The police station had been godawful, but nothing compared to what I would face when I got home. I had talked to three different detectives who all had the same questions asked in a slightly different way, but my story never changed. I’d been exhausted. I had lived on three to four hours of sleep for months, and my body demanded rest. I had done the responsible thing. I pulled over when I realized I was too tired to drive. It was the afternoon on a busy interstate in Texas. The rest area was buzzing with people, taking a quick nap should not have resulted in anything catastrophic.

Despite the number of times I recounted what I knew, another officer came in and repeated the same steps as though they were trying to get me to falter, but there was nothing to mistake. I didn’t remember anything between locking the doors and waking up in the hospital. I’d sobbed with each officer, begged them to believe it had been an accident—but each one left the room with pained expressions. After six hours of questioning, they’d finally released me with charges pending and advised me to obtain an attorney and not leave the state. I hadn’t formally been charged, but I knew it was coming sooner rather than later.

I’d called in to the Dean that morning. He had seen the news stories and agreed it would be best if I took the week off to sort things out. I couldn’t get a read on whether or not he felt sorry for me or detested me the way everyone else had. The end result was the same; I wasn’t to return to my classes until I met with him Friday afternoon. He hoped I would have more information on formal charges and how I might be able to proceed. The truth was I didn’t have the foggiest notion how anyone thought I could go on at all. It took everything in me to even draw the next breath, much less think of a future. Every decision immediately in front of me was daunting and excruciatingly painful. I had no idea how I’d ever recover from any of it, much less be productive.

With two tasks out of the way, I did the thing I dreaded most next to planning a funeral for someone I’d loved. I drove home in the car that had determined my fate. I didn’t deserve the tears I shed, but I was able to release them there without condemnation. The fear of rejection hadn’t stopped me from expelling them at the police station or on the phone with my boss, but here, there were just silent drops that went unwitnessed—there was no proof they had ever existed.

I pulled into my spot in the driveway, taking several deep breaths before exiting the car to go in the house. We’d lived here for a handful of years, but suddenly, I didn’t feel welcome in my home. Part of me wondered if the key would even work in the lock. When I stepped inside, I didn’t expect Matt to be standing in the foyer. His arms were crossed over his chest, his feet wide in an aggressive stance. The way his stare penetrated me was haunting. I’d never seen that look on his face. He never had so much as given me a sideways glance. Matt had a gentle spirit when it came to people he loved but was pure alpha outside of those relationships. It was one of the things I’d fallen in love with—the bad-boy exterior with a heart of gold.

The gold had been replaced with ice, and I’d been the one who’d frozen his heart.

“I didn’t expect you to come back.” There wasn’t a hint of emotion behind his statement. Years in the military had given him the ability to remain stoic regardless of the war that raged inside. I saw the anger in his eyes, the hatred in the way he stared at me.

My shoulders slumped in defeat. I hadn’t expected anything different except possibly indifference, avoidance, isolation. I never anticipated Matt’s confronting me the moment I walked through the door. It was like he’d been staring out the window waiting for me to pull up. Or maybe he’d been on guard in the entrance since I’d been released yesterday.

“Matt…” His name was merely a whisper of uncertainty.

“Don’t Matt me.”

I didn’t know what to do. I owned the house, too. I had every right to be here even if he didn’t want me to be. I agreed no one owed me anything, but even if he wanted me to leave, there was still the matter of my name on the mortgage, my things in the closets and rooms. If he wanted me to leave, I would, but I had to collect enough to survive which was all I’d be doing—surviving.

“Lissa, I’ve loved you since we were five, but I can’t stand the sight of you right now.” The way he gritted the words out expressed his fury in a way that frightened me.

“Do you want me to leave?” I’d do whatever he needed me to do. There was no fight in me, not for this.

He let out a long sigh, his anger turned to hurt. He was in agony, just like I was. Losing Joshua was more than life-altering, it was life-ending. “I don’t know what I want. I want to lash out at you. Scream, rage. But none of that will bring him back.”

“I know.” It was the truth—the bitter truth of my actions.

“You don’t know! One minute I want to squeeze the life out of you—prevent you from ever taking another breath. But the next, I want to reach out to you and hold you, mourn with you. Love you the only way I know how. I can’t stand the sight of you but can’t sleep without you. I want to hate you but don’t know how to do anything other than love you.” His hands dropped to his side, fists clenched. Releasing, closing, the knuckles going white each time he retracted his fingers. Matt was a trained killer, one of the governments’ prized weapons. He could end me in the blink of an eye or torture me for days.

