He doesn’t move.

Doesn’t bring me closer.

Doesn’t react to my naked body wrapped around his.

Almost four months he’s been gone and nothing.

The childish, immature side of me wonders momentarily if there’s someone else. But I know Dylan. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

Tears fall from my eyes before I can stop them because I don’t know what the hell has happened to him and worse, I don’t know how to fix it.

Three weeks.

It’s only been three weeks since I last spoke to him. Since we made plans. Since we told each other we loved one another and that we missed each other and now this. What is this?

I wipe my eyes, hoping he doesn’t realize, but the shaking of my shoulders gives me away. He sighs. Loudly. As if he’s annoyed that I’m lying here, naked, in the arms of my boyfriend and I’m lost. I’m so damn lost.

“I’m just tired, Riley,” he mumbles.

“That’s all?” I ask.

He sighs again. Then he does something which causes my next flood of tears. He moves my arm and lifts his knees, pushing me off him before turning his back to me. “That’s all,” he mumbles. “Now leave it alone, okay?”

I don’t know how long I lie in restless silence, eyes closed, fighting silent sobs, releasing silent tears, wondering how I went from laughing with the girls to trying to predict his next move, next words.

After a while, his phone rings. Silently, he reaches over me to get it from my nightstand. He doesn’t even look at me when he answers, “Yeah?”

A slight pause. The male on the other end speaks, but his voice is low, muffled by Dylan’s face. Another, “Yeah,” from Dylan. Followed by an, “Okay.”

He hangs up, throws the phone on the bed, then slowly gets up and moves toward the closet.

I sit up, holding the blanket to my naked chest. “What are you doing?”

“Going out.”

I shift and start to get up too. “Who was it? Was it Dave? I want to meet him. I can be ready in five.”

“No.”

“No to what?” I ask, sitting on the edge of the bed now.

“No to all of it, Ry.”

Ignoring the shattering of my heart, I whisper, “I thought you said you were tired.”

He finishes shrugging on his jeans before looking at me, his jaw tense. “And I thought I said to leave it alone.”

“Dylan…”

He puts on a shirt and then a hoodie. Then he sits on the edge of the bed and slips on his shoes. Sighing, he rubs his eyes with one hand, the other reaching for his phone. “Don’t wait up, okay?”

“Is there someone else?” I blurt out. Because nothing makes sense. Nothing.

His shoulders tense, so does his entire body. “Jesus fucking Christ, Riley. This is the last goddamn thing I need. Especially from you. They’re guys from my unit—”

“You just left your unit, Dylan,” I interrupt. “I haven’t seen you in months.” I wish I was stronger. I wish my words came out stronger, too. But they don’t. They’re weak and pathetic and needy, which is exactly how I feel.

He inhales deeply, as if doing so will give him the calm he needs when he actually looks at me. But it doesn’t do either of those things, because all I can see is anger. He shakes his head, his angry eyes on mine. But he doesn’t speak. Why the fuck won’t he talk to me?

Suddenly, he marches to the open bedroom door and slams it shut behind him. I cringe, listening to the rattle of the windows from the force of his actions.

Then another door slams—the front door. Followed by a screeching of tires out on the street. And then…

Silence.

I reach for my phone, my first impulse is to call Eric and ask him if he knows anything. If he has any advice that may help in the situation. But I don’t. Instead, I start to type out a message.

Riley: Dylan’s Home

I stare at the flashing cursor at the end of the words that once meant so much to me… now making absolutely no sense. This doesn’t feel like home.

With tears blurring my vision, I delete the text and write another.

Riley: Dylan’s back.

It still feels wrong. Because the man who just stormed out of the house isn’t Dylan. I don’t know who he is.

Riley: He’s back.

Eric: ?

Riley: Dylan.

Eric: He is?

Riley: I think something’s wrong, E. I don’t know. Something’s happened.

Eric: What do you mean? Is he hurt?

Riley: Not that I know of.

Eric: Ask him.

Riley: He’s gone.

Eric: Gone where?

Riley: Out with some guys from his unit, I guess.

Eric: When did he get home?

Riley: A couple hours ago.

Eric: And he left you?

Riley: Yes.

Eric: Hold on.

Dylan: Really, Riley? You telling E about ourxbusiness? How close did you guys get while I was fuxking gone? Don’t accuse me of shit when you’fe talking to my brother behind mycback.

Riley: I’m worried.

After fifteen minutes of no response, I get out of bed, throw on some clothes and clean the living room, the kitchen, the bathrooms, the toilets, the garage, the everything. Because I’m lost.

So lost.

And scared.

I’m so damn scared.

It’s after three in the morning when I hear the front door open. I know because I’m sitting in bed, Kindle in my hand pretending to read like I’ve been doing for the past four hours. His footsteps are heavy as he trudges down the hallway, his body crashing into the walls. Muffled grunts belonging to two voices I don’t recognize get louder as they approach the bedroom.

Dylan stops in the doorway held up by two other guys.

He’s drunk.

Beyond drunk.

He doesn’t even see me watching him, his head lowered as he takes the few steps to get to the bed, falling chest first into it.

“Hey Riley,” one of the guys says. He’s built like Dylan with dark skin and even darker eyes. He doesn’t step foot in the room, just holds on to the doorframe. “Banks said we could crash in your guestroom.”

The leaner guy standing next to him laughs.

“What did you do to him?” I ask, shifting my gaze from Dylan’s passed out frame to them.

The darker guy struggles to stand upright, his hand going to his forehead in an attempted salute. “We didn’t do anything, Ma’am Sir Ma’am,” he almost shouts.

Frustrated, I kick off the sheets, ignoring Dylan’s moan as I stand up.

“Nice legs,” one of them says. I look up to see the leaner guy watching me, his eyes focused on my bare legs. “His pictures of you didn’t do justice, Ma’am.”

“Watch your fucking mouth, Leroy,” Dylan mumbles, his words muffled by the bed. He still hasn’t gotten up. His torso’s on the bed, his knees are on the floor.

I grab spare blankets out of the linen closet and open the door to the guestroom. They thank me, politely, before moving to opposite sides of the bed. Leroy murmurs something about how good it’ll be to sleep in an actual bed. I step into the room, closing the door behind me as they start to strip out of their clothes. “Did something happen over there?”

Leroy looks at me like I’m stupid. “Everything happens over there, Ma’am.”