It feels like my heart is being squeezed in a vice; I can’t breathe through the agony combusting in my chest. Of course he needs to get away from me. But more than hurt, anger rises up in me.

“I knew it,” I say, my accusing voice hardly more than a whisper. “I knew you were an asshole.” The anger within struggles against my ability to reason and I turn and walk away from him.

“Sentinel!” I say sharply. He gets up from his bed, his eyes questioning. He falls into step beside me as I open the sliding glass door and head toward the mother in law. My eyes are filled with stinging, hot tears, but it only makes me more mad.

He doesn’t want to do this anymore? Fine. I’ll stay out here until we can leave.

But the thought of leaving fells wrong. I feel like I belong here, like I could start a good life here, with him. I’m so stupid. Of course he wouldn’t want me. I’m so fucking broken no one will ever want me. I don’t deserve love or happiness.

Especially from someone like Kyle.

God, I’m so fucking weak! Why did I let myself get in so deep with him? Why did I let myself start to have feelings for someone who showed me his true colors the first time I met him? So what if he’s been playing nice now, he hated me when we met. He thought I was weak. He thought I was annoying and there to ruin his good time.

Hell, he’d been cruel. He’d told me to watch where I was going. When I’d confided that I don’t usually come in stores without my service dog, he’d been so condescending when he’d said okay. He’d said it like he actually wanted to ask my why the fuck I was telling him something like that.

And when he’d offered me help? Of course he’d just said it out of a sense of obligation. He hadn’t actually wanted to help. He hadn’t cared that I was in a bad place, that my panic was starting to shift into full gear. He’d wanted to shut me up and move me along while still not feeling like a total waste of a human being.

That’s who Kyle is. The one who wants to feel good about himself while not doing anything good unless it’s in his best interest.

Even saving Sentinel had been self-serving.

He loves animals. He couldn’t, in good conscious, not help. It had absolutely zero to do with me, or my feelings, or how I’d manage to live if I lost my dog. He did it because he loves animals and one was suffering in front of him.

But doesn’t that negate everything? I wonder.

If he’s willing to do something kind like that without hope of compensation for something weaker than himself – an injured animal – doesn’t that means he’s being selfless? He’s helping something that can never even thank him, so he’s not doing it for what he can get out of it.

I struggle over whether or not that makes him a good person or a selfish one for a moment.

Sentinel whimpers at me and I realize my purse is on the nightstand of my bedroom. “Sentinel, purse,” I say, feeling how hard it is to suck in a deep breath. It’s been over a week since my last attack.

Sentinel takes out into my room and I hear him whining softly as he moves. I know his stitches have been bothering him, but I assume it’s normal. Though Kyle didn’t check him this morning, he’d been too busy washing his face.

But Sentinel is fine, I’m sure. He hasn’t been playing hard or anything. He’s been being a good boy.

I hear the clicking of his nails on the wood floors before he comes back into sight with my purse. I sink to the floor and take out the meds, hating how hard my hands are shaking. But it’s better this heartbreak happen now than later. At least this is happening before I fall totally, irrevocably in love with him.

Or is it?

Fumbling with the bottle, I spill the pills on the floor. They scatter and bounce away like gritty pearls. I begin to gather them up, popping two in my mouth as I struggle to grab them with flawed depth perception and blurred vision.

Breathe.

My chest aches as I wait for the meds to kick in. Tilting my head back against the wall, I hear my own words in my ears.

You’re allowed to be angry. No matter what happened, or how. Your emotions have validity.

And the pain in my chest begins to ease a bit. He was rude, cruel even, by telling me he wanted to get away from me. I’m allowed to be mad at him. My anger is valid, what he did was rude. But it was also his right to say it.

My lungs loosen a little and I draw in a deep breath.

But why?

The question surprises me.

Why did he tell me that?

Well, I could sit here and guess, or I could go ask him. Maybe not right now, but later. Once we’ve both had some time to cool off. Because running away and letting all of this go by thinking he’s just an asshole is one way I can handle this.

Or I can be an adult. I can ask questions. I can try to find the way rather than just accepting this is how things are now.

The scared Victoria who ran away from home wouldn’t have asked questions. She wouldn’t have investigated the problem. She wouldn’t have decided the reasons were more important than the problem.

But I don’t want to react based on anger anymore. Or fear. Or by emotion, period. I want answers. I want to understand his reasoning. And it’ll be scary to confront him, because maybe he won’t be willing to have a conversation. But I’ll feel better if I do this. And that’s important.

Without risk there’s no growth.

With decidedly steadier hands, I pick up the pills and put them back in the bottle.