"Ezra, I said no."

Riley's breathless command immediately woke me up and snapped me out of my all-consuming infatuation with everything about the blond beneath me.

Even though she said no to me, it took a fraction of a second too long for it to sink in. I could hear the conviction in her voice and knew she meant it even though her body disagreed with her.

I groaned and reluctantly pulled away. 

I supported the weight of the top portion of my body with my hands and performed something resembling a slow pushup until I was back up on my knees in front of her.  I stared down at her and attempted to decipher the reason she decided to stop me.

I couldn't come up with a rational reason why she would push me away when we were so close to having everything back again.  

Riley's lips were swollen and a deep shade of pink. Her breathing was slow and deep, with her longing for me. Even the little bit of skin I could see was glowing with those little patches that couldn't hide her desire for me. Every portion of her body was screaming out that it wanted me.

Except for her red-rimmed eyes—they were heartbreaking and confused. 

Riley stared at me like she didn't know who I was.

Did I do something wrong again? 

Riley sat back up and pulled her knees back into her chest. She secured them closed, locking me out and throwing away the key. The infuriating girl was always shutting me out when I needed her the most.

"Ezra, leave." She said flatly, without any emotion behind the words.

"Riley, please. Don't make me go." The corner of my mouth turned down as my heart was snatched from my chest at her vicious, impassive dismissal.

"Ezra, I hate you for what you did to me. I will never get over it. Don't come back here. Don't try to find me again."

Riley focused her gaze like a laser on a single spot on my chest. Instead of looking me in the eye, she stayed steadfast and determined to avoid them.  No matter how I moved to get her to look at me, she wouldn't.

I didn't believe anything she was saying while she was this upset and she didn't believe it either. 

"You don't mean that, Riley." My girl was just upset and was lashing out. 

"I do. I hate you and I never want to see you again." Riley sniffled and wiped the corner of her eyes with the sleeve of her dark purple shirt. 

"I'm not going to ever leave you." I tried to grab Riley's arm to pull her back to me. I just wanted to hold onto her and wrap my arms around her body to make it better. I was going to hold the sad girl in my arms until the world ended and everything else went away except for the two of us.   

I couldn't let Riley escape from me again without making her see that I meant every word I said today. 

Riley jumped to her feet and sprinted to the back of her apartment to her bedroom before I could move to stop her.

And just like that, my switch flipped into fight mode. 

I was up on my feet, chasing behind her like a madman, barreling through the apartment and knocking everything over in my path to get to her.  I was right behind Riley on her heels.  My fingers grazed the back of her shirt, trying to clamp down on the fabric.  I was only a second from grabbing hold and yanking her back when Riley sharply cornered her petite body and skidded into her room.

I couldn't stop in time and drilled the wall with my shoulder, turning barely in time to catch a glimpse of her dulled, green eyes as she slammed the door in my face.  The lock clicked into place before I could reach the knob to open it.

I smashed my open hand against the door and jiggled the knob with the other, turning it so hard that the metal was going to snap off in my hands.

"Please don't do this to me." I pleaded with her to open the door. "We are supposed to be together, Riley, and you know it. You belong to me.  You will always be mine."

I kept pounding on the door, begging her to open it and give me another chance.  I screamed and cried, trying to get her to tell me why she was giving up on us.  If she just let me in, I could explain everything better.  I could make it all better someway, somehow.

Riley had to let me in.

I had to get inside that fucking room now.

My despair turned to fury with every blow my hand landed, determined to find my way in.  I was angry at Riley, but I was just as furious with myself for all the things I had done to her to get us to this point. Both thoughts were snowballing and picking up speed as I careened down the steep hill of zigzagging drug-clouded emotions.

The next blow of my open hand against her door made a cracking noise in the center.

I was going to rip the fucking thing off the hinges.

Why wouldn't she open the door for me?

"Fucking open the door, Riley." I pounded against it with rapid fury.  The whole frame was shaking under my wrath. 

I wanted to dig my fingers into her arms, shake her, and hold her down so she couldn't get away from me again. She wouldn't have any other choice but to lay there while I screamed in her face until she came to her senses. 

Why did Riley Davis have to be so fucking difficult all the time?

I could see myself in her room, twisted anger spilling over with my fists balled up, ready to destroy anything else that came between us—including her.

She was going to listen to me whether she wanted to or not.  I didn't care how it happened, but it was going to happen one way or another. 

Fuck me.

I smashed my fists against my own head, wanting to knock myself out for even thinking those ugly thoughts.

What the fuck was I doing? 

