While Mia slept, her dreams brought her back to the happier days of her relationship with Aaron, even when they hadn’t been a couple anymore.

She was taken back to a time when she smiled at the thought of seeing him. After the day she’d had, it was going to be wonderful to cuddle up on the couch with Aaron, despite the fact that they were only friends now. He had mentioned ordering a pizza and watching a movie on Netflix. That sounded pretty much like heaven in that moment, even though Mia was exhausted from school and work. She would probably fall asleep halfway through the movie, but Aaron was used to it.

Part of her couldn’t help wondering if this was a good idea. She had ended things with Aaron some time ago, but the chance to get back together with him wasn’t completely off the table just yet.

Mia had met Aaron through a mutual friend, and the two of them had really hit it off. He was the only one who ever seemed to truly understand her sometimes, and it was nice just being with someone who did not judge her or try to question her every move. He respected her drive and ambition, and he was not scared off by it, unlike most of the men she’d dated.

It was refreshing.

But Aaron, of course, was not without his issues. The two of them had had their share of difficulties.

They had been dating for almost three months when Mia first realized that Aaron was a heavy drinker. He’d tried to hide it from her at first, but the more time she began to spend at his place, the more she noticed the fact that he always seemed to have a drink in his hand.

And then it had gotten to a point where he was hammered every time she stopped by his place after work. Even worse, Aaron was a bit of an angry and emotional drunk. Mia had tried to fool herself into believing that she could handle it, that he would change, but his problems were more severe than she’d thought.

The final straw was the day he almost hit her across the face during an argument while he was drunk. She tried to grab the bottle from him, and it ended up falling out of his hand and breaking on the floor. He yelled and then rose his hand to smack her across the cheek. But he didn’t, which was why Mia couldn’t claim domestic abuse when she tried to get a restraining order later on.

Aaron was mortified that he had even risen his hand against her, and he was instantly sorry, collapsing and crying on her lap. But Mia was done.

She told him to seek treatment, and he only did it with the condition that she attend meetings with him.

Mia felt compelled to help him, and although their romantic relationship was over, they remained friends for a while, and she supported Aaron in his time of need.

It was rough at first, but soon she saw the change in him. She even considered getting back together with him, and she told him that if he continued to make progress, she could possibly see a future with the two of them together again.

One night after work, Mia agreed to meet Aaron at his place, since he had something he wanted to discuss with her. The streets were quiet that time of night as she drove across the business section of Peoria.

Mia was thankful that she had worked late and missed the insanity of the rush hour traffic. She arrived at Aaron’s house about twenty minutes after leaving work. She sat in the car for a minute before getting out, struggling with a sudden, overwhelming, and unexplainable reluctance to see him.

She reminded herself that Aaron really was trying to improve himself. He had lived off of his trust fund for a long time, but after getting help for his alcoholism, he had also enrolled in online classes to earn his degree in business.

Mia admired his spirit and determination, and she hoped that he would be able to accomplish his goals.

She grabbed her phone and checked the security alarm for the animal clinic, double checking that it was still armed and there were no issues. Everything was fine, though, and she felt like an idiot for checking it. If there were any problems, then she would have been notified instantly, along with Dr. Vogel.

Mia got out of her car and walked towards Aaron’s house. Again, she thought about turning around and getting out of there, but Aaron had sounded eager to talk to her, and she had already agreed to see him.

In hindsight, she should have told him to meet her at her house rather than the other way around, but she was already there. Mia used the key Aaron had given her—she was holding on to it in case they got back together—and opened the door, glad to be out of the dimly lit driveway.

Aaron was sitting on his couch, watching the news.

“Hey,” he said as soon as he saw her, getting up and wrapping her in a big embrace.

He felt so soft, so safe against Mia. She smiled and leaned against him, enjoying every bit of the comfort. This was the thing she’d been craving all day long, and she forgot about the sudden reluctance she’d felt in her car. Instead, she remembered how she’d smiled at the thought of seeing him tonight.

They hadn’t talked about getting back together, but Mia felt that it was time to bring up the topic.

“Hey. How’s it going?” Mia asked as he let go of her and straightened up a few things to clear space on the couch and the coffee table for her.

“Oh, not too bad. Just did school stuff most of today,” Aaron said. Tuesday was his day off from work.

“Did you forget I was coming over?” Mia joked, noticing the mess that was his apartment.

Aaron was typically a bit of a neat freak, but it looked as if he had decided not to clean anything for a few days. Dirty dishes were on the counter, and a few pizza boxes were on the floor, with the trash starting to overflow. Some dirty clothes were placed on top of a kitchen chair.

“No, I just fell asleep for a bit,” Aaron answered.

Mia grabbed a few sodas from the fridge, handed one to Aaron, and sat down on the couch in front of the television.

“So, how are your classes going?” Mia asked.

“Oh, great!” he replied. “I’m actually enjoying a few of them this semester. Last semester was rough because it was mostly general education stuff; it felt like a repeat of everything they tried to teach me in high school.”

“Oh, yeah.” Mia nodded her head. “General education—what I like to call the ‘pad the bill’ classes.”

“Exactly,” Aaron said. “College is a huge business. Why else would they charge thousands of dollars for something you can get just by reading the book and doing your own independent research? It’s a sham.”

Mia nodded. She felt a little guilty, and also a bit silly, for putting down education, but everything Aaron had said sounded a lot like her college experience. Sadly, that was the game the world had agreed to play.

