I wake up in the night due to my own crying, and it must have woken up Theo too because he's also already awake.

He sits our bodies up on the couch and strokes my hair while the tears roll down my face. "What is it, Milia?" he asks while cupping my face in his hands.

I shake my head and pull away from the gentle hold he has on me to press against his neck. "I don't know... I can't remember," I whimper with defeat.

I'm being honest. I don't know what I was dreaming about but it was enough to wake me up with very real tears.

I know I don't feel scared though. It wasn't a sense of fear that woke me. My heart aches, and I feel like something has been ripped away from me, but I don't think it has anything to do with what happened to me.

As I cling to Theo and his strong hands smooth down my back, I remember when I've felt like this before...

"Milia," Theo whispers my name in a shaking whisper and squeezes me closer to his body. "You're safe, sweetheart. I've got you. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you."

I shake my head again and kiss his neck, pressing my body as close to his as I can manage so that I can feel the beating of his heart in his chest.

"What do you need? Is there anything I can do?" he asks while his hand moves into my hair to cradle my face against him.

"I just want to go back to sleep with you," I tell him with a small smile. "I think... I just needed to know you were here."

"I'm right here, Princess. Always right here for you," he promises, and his lips press against the top of my head as he leans back again to lay our bodies on the couch. "You're safe with me."

I know I am, but it wasn't my lack of safety that had me waking up with a sob.

It was his.

----------

When I wake up again, the early morning light is coming through the windows in the living room.

I jolt upright when I realize Theo's strong body isn't beneath me, only to find him sitting on the floor next to the couch with his phone and a notebook.

He turns around to look at me and gives me a gentle smile. "Good morning," he greets while he shifts himself onto his knees and then leans in for a kiss.

"What are you doing on the floor?" I ask once I've kissed him back. I grip the backs of his arms and attempt to tug him toward me.

Theo chuckles and presses his mouth against mine again but then eases back. I catch a slight wince on his face while he moves his legs from beneath him again to sit back on the floor.

"Theo?" I brush my fingers through his hair and look over his shoulder to try and get a glance at the notebook. "No alarm today?"

He shakes his head and uses the couch to push himself to his feet. "No. I might go in later but I wanted to take some time off this morning."

I'm relieved by his answer. I had been worried that he'd try to go to work even if I suggested that he stay home. We could both use some peace and quiet after the weekend we had.

He sits next to me on the couch and puts an arm around my shoulders before he hands me the notebook. "I was doing some research on some sexual abuse and trauma specialists in the area."

Oh...

I take the notebook from his hand and glance down at the list of names and phone numbers, and then try to hand it back to him. "Thanks, Theo, but I don't need them. I'm okay."

He frowns and uses his hand to gently push the book back towards me. "You might be okay now but you should still talk to someone. You woke up crying in the middle of the night, Milia... What happened to you isn't something that you just get over."

I close the notebook and toss it forward onto the coffee table, and Theo's frown deepens.

"I didn't wake up because of... that," I explain. "I think it was to do with you actually."

His facial expression softens some, and he pulls me a little closer with the arm that's wrapped around my shoulders. "What about me?"

I shrug. "I don't know exactly. I can't remember the dream. But when I woke up, and you were holding me, it slowly became clear to me what I was feeling, or at least, I remembered the last time I felt that way."

He gives me a questioning look but remains quiet to allow me to tell him at my own speed.

"It was when Cal left me," I admit softly. "That feeling like I had lost something and that there was an emptiness left behind... That's what I felt last night. I think I must have had a dream about... about your accident, and what could have happened... How I could have never gotten the chance to know you."

A tear runs down my cheek, and Theo reaches up with his hand to wipe it away before he pulls me into his lap.

"Emilia, I'm right here, sweetheart," he speaks in a soothing voice near my ear.

"I know," I say while softly laughing at myself, even though I don't find anything funny. "I just... I'm so happy around you, Theo. You're so good to me, and thinking about you not being alive anymore..." I drift off while I begin to silently cry. I wind my arms around his neck to cling to him.

"I'm so happy around you too, Princess. You don't need to think about that, okay? I'm alive. I'm okay. I'm right here for you, and I plan to keep it that way even when you don't want me to..." He cradles my body close to his while he leans forward to retrieve the notebook from the table and begins to flip through it to find the page back. "Which is why I'm going to insist that you look at this list."