If I got inside the room, I knew I was going to hurt Riley. I was angry, too fucking angry with her—and myself—to back down from this. I had to let it all out where she wasn't.

I stalked back out to the living room, pulling my hair out of my head.  The intense surge of rage blinded me and I couldn't focus on anything other than my primal need to get Riley back by any means necessary.  My hand wrapped around the nearest thing to me and I slung it across the room towards the wall.

I closed my eyes and listened for the soothing sound of destruction.

The thick glass hit the wall with a dull thud and exploded, sending shards of clear crystal flying twenty feet across the room.  I opened my eyes and walked over to the mess on the floor and the tiny spot on the wall where the impact busted through the cheap drywall. 

I purposefully stepped on a large piece of glass with my bare feet, wanting to grind it down to dust into the carpet, hoping it would cut me open so I could bleed out. But unfortunately, the glass was too thick and I couldn't even feel the rush of physical pain I needed.

I couldn't cut myself open.

Breaking the glass wasn't going to be enough.

I bent down to pick up a smaller shard of glass, wrapping my fingers around it and pressing it into my palm.  The jagged edge bit into my skin when my fingers pushed harder. Bright red blood began trickling down my forearm.

Much better. 

I slammed my fist into the wall with the glass sliver still inside. I hit the same spot over and over again until my knuckles were swollen and misshapen. My whole forearm was covered with my blood. 

The release didn't help me as much as I had hoped. The only thing it did was put a huge, bloody fucking hole in the wall. 

Riley's wall.

Just another thing to add to the list of thing a I had ruined for her.

"Fuck!" I screamed and hit the hole again, breaking through the final layer. 

I stared down at the glass in my hand, wishing I could feel something other than the emptiness and debilitating loss. I was always doomed to lose Riley and it was all my fault.

The feeling wouldn't subside and only grew as my head replayed everything from the first night I met Riley to the look on her face when she told me she thought I hurt her on purpose to get rid of the baby. 

I couldn't be here anymore. 

I had to leave. 

I dropped the glass on the floor and opened the front door. Right when I started to walk out, Riley's mournful sobs echoed through the room around me. My adrenaline crashed as soon as I heard the gut-wrenching noise. My steps faltered and I almost collapsed without the surge of it holding me up. I slammed the door and went back down the hall to her bedroom door. 

I pressed the ear to my door and heard the muffled sound of my name escape her lips more than once.  Closing my eyes and letting the sound fill my bones, I felt Riley's pain like it was my own.  I wished I was someone else right now—maybe Aiden or even Mark—someone who could give her what she needed that I couldn't.

This girl had been drug through hell and back because of me and what I had done to her. Then, to top it all off, I was so fucked in the head that I couldn't even trust myself enough to go inside the room to comfort her without losing my temper with her.  

I sat down on the floor outside Riley's door, listening to the broken girl crying and whimpering for it to stop.

I deserved to be punished for the rest of my life for making her feel this way.

For over an hour, I sat completely still in the same spot, driving myself insane listening to her tears. Every little squeak and sniffle was another slice, opening another wound on my already beaten-down body.

"I'm sorry. I am so fucking sorry." I whispered and held my head in my hands between my knees.

At some point, the noises from her room stopped and Riley went silent.  The silence was worse than the tears. I raised my head up and wiped away my tears, waiting for another round of my torture sentence to begin. 

I grew increasingly restless when Riley didn't make another noise for what felt like a lifetime. I started getting concerned that something had happened to her inside the room. 

My paranoia grew with each deafening, silent second. 

I stood up and was about to knock on Riley's door when I saw the blood on my knuckles and arm. I stopped myself before I could ever make a sound. Flashbacks of her blood coating my skin and clothes crippled me. 

And the baby. 

How much of what covered in came from the tiny life I snuffed out because I couldn't control my temper and jealousy?

There was so much blood on my hands. 

I couldn't stay here and do this again. 

It was too heavy.

I wanted Riley to forgive me for everything I had done, but even if she did, it didn't matter. I knew I could never accept her forgiveness when I couldn't accept my own.

I hated myself and was so tired of being this out-of-control demon, hellbent on taking the whole world down around me. 

I knew where I had to go to fix this and it wasn't inside the bedroom with the beautiful blond girl. 

Riley Davis was better off without me in her life.  

I left the apartment with my boots in my hands without another glance back.

Only one thing was strong enough to help me slip away from myself and give her what she deserved. It would make me forget Riley's suffering and the loss of our baby—probably even my own name if I took enough. 

There was only one drug that would do the trick. 

It was also the one drug that scared the fucking shit out of me.