of me leaves with you. I have nothing left for you to take this time. I'm exhausted, Ezra. I'm so fucking exhausted." I sat down on my bed and put my head in my hands and flipped my hair back off my face.

"You shouldn't have forced me to give you the bottle." He said through clenched teeth

"There's not enough room in this relationship for you, me, and the drugs. You have to choose." I dig my heels in. He wasn't going to get his cake and eat it to. There was fork at the end of this road and he had to make a decision.

Ezra glared at me like he wanted to wrap his hands around my throat.  He hated me for for making him choose. It was clear by the look in his eye, it wasn't as easy of a choice as I thought it should have been. I would have chosen him without even hesitating. It hurt that he couldn't do the same for me.

I was losing him again.

"If I can't be enough for you, then you really should go."  I sniffed and stared at my hands.

Ezra shut the door and turned the lock. He threw his bag to the side of the room and came back over to the bed to stand in front of me. He grunted in frustration as he kicked off his shoes. His shirt and pants followed right behind. He leaned over to pull down the blankets and I raised up to let them slide past me. We crawled under the covers together without saying another word.

We didn't touch. Ezra didn't hold me. I didn't kiss him. We just laid there facing each other in silence until I fell asleep.

The next day Ezra and I were still barely talking. The air between us was humid and choking the life out of me. I knew he was still angry with me for making him choose. I was angry at him for putting me in this situation.

The time passed slowly and I was relieved when I had to start getting ready for work. I wanted to get some time out of the apartment away from him tonight. Brynn had already left for the day and I couldn't take much more of the silent staring competition between the three of us.

I had caught Brynn giving us looks all morning, watching every move we made as we moved awkwardly around each other. She had looked pretty angry or maybe pleased? I don't know. Most of her actual emotions looked the same. I was really starting to hear Aiden's words in the back of my mind on repeat every time I caught her looking.

"Can I take you to work?" Ezra asked, finally breaking the silence as he watched me get ready. He had been pacing around me for the last hour like he was lost.

"I don't know." I answered. I wasn't sure if I wanted him driving, he hadn't taken anything since yesterday, but it still made me nervous thinking about being in a car with him.

"Riley, please let me." He begged.

I sighed as I studied my reflection in the mirror. I gave up on covering my bruised cheek. Nothing would help it anyway.

Ezra's chaotic energy was annoying the shit out of me. There was already too much going on in my head to put up with him buzzing around me every second, sending me puppy dog eyes—begging for me to forgive him.

I was going to have a bad night when everyone saw the dark black spot covering the side of my face. I would have to answer a lot of questions about it and I was done talking about what happened.

"Fine." I huffed, giving in to him so he'd give me some room to breathe. Ezra stood up and moved behind me to wrap his arms around my waist. I wasn't ready to forgive him for lying to me, but I still leaned back to let him hold me.

"I'm so sorry, Riley. You deserve someone better than me." He nuzzled his nose into my hair and took a deep breath. He held me for a long time before we headed out the door.

I regretted going to work immediately when I saw the look Rachel gave me when I walked up to the bar.

"What happened to your face?" Rachel asked with big eyes as I walked towards her.

"I got into a fight over the weekend." I leaned against the bar, readying myself for the long night ahead of me.

"Ouch." Rachel winced, making a face at me.

"It's not too bad. Ezra looks worse." I said, trying to brush it off.

"Did he hit you?" Jules' eyes were wide in shock and his eyes were staring at my cheek.

"Oh, no, Jules, no. His cousin and his friends attacked him when we were at a party. I tried to help him and got hit." I rolled my eyes and laughed. I grabbed my tray to walk towards my section to begin taking orders for the night.

When I got to my table, I looked back to see Rachel and Jules leaning into each other, whispering. Both of them stared back up at me and I shook my head in disbelief. They were still talking about my bruised face.

It turned out, my face was the talk of the night. Many of my regulars asked me about how I got hurt. I toned down the story for the customer's sake and just started telling everyone I walked into a door.

It was becoming a long night and I just wanted it to end. The night dragged on and on. My body was sore and exhausted from the constant pounding my feet were taking. I was thrilled when Jules announced it was last call and we needed to close out the open bar tabs.

When the last customer left, we hurried and cleaned the bar. I watched the door anxiously. Ezra was usually here by now to pick me up. I wanted to see him and wrap myself in him as soon as I could. I had such a bad night.

I was sitting on the stone wall outside the employee entrance with my phone in my hand. I had tried calling Ezra over and over again. Where was he? He was supposed to pick me up over an hour ago and it wasn't like him to be late. The bar had closed down a long time ago and Rachel had already left for the night. Jules said he would wait with me even though I protested and told him I would be fine.

"Hey Ry, do you want a ride home? It doesn't look like he is coming." Jules asked me. I could tell he wanted to get home, so I felt extremely guilty about him waiting with me for Ezra to come pick me up.

"I can get an UBER or call a cab." I said. I didn't want to put him out any further tonight.

"Are you kidding? It's after 3:00 AM. I'm driving you home." He reached out his hand to me and I placed mine in his. He helped me up off the wall.

"Come on, kiddo." He motioned for me to follow him as he descended the steps.

We walked towards his car in the parking lot. The lights flash on his car when he double clicked the key fob to unlock it. He ducked in and removed some clothes from the front seat and threw them in the back.

I opened the passenger side car door and slid in next to him. "Thanks for taking me home. Ezra must have fallen asleep or something." I said, my voice trailing off.

"Yeah, probably." Jules said, moving the car into drive. He pulled through the parking spot and turned onto the silent street.