“Then what do you call this? What do you call telling the person that you are supposedly in love with that you can’t be their forever? What the fuck do you call this?”

“I call it needing to step back and clear up our shit before we jump into a marriage that is going to take everything we’ve got to make work.”

I could feel my pulse through my neck, painfully throbbing as I felt the end nearing and feeling as if it was taking my reason to live away with it. “What are you saying, Cassie?”

“I’m simply saying that right now is not the time for us to get married.”

“And I’m saying if you can’t marry the person you’re in love with, do you really have a reason to stick around?”

As hard as she tried, she couldn’t hold the tears from falling down her face. I was so hurt, angry, and messed up that I couldn’t think straight. I didn’t know what else to do, and I knew that if I stayed, irreparable damage would ensue. I stood and took a couple of steps toward her, taking her face in my hand.

“I love you with everything I have, Cassie Bennett, but if I’m not the one for you, if I’m not your everything, then I won’t hold you back. I love you enough to let you go because your happiness means everything to me.”

“But I don’t want to let you go, Alex,” she said through tears and sniffles. A light flush of red coated her cheeks, her eyes matching in tone. Her voice was shaky, and seeing and hearing her like this was breaking me. I couldn’t stick around for it much longer.

“Cassie, you don’t love me enough to marry me. We need to take a step back.”

The floodgates opened, and her head dropped. A single tear dropped down my face, burning and stinging the entire way down. I squatted where Cassie sat, taking her hand in mine and kissing the top while pulling her body closer to mine.

“I need to take a walk, then I’ll take you home.”

She looked up, furiously blinking the tears away. I kissed her forehead, then stepped and walked into the sand down by the water, and along the shore. With every step I took, I felt as if I lost a piece of me. I felt like everything we had worked for had been for nothing. I felt empty.

I loved Cassie and wanted to make her my wife, but I also loved her enough to know that letting her go was probably best. The last thing I ever wanted was for her to resent me, and if marrying me when she wasn’t absolutely sure about it was going to make that happen, then the marriage wasn’t going to be.

I walked…

And walked…

And walked…

I walked until the beach ran dry, and when it did, I sat, pissed off at the world with nothing in my power to do about it.

++++

Dropping Cassie off at the barracks was a relief. I made sure to walk her to her room, and even kissed her goodbye, but the distance between us was a necessary evil.

But I didn’t want to let her go.

I wanted to take her home with me, let her see that I wasn’t about to give her away so easily, and smooth everything out between us. I wanted her to see that I was who she needed—that we were what each other needed.

On the other hand, I knew that we had some serious shit to tackle before we could even attempt to move forward. She was hurting just as much as I was, and two hurt people weren’t going to do the other any good. We would only hide our pain in the other, becoming co-dependent and causing an even bigger problem down the road. I loved her more than I could have imagined ever loving someone, but I also cared about her mental well-being, and if she were fucked in the head by everything happening around us, I needed to let her go.

She flung the door open, turning around to tell me goodbye. She wrapped her arms around me, holding on tightly and crying on my shoulder as I held her, gently rubbing her back. I wanted to hold her forever, to make the storm pass so we could be happy again. That savory vanilla scent filled me, making me hold her tighter, knowing that I wouldn’t get my fill of her anymore. Bullets to the heart felt better than the shit that I was feeling at the moment because I knew when I let her go, I was really letting her go.

She slowly pulled back, stopping to stare into my eyes. Tears masked her eyes, and all signs of life seemed to be hidden away with their presence. Without thinking, I acted on impulse and pulled her close, kissing her as if she was my only hope for survival. My tongue filled her mouth, wrestling with hers, moving up and down, swirling around, trying to take in this delectable girl that I was letting go. I never wanted that kiss to end. I held her close after the kiss ended, keeping my lips glued to hers. Feeling her was a connection that I needed, and I knew giving that up was going to damn near murder me.

“I’ve got to go,” I whispered, feeling no conviction in my own words.

She nodded her head, then leaned in and kissed me again, this time dominating me. When she pulled away, she didn’t say a word. She simply grabbed her bag and walked into her room, shutting the door behind her. I stood staring at it for another minute or so, hoping she would open it up and run into my arms, allowing the bullshit from earlier to pass like a thief in the night, but that didn’t happen. I quickly stormed off, needing to put an end to this dreadful feeling.

When I pulled into my driveway, Riley’s truck was sitting there. He was another sore spot for me, and I had no desire to deal with him tonight, especially after he’d turned his back on me. Riley turning away hurt as much as my grandmother. He had emerged as my most trusted friend and confidant, and now he was practically a fucking stranger in my house.

I opened the door and strolled in, wanting to take a shower and go to sleep, forgetting that this fucking day had ever happened. The blue glow of the TV shined on the darkened room, the volume probably as high as it would go. I shut the door and walked into the kitchen, but the sounds coming from the living room pulled me in another direction. I peered over the couch, finding an ass naked Riley being straddled by an equally naked Nat as she rode him and he lay lost in euphoria, eyes shut, biting his lip, holding firm to her ass. Her eyes were closed as her hands fisted through her hair.

The sight of them pissed me off. Partly because me and Cassie were on the outs, but also because they were on my motherfucking couch getting it on as if they owned the damn place.