My head bobbed in a slow nod. I knew exactly how he felt. The same emotions assaulted my own psyche every second of the day.

“For fuck’s sake, Lissa. Say something!”

“I don’t have anything I can say to take away your pain, Matt. Joshua’s life is on me. I took that. I didn’t mean to. God, I didn’t mean to. But that doesn’t matter. None of it matters because none of it changes anything. My remorse doesn’t bring him back, and it doesn’t atone for my sins. It’s just that—regret. You have to know I didn’t do it intentionally.”

“All I know is I begged you to rest. I all but commanded you to stop doing so much. Silly me, I thought it would be you that got hurt. Never in a million years did I imagine you’d kill him.”

I took what he gave. Standing in my foyer, I allowed Matt to vent, to tear me down, say what he needed to clear his mind. I tried not to cry but lost that battle in minutes. But I held his eyes. I made sure every word sank in, deep. Ensured that he saw every syllable cut to the quick—because he needed to release it, and I needed to accept it.

“Just stay away from me. I need space and time to think through this.”

“What about the funeral?” I shouldn’t have asked, not then. But I’d had a mental checklist, and that was the worst of the items I needed to cross off.

“I’m handling it. I think it might be best if you didn’t come. The coroner’s doing an autopsy so we won’t be able to bury him for several days. Either way, I don’t think it’s in anyone’s best interest for you to be there. Someone might hurt you, Lissa.”

“Matt, I can’t—”

“It’s not open for discussion.” And he turned his back and walked away.

I did as he requested. I steered clear and shut myself away in the guest room. Dinner passed, but the thought of food made me want to vomit. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten anything. The silence in the house was painful as I laid on my side, my hands tucked between my legs. Tears came and went, but regardless of how exhausted I was, even long after the sun had gone down, sleep evaded me. I tried to count the stars through the window but lost track every time my mind drifted back to Joshua and then Matt.

The latch on the door clicked when the knob was turned. I glanced at the clock to see it glow 3:04 am. I only had three hours left to pretend I was asleep before I could get up and do this all over again. I didn’t turn over to see what Matt wanted. I assumed it was him but almost prayed it was a home invader who’d end this nightmare once and for all. When the covers receded, and a warm body filled the spot behind me, I knew it was my fiancé and not the grim reaper.

My body tensed, unsure of why he was here. I waited with bated breath not knowing how to respond. When he finally draped his arm over my hip and pulled me to him, I relaxed into the comfort I didn’t deserve.

“I can’t sleep without you, Lissa.” The thought lingered in the air without my response. “I want to hate you, but my soul needs you.” His words broke—the crack in his voice an indication of how hard he fought the emotion.

I put my hand over his and laced our fingers together. “I’m so sorry, Matt.” I was choked up. Regret, fear, grief—they all moved through me as his warmth surrounded me.

“I need to feel you. I need your skin on mine to remind me I’m alive.”

The last thing I wanted was sex, but if it brought him comfort, I’d allow him to use me in whatever way he needed. I owed that much to him. Without further thought, I removed my shirt and shimmied out of my panties. Reaching behind me, I found Matt already naked. We never slept with clothing on, but I hadn’t expected him to be that way tonight. When I turned to him, he uttered words I never thought I’d hear.

“It’s going to be painful and rough. Don’t mistake this for pleasure, Lissa.”

I turned over and nodded, hoping he could see me by the light of the moon that washed through the window.

Matt hadn’t lied. There was nothing pleasurable about sex that night. It was punishing and aggressive in a way I’d never experienced, but I’d do anything to try to right the wrong in our relationship. He took and took for almost an hour. My vagina was raw and irritated when he finally grunted his release. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes, not because of what he’d just done, but because he’d needed to do it.

I didn’t know if we’d ever survive this, or if either of us would come back from it—but I’d give myself to him over and over in hopes of gaining his forgiveness or even the chance for an explanation. I was desperate for him to understand I hurt just as much as he did but knew I didn’t deserve that opportunity. I could only hope that time would provide some level of understanding on both of our parts.

When he was done, he didn’t bother to clean either of us up. He resumed his place behind me with a vice grip on my body. His breathing fell into a steady rhythm, and while he slept, I stared out into the night waiting for dawn. When the sun finally graced me with its presence, I slipped from his clutches and donned a pair of sneakers. The only thing I knew to do was run.