I know he means well but his pushiness on the subject is starting to get to me. I bury my face into his neck and breathe in deeply, allowing myself one more moment of reassurance that he's here with me, and then I climb out of his lap to put some space between us. I leave the notebook in his hand.

"I don't need to, Theo," I explain. "You didn't hear everything I heard last night... I don't have to be afraid anymore." I can't look at him when I say those words, but Theo leans forward to take my hand in his, and I force myself to look back at him.

"What didn't I hear? What do you mean?" he asks quietly.

"Justin said that M-Mack... That's the guy who... Well, he's, uh... Dead."

Theo's face is an unreadable mask. He keeps eye contact with me and keeps my hand in his but I'm certain that there's an unsettled emotion lurking behind his stoic expression.

"He's dead," he repeats without inflection.

I nod my head slowly.

"And you think that makes it all better?"

I glare at him and pull my hand away from his. "What is that supposed to mean?"

He sighs and runs his hand over his face. "I'm sorry, I'm not trying to upset you. I'm just not sure you're thinking clearly about this right now. Him being dead doesn't mean something didn't happen. It doesn't take away the memories from you or even—"

"I'm not thinking clearly?" I spit the words back at him, and Theo winces.

"I didn't mean anything negatively by that, Emilia. I just think—"

"You think, but what about what I think? Shouldn't I be the one who gets to have a say in how I feel and what I need? What makes you the expert?" I'm starting to yell at him now, and a small sense of guilt trickles in when I see the hurt expression on his face.

He keeps his eyes on me while he closes the notebook and sets it down on the coffee table again. "You're upset," he points out the obvious. "If you don't want to talk about this now, that's okay, but don't think that I'm going to leave this alone. I'm going to bring it up again, Milia."

The sense of guilt I was feeling quickly changes into exasperation. "You always think you know best, don't you?"

He shakes his head and stands up from the couch. "Always? Not even close." He steps toward me and presses a kiss against my forehead before adding, "But about this? Yes."

I push at his body with an infuriated exhale even as my heart screams at me to wrap my arms around him.

Theo takes a few steps back to give me space.

"Milia, please." He holds a hand toward me but I don't accept the offer. "I just want to help, but the kind of help you need is best suited for a professional. If you'd just try it, maybe you'd—"

"Fuck, Theo! I thought you just agreed not to talk about it right now?"

He closes his mouth. His hand drops at the same time that his shoulders sag. "Right. I'm sorry."

"I'm going to go shower. You said you were thinking about going to work later... Why don't you just go?"

"You want me to leave?"

"Fuck, I don't care. It's your house. Stay, go, whatever. I'm just done talking to you."

I can't look at him while I speak. I'm too afraid of any pain that might be evident on his face. Instead, I walk down the hallway toward the bathroom.

So much for our quiet and relaxing morning together after such an emotional weekend.

----------

I take my time in the shower and when I'm finished I am feeling much better and more clear-headed.

I know I was being too harsh on Theo before. Of course he was only trying to help and be there for me, and whatever pushing he was doing was only with my best interest in mind.

I walk out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around myself with the hope that I can make it up to him but he's nowhere to be found.

There's a note by the coffee maker which has a freshly brewed pot waiting for me.

Milia,
I'm sorry if I overstepped this morning...
Wait, no. I'm not. I don't think I was overstepping. I'm sorry it upset you and I'm sorry if you didn't want to hear it or if I didn't say it in the best way, but I said it because I care. I can't just leave it alone even if that's what you want. I care about you too much, sweetheart.
We're working pretty far out today so I'm going to be home late. Please know I'm not avoiding you. I want to give you the space you need but if you want me back home earlier just get April to give me a call.
There's bacon in the warming tray, etc. You know the drill.
PS: We should probably exchange phone numbers so I can stop leaving notes for you.

Would I look too needy if I ran to April and got her to call him right now?

Probably.

Also, why didn't he just leave me his phone number?

I shake my head with slight amusement and go to the cupboard to get a mug. I guess I can't question him too much. It was a chaotic weekend and a nasty morning. The poor man probably isn't firing on all cylinders. I know I'm not.

My heart aches when I remember how snarky I had been with him. He's so good to me, and all I seem to do is fall back on old habits of screaming and storming off whenever we get in a disagreement.

