When I woke up in the morning, Kinnick wasn’t in bed with me. There are only a few times when I wake up to find Kinnick not lying next to me. Those times were rare. He always stayed until I woke up unless he was training. Then he would leave early in the morning, but not without telling me. He never left without telling me where he was going.

I came down the stairs to find him sitting alone at the kitchen counter, drinking something out of the cup in his hand. The look on his face was one I have seen many times, but it was never directed towards me. Something upset him, and I wanted to ask, but the feeling in my stomach told me not to.

“Where is Miles?”

“Work.”

I nodded, sliding into a stool across from him. “Are you okay?”

His icy eyes looked up at me, and every inch of my body froze. “When were you going to tell me Jami prescribed you medication?”

I furrowed my eyebrows, frowning at him. “I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”

“That is why you didn’t tell me?”

“Is this why you are mad?”

“After everything that happened, she thought medication was the best idea?”

“I told her,” I shrugged. “She thought it would be okay.”

“But you didn’t tell me because you knew it wasn’t.”

“I don’t remember needing your permission,” I snapped back. “Why are you getting upset about this?”

“How could you think taking pills after overdosing was a good idea?”

“Because I am fine.”

“No,” he growled. “You don’t see a counselor three times and miraculously heal. It doesn’t work that way.”

“The medicine is helping -”

He slammed his hand down on the counter, making me jump. I didn’t plan on crying, but the tears started falling down my cheeks. That was when I smelled the alcohol coming from his breath, and I realized it has been drinking all morning. Never in his presence have I felt anything but safe, but at the moment, something didn’t feel right.

“How is this supposed to help?” His hands were holding the cup so tight, I swore it was going to break. “You think taking pills after overdosing is going to save you? It is only a constant reminder of what happened.”

He finished what was in his glass, but he wasn’t finished with talking. “I thought we were done with keeping shit from one another, but here you go, keeping secrets from me.”

“It is medicine!”

“You have a tendency to keep shit from me.”

“Keep shit from you? You know everything.”

“What about Warren?”

“When are you going to stop throwing that in my face?

It makes me regret telling you, in the first place!”

“I could have helped you!”

“By what? Beating the shit out of Warren? Killing him? How many times do I have to tell you until the picture is crystal fucking clear? Hurting him proves nothing to me! He hurt me, and watching you beat the shit out of him doesn’t make what he did hurt any less! I don’t look at him and think he is weak because, at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, he overpowered me and that’s not weak at all.”

He ran his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t want you to go through it alone.”

“Right now, I feel like I am alone,” I choked out.

“It is always my fault!” His voice raised again. “I am a fuck-up, who can’t do anything right. I am trying to be the person you want, but somehow it blows up in my face!”

“You are being ridiculous!”

“I am being ridiculous? I sat in a fucking hospital room, unsure if you were fucking dead or not because of some pills, and you act like it isn’t that big of a deal! I saw your limp body lying on a fucking stretcher!”

“I am trying to get help,” I could feel my heartbreak with every passing moment I sat at our kitchen island. “And I told you the pills are working.”

“For how long until we are back at the hospital again?”

“Being reminded of what I did isn’t helping, but thanks for throwing it in my face every chance you get.”

“I am not throwing it in your face.”

“That is exactly what you are doing! You think the pills are going to make it worst, but you are sitting here belittling me!”

“I am not belittling you,” he seethed. “I just want the best for you!”

“Then stop being disgusted with me! It makes me think you don’t want to be around me right now.”

“I don’t!”

The words slapped me in the face. The impact had my ears ringing. He kept yelling, but over the sound of whatever was left of my heartbreaking was too loud. I moved away from the stool to grab my shoes from the door.

“You are leaving me?” He laughed. “Look how that turned out last time.”

I turned around to look at him. “Who are you? The Kinnick I know would never treat me like this.”

“Get used to it.”

I looked down at the ring on my finger, wondering if this was a glance at our future, I didn’t want it. As I slid it off, I could feel pain rippling through my chest. I threw it at him as I reached into my purse, grabbing the pills from my purse. The bottle smacked him as I flung it in his direction.

"I thought it was us against the problem," tears fell down my face. "Not us against one another."

"It happens."

"You know," I turn around. "What was it you said at your fight? One last fight? Well, this is ours."

I could still hear him shouting behind me, but the anxiety ringing in my ears was making it harder to hear. That is okay. I didn’t want to listen to it anyway. I didn’t want to hear the man I loved most in this world yelling at me.

For the first time, he was standing against me, and the feeling of loneliness was starting to settle in. I locked my car doors as he continued shouting at me to open them. My car drove me away from the house, but I knew I had to pull over. The shaking in my hands was making it harder to feel the steering wheel.

The one person I wanted to run to was the person I was running from. I jerked my car to the side of the road. Breathing became harder as the pain caught me by the throat. I choked on the lump blocking my passageway as I tried to suck in the air, but it wasn’t working.

I tried to call John, but the tears were blocking my vision, and I couldn’t see anything. Screams of frustration left my lips as I tried to clear the water from my eyes. When I clicked on his name, I waited for him to answer. I begged God for him to answer.

“Bo!”

The breaths I was sucking in came out as screeches. “John -”

“What did he do? Where are you? I’ll be there in five.”

“Down the road from my house.”

“Did you get into a wreck?”

I was shaking my head, and I know he couldn’t see that, but I couldn’t breathe. “I - I”

“Just breathe, babe,” he spoke into the phone. “You are going to be okay. I am at the bar, so it won’t take me long to get there.”

It was always Kinnick and me against the world. Now it is Kinnick against me. How is the person who hurts you the only person you want to be around? As much as it was killing me to listen to the words he said play over and over again, it was him I wanted to run to. It was him I wanted to take the pain away.

"Bo, what happened?"

"Please, just hurry."