“What the fuck?” I shouted, startling them. Riley grabbed hold of Nat and tried to shield her body away from me, but it was too late—I had seen every inch of his chick.

Riley’s eyes bugged out. Shock and embarrassment seemed to be filling him from head to toe, and Nat held her face down on his chest, never looking up to me.

“Hey, man, what are you doing back? I thought you and Cassie would be staying down there tonight.”

“No, I’m home, and I’d appreciate it if you’d fuck somewhere else. The couch just doesn’t seem like the best fucking place for it,” I gruffly answered, full of annoyance. “I’m going to take a shower. Scrub my shit and finish in your room.”

With that, I angrily took off for my room, slamming the door behind me. Riley fucking Nat on the couch probably wouldn’t have irked me so badly had I not just lost my fucking life, but I had. And seeing two people getting off who were also irritating me was like nails on a chalkboard.

I hastily removed my clothes, then turned the shower water to almost scalding. Letting the water run over my head and down my face, I thought back to everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

Cassie was right. I had allowed Allen to take away from our relationship, and for that I felt like a supreme asshole who didn’t deserve to be happy. She had told me that he hadn’t stuck his shit in her, just his fingers, but even that was enough to make my fucking mind play tricks on me. The mere fact that the fucker was still breathing was another issue for me. If Riley had let me, I would have ended his miserable existence in that barracks room the night he decided to attack Cassie and forever change me and her as we knew it.

Now things had been set back to a place I had no clue how to move on from. My heart was still very much with Cassie, but I couldn’t be with her if she wasn’t one hundred percent with me. It seemed there was a part of both of us that was missing. We had somehow lost our footing, lost our way. I would do anything to find it, to set the path straight, but that was easier said than done.

We would need time.

Time to heal.

Time to deal with the numerous anomalies circling us, choking the life out of us.

We just needed time.

Would Cassie and I need a few days… a few weeks… a few months? I couldn’t reassure myself on anything at the moment, and that plucked my nerves as well. The thought of spending the night without her was killing me. To make myself think or even believe that I would go months without her, on the outs, was a death wish. I had to find a way to either get her back, or move along. The latter just didn’t seem likely. I couldn’t fathom going that long without her, but I also couldn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, and that was the daunting and depressing part of all of this.

I got out of the shower and threw on a pair of shorts, then lay down on my bed, the ceiling fan circling above me as I tried to read a magazine—anything to take my mind off of the endless clatter roving about in my head. Before I’d even gotten two pages into my article, there a knock on the door, and Riley walked through.

“Hey, man, you got a minute?”

I looked up from my magazine, still pissed as fuck at him. “You done fucking? Did you get off?”

“Are you really asking me that?”

“Were you fucking your chick on my couch?”

He shook his head and walked further into the room. I made no move to welcome him in, but he didn’t take notice, instead stopping a few feet from my bed and leaning up against the wall.

“Hey, man, I’m really sorry you walked in on that. I thought you and Cassie would be gone for the night.”

“Yeah, well, we aren’t. And I’d appreciate it if your ass, your dick, and any other parts of your naked body didn’t make their way on the couch where we sit and watch TV.”

“Dude, I was coming to apologize, but I see that won’t do much to help your shitty ass mood. What happened between you and Cassie?”

I looked up to him with narrowed eyes. Did he really care? Or was he asking because he was fucking nosy?

“Alex—”

“Nothing, Riley! Nothing happened.”

“Alex, fuck off. I can tell something happened. You’re an extra level of asshole tonight, and something’s got you pissed, so spill.”

“It’s none of your fucking business. Don’t you have an extra-sensitive chick out there to tend to?”

“Hey, don’t bring Nat into your shit!”

“She’s already in it, Riley. Because she runs her mouth like a fucking fountain. Because she’s scared of me and my reaction to it. I didn’t bring her into anything. She brought herself into it.”

“You brought everyone who is involved in your mess into it. You took that risk. You left the gates open to all of this shit saddling you. All we ever did was try and support you. Nat obviously isn’t your fucking problem, so either tell me what happened or don’t, but she is off fucking limits, you got that? Off fucking limits.”

We stared at one another, seething with anger and frustration. I couldn’t go on like this. I couldn’t lash out at everyone that wasn’t Cassie, or I was going to have a hard time doing what I needed to do in order to move forward. Finally, I sighed, feeling my sanity creep back in and calm me down.

“Cassie and I didn’t get married, and it looks as if we’re on a break.”

Riley’s stoic demeanor softened, allowing his shoulders to fall as he ran his hand over his head. “Fuck, man. I’m really sorry to hear that. What happened? Not because of us, I hope.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head. “No…well, I’m sure it played into it, but bigger shit killed our plans. Starting with my grandma.”

“Guadalupe? What happened with her?”

I went on to tell Riley exactly what’d happened when I took Cassie to Santa Ana, giving him a rundown, but leaving out the most jarring, hurtful shit that was said by not only my grandma, but by my mom as well. I filled him in on Cassie’s butchering words, and our subsequent breakdown at the beach. He stood in shock, unable to move, speak, or even blink.

“Yeah, so that’s that, and imagine my shock when I walked through my door and caught you and your girl going to town on my couch.”