Perhaps I do need therapy.

I don't bother to make any eggs for myself but I do place the bacon on a plate and carry it with me to the living room along with a paper towel and my mug of coffee.

I find the remote for the TV and try to find something to watch but when nothing catches my eye I wander to the bookshelf to check out what DVDs Theo has.

I can't remember the last time I watched something that wasn't on Netflix, but I'm curious to know what kind of movies Theo is interested in.

While glancing through the titles, I come across The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I smile to myself as an old memory comes up of starting to watch the first movie so long ago. I begin to pull it off of the shelf but when I remember who I was watching it with a nauseous feeling takes over. I push it back in place.

I had started watching it with Justin and Mack on the first night that Cal spent away from me while he was out of town on some job...

I take a step back from the bookshelf and that's when my eyes notice the shelf above the movies that holds books. Almost directly above the trilogy of the Lord of the Rings DVDs is the boxset of the books.

The same box set that I bought Cal for Christmas. Or at least, the same edition. The box set that I bought Cal is still sitting where I left it at the back of the closet in our old room, and it's somehow missing the first book in the series.

I don't know how Cal managed to lose it. I never even noticed that he had started reading the series. I thought they were all sitting in the closet, untouched... until a few months after he disappeared.

I was looking for an old hoodie of his. I wanted to wrap myself in it with the hope that it would still smell like him but I couldn't find it anywhere. I started digging through the closet and that's when I came across The Lord of the Rings box set that I had gifted to him, only it was missing the first book. The book that I had written a note in.

I tore the closet apart along with every other area in our room. I asked each one of the guys if they had taken it or had seen it anywhere. But just like Cal, it was gone. Never to be found.

I open my eyes to snap myself out of the painful memory.

And that's when I see it.

Beside the complete box set on Theo's shelf is the first book in the series, The Fellowship of the Ring. It's an identical copy to the book that's already in the set, and my hand shakes while I reach for the book and pull it off of the shelf.

I flip open the front cover, and sure enough, my own handwriting is scrawled across the page.

Cal,
Here's to our story! Whether it's a romance, an adventure, or a fantasy doesn't matter. What matters is that it's ours, and it's real.
Love, your Emy

With slow steps, I make my way back to the couch and take a seat. My hand smooths over the writing which has faded and smudged over the years. The page itself looks more worn out than the rest of the book, and when a tear runs off my face to splatter on the ink I notice a couple of similar splatters on the page that have long since dried.

How did he get this book?

Cal was arrested at the club and that was the last time I saw him. In my search for this book, it had never dawned on me that it was in Cal's possession but now I remember all of the other items that had seemingly disappeared. The black hoodie that I couldn't locate, a couple of his t-shirts, even the backpack that we had used when we left the Scott's house... I had thought I was losing my mind but now it is all coming together.

Fucking Adam.

I remember now the stupid look on his face when I asked him about the book and the way he had quickly turned his attention to the TV before claiming he hadn't seen it.

I know now that he was the one to send Cal running. It's not much of a stretch to think that he packed up some of his stuff for him. But how would he know to pack this book?

My hand traces over the writing one more time and then I turn the page. It looks like I've figured out what I'm going to do with my day.

----------

I'm pulled out of a world of hobbits, wizards and kings when a knock sounds at the door and Cal lets himself in.

At some point during the day, I put the book down and got some clothes on. I also took a short break to make myself a sandwich. But other than that, I've been immersed in a land of adventure. I hadn't realized how much of the day had already passed.

"What are you reading?" Cal asks while he walks toward me. "I was going to see if..." He drifts off when I lift the book to show him the cover.

"I didn't realize you had taken this book with you. I looked for it everywhere."

Cal sits down next to me and reaches for the book. Once he has it in his hands he flips to the inside of the front cover where my message is written. "I asked Adam to get it for me. I couldn't make myself go back there once I decided to leave but there were some things I couldn't leave behind..."

He runs his hand over the page and then smiles at me. "I didn't want to weigh my bag down with the whole series but it felt wrong to rip out the page. So I ended up traveling for years with a single book from a trilogy. Imagine my relief when the guy I ended up living with had the remainder of the series. I finally got to figure out what happened."

"How many times did you read it in the meantime?"