“But it will be worth it when you can slap that degree on your resume, right?” Mia said, trying to lift his spirits.

Aaron sometimes needed a bit of a kick in the pants when he was a little down. She’d long ago learned to recognize the symptoms in his body language and in his words.

Aaron paused for a moment and then smiled at her. “I know.”

He leaned back and turned on Netflix.

“So, what are we watching?” Mia asked.

“I’ll let you be in charge of that while I order pizza,” Aaron said.

“That’s a plan. I’m thinking something very chick flick…” Mia teased.

“Funny,” he replied, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Yeah, I’ll find a funny chick flick,” she said.

An hour later, they were in the middle of the latest Reese Witherspoon movie and eating themselves into a pizza coma. As Mia finished her last slice and leaned back on the couch, feeling absolutely full, she swore that she was going to lay off fast food for a bit.

Aaron was one of those people who could eat what he wanted and never gain even an ounce. If anything, the more he ate, the thinner he seemed to become, as if his metabolism switched into hyper drive the moment extra calories were consumed.

“I’m getting another soda,” Mia said as she started to get up from the couch.

Walking back to the kitchen, she pulled open the fridge and grabbed a soda, noticing the stack of overflowing trash. She groaned and sat her soda down on the counter. She took the trash bag out, tied a knot at the top, and set it aside to be taken to the garbage chute later. She then reached under the sink to grab another bag from the box.

As soon as Mia reached her hand into the box full of garbage bags, she saw a half-empty glass bottle, the label facing her. She snatched the bottle and pulled it out into the light.

Whiskey.

Mia couldn’t believe it. Even as her mind processed what she was seeing, she still struggled to comprehend it. This wasn’t real; it had to be something else. But there it was. There was no denying that Aaron was drinking again.

“Ready to get back to the—” Aaron walked back into the kitchen, but his sentence was cut short as Mia turned around to face him, the whiskey bottle in her hand.

Aaron was silent as he stared at her, his expression full of both surprise and shame. He couldn’t hold her glaring gaze longer than a moment.

“Care to explain this? Is this why you were so eager to see me tonight?” Mia said, her hands shaking with rage.

Aaron rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s not—”

“What it looks like?” she finished for him. “Come on, try again.”

“I just needed a little bit to take the edge off.”

Mia took a deep breath to keep her voice even. “Oh, boo hoo. Everybody gets stressed out. There’s no excuse for this,” she said.

“Mia, please,” Aaron said, taking a step towards her. “I can explain. I bought that bottle over a week ago. I just took one drink each day to calm my nerves so I wouldn’t fall apart.”

A drink a day. A drink a day for a week, maybe even longer. Mia threw the bottle into the sink, where it smashed to pieces.

“No!” Aaron blurted out.

“No?” Mia repeated, barely holding herself back from screaming. “No, what? ‘No, don’t destroy my precious drug’?”

“Babe,” Aaron began, and fury made Mia’s hands shake even more. They weren’t together now, he had no right to call her that. “Please, you have to listen to me. I’m doing great! I’ve been going to AA and I’m going to counseling. I’m doing it all for you. I’ve worked so hard!”

“Maybe that’s the problem!” she exclaimed. “Stop doing it all for me and do it for yourself!”

Tears began to well up in Aaron’s eyes, and Mia turned her head away. It was so hard to see him cry, but she’d seen it before, and she was tired of the puppy-eyes routine. He had used it too many times in the past, and she was the only one who ended up hurt by it. She was done with that.

It was then that Mia realized that she had to get away from him for good.

This relationship—this friendship, even—was toxic to her; it had been since the very beginning. The best thing she could do, both for Aaron and for herself, was to let him go. It was over between them.

Aaron seemed to know what she was thinking, because he spoke again. “I know I messed up,” he said. “But I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make it right. Please, baby, let me make it up to you.”

“No,” Mia told him, shaking her head. “I’m tired, Aaron. I’m so tired of picking you up and watching you fall again. You have to stand on your own feet. I can’t do this anymore.”

“Please believe me,” Aaron went on, his voice growing more desperate. “This will not happen again.”

“You’ve said that over and over until your face was blue,” Mia replied, and she swallowed back the tears stinging her eyes. “I can’t do this anymore.”

Aaron ran his hands through his hair. “Let’s take a moment to relax. I’ll call Max. He’s my sponsor; that’s what he’s there for. I should have called him when I started to relapse, but it’s not too late.”

His denial was more painful to hear than Mia could have imagined. “It’s too late for us. I’m sorry, but I’m done,” she said.

She took out her key to his house and left it next to the sink. Then she walked past Aaron and headed for the door. Before she could even get out of the kitchen, he grabbed her arm and pulled her back towards him.

“Don’t,” he said, and he sounded like he was begging. “Please don’t go. I’ll do whatever it takes, baby, please…”

“Let go of me,” Mia said, her teeth clenched together. “My mind is made up.”

She jerked herself free, and Aaron followed her as she walked to the door and opened it.

“If you leave,” Aaron called, “I’ll spiral out of control. Don’t you see that, Mia? You are going to kill me by walking out that door!”

Mia glanced back at him. She’d never seen him looking so miserable, so desperate. She felt like he might be right, but she could not be responsible for him anymore. He wasn’t a child, and he had to look out after himself, just like she had to look out after herself.

Mia didn’t say anything. She closed the door behind her and walked towards her car.