"The book or the note?" he asks and then goes on to explain without getting my answer. "The book... I don't know. Not that many times. I was too fucked up to read most of the time. I probably read this note a couple hundred times though. And after a while, I wasn't really reading it... I already had it memorized. But I liked seeing your writing on the page."

"I never knew that you even noticed the note. You never said anything to me about it."

"Yah... I was a real dick like that, huh?" He chuckles softly and shrugs his shoulders. "I saw the note a couple of days after you gave me the books. I didn't know what to say so I didn't say anything. And then everything with Pops a few weeks later..."

The mention of Pops makes my stomach churn. I force a small nod and stare down at my hands. I'm surprised that Cal was even able to bring him up.

The guilt over his death still weighs heavily over me all these years later, and it feels even worse when I'm around Cal.

"Melissa helped me see that it wasn't my fault..." Cal mentions quietly after a brief moment of silence. "It still felt rotten when Justin brought him up though... Kinda like he thinks it was my fault too."

My eyebrows scrunch together with confusion while I slowly look up at him. "Your fault?"

"Yah. You know how I always blamed myself. But Melissa said—"

"No," I interrupt him. "You blamed yourself until I told you what happened, and then you realized that it had been me..."

Now Cal looks confused too. "Been you? Been you to what?"

I sigh and squeeze my fingernails into my palms while I force myself to get the words out even though the last thing I want to do is remind him. "I made Pops leave. I told him to make it right and I didn't try to stop him when he left. I was the last person to see him before he died and I all but shoved him out the door. You... You hated me for it."

"What?" Cal looks at me like I've lost my mind. "I never hated you! I didn't blame you for Pops' death for even a second."

"Yes, you did! I told you how it was my fault and you walked out of the room. You didn't talk to me again until we were at the club that night and when I tried to say sorry you told me you didn't want to hear it."

Cal is shaking his head the entire time that I'm talking. "No," he denies, "it wasn't like that. I told you that it wasn't your fault."

I wipe at a tear that's escaped from my eye, and Cal's determined expression slowly changes to a look of confusion again.

"I... After you told me what happened, I told you that it wasn't your fault..." he says again with little conviction, then adds, "Didn't I?"

I shake my head, and Cal's face twists into a look of anguish.

"Emy!" He pulls me in for a tight hug with an almost desperate hold. "Fuck, I'm such a jackass. All this time..." He sways our bodies back and forth while he hugs me and then slightly loosens his hold to get a look at my face. "You thought I blamed you?"

"It was my fault... I told him—"

"No," he cuts me off and then repeats the word more forcefully. "No, Emy! It was not your fault, and I never thought it was. When you told me what happened, all I got from it was that Pops went out to avenge me, which I had already thought was the case anyway. Your story of what happened only further cemented that in my head. I didn't tell you that I didn't want to hear because I blamed you. I told you because I already hated myself for it and didn't want even more reason to. I thought you realized that. I didn't think that you thought that I blamed you!"

"I thought it was why you left me..."

"Ohh, angel. No, no." He squeezes me tightly to him again. "I could never leave you, and I never blamed you."

I know now that he left because Adam told him that I left first but that didn't stop me from believing that he blamed me and therefore hated me deep down. Even since finding him, I've been carrying around this heavy feeling, and it feels so good to know that I don't have to anymore. Except...

"What you said before, about your therapist... You don't blame yourself now either?"

He removes one of his arms from around me with a soft sigh and scratches his head. "I guess it's complicated. I know it wasn't my fault. I know Pops made his own decision to retaliate and that getting shot in the first place wasn't exactly my fault either... I know all the facts now, but I still... I don't know. I get stuck in my head in a place without facts sometimes. I play the blame game and beat myself up and have to, like, send a lifeline in to find myself again. It happens far less often now though. It helps that I'm sober and sticking to therapy, that's for sure."

Therapy...

My eyes move to the notebook on the table as I'm reminded of my conversation with Theo this morning. I'm starting to see his point more and more.

"Anyway," Cal says while patting The Fellowship of the Ring. "I came by to see if you wanted to come driving with me again. I know the last time... And then everything this weekend. But you were making good progress, and I like hanging out with you. I thought after yesterday you could use the distraction, unless you'd rather just read all day?"

I smile at him and lean my head against his shoulder for one more quick hug. "Nah, let's go."