“She hasn’t said anything yet. She’s in the shower now, but I know she had another nightmare. She doesn’t take her sleeping pill when she takes naps in the middle of the day.”

“You need me to come over there?” he asks, and I love that he does.

“No, it’s fine. I’m gonna stay here for a while though.” There is no way I can leave her like this. I don’t want to.

“Maybe you should talk to her about seeing a therapist or something.”

“Yeah, I’ll try, but I know she’ll just shut me down,” I say and then hear the shower turn off.

“God, I feel so bad for her,” he says in a soft breath, and I am right there with him, feeling the pain.

“I know. She’s getting out of the shower, so I need to let you go.”

“Okay. I love you.”

“I love you too. I’ll call you later.”

I go ahead and grab Candace some clothes from her dresser and take them to her in the bathroom. She gets dressed and throws her hair up on top of her head. I take her hand and pull her into bed with me and hold onto her. She clings to me and buries her head in my chest.

Whispering, I ask, “Another nightmare?”

“Yeah,” she breathes out.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

Pulling her hairband out, I start combing my fingers through the wet strands.

“I really think you should talk to someone about this.”

“Jase. Please don’t.”

“I know you don’t want to, but it’s been a couple of months and I feel like you’re just sinking further away. I’m worried.”

“It’s fine. I just need a little more time to pass,” she says, and I kiss the top of her head.

Time. She believes time is all she needs and everything will just fade away. She’s living in denial, and I don’t know how to get through to her. I have tried so many times in my own way, but she avoids the conversations every time. I just need her to be okay, and she is so far from it. She’s just deteriorating into a shadow of what she used to be. My heart has never ached as much as it does for her.

“You don’t have to stay here,” she mumbles against my chest, and she’s crazy if she thinks I’m leaving her here alone after what I just saw.

“I’m not leaving you.”

It takes a while, but eventually she falls into a fit of restless sleep. I check the time on my phone and see that it’s nearing seven o’clock. I hate to wake her, but I do anyway.

“Candace,” I whisper, not wanting to startle her out of her sleep. “Candace, wake up.”

“Mmm,” she moans in response.

“It’s almost seven. Why don’t you go ahead and take your pill for the night since you’re so tired.”

She nudges her head against me before lifting it up to look at me.

“Where are they?” I ask.

“In the bathroom in the second drawer.”

I slide out from underneath her and grab a pill from the bottle. When I walk back to her, I hand her the half bottle of water already on her nightstand along with the pill.

She sits up on the edge of the bed and when she sets the water down, she looks up at me and says, “I’m sorry.”

I sit next to her and hold her hand. “Never be sorry for needing me.” I lean in and give her a kiss. “I will always be here for you.”

I stayed with Candace all night last night. We barely got any sleep ‘cause she kept having night terrors. Although I’m tired, I’m going to go hang out at Blur while Mark’s band plays tonight. He already left to go meet the guys to run through some new songs they’ll be playing tonight, so I text Ryan to let him know I’m on my way there.

Ryan and I have been hanging out a bit more lately. He’s a cool guy to chill with, so he stops by every now and then to have a beer and watch TV. And whatever funk he was in when I first met him seems to have dissipated a bit and he has become a little less intense and moody.

I pull around to the back lot of Blur and park my car. When I go in, I head up to Ryan’s office to hang out for a bit.

When I walk in, he is sitting behind his desk drinking a beer and flipping through a pile of papers.

“Hey, man,” I say before walking over to the small steel fridge that sits on the floor behind his desk.

As I grab a beer, he says, “Can you toss me another one of those?”

I pop the caps and hand him a bottle before I sit down. “So, you been up here all day?”

“Pretty much. You know how Saturdays are—crazy as hell all day.” He takes a long swig of his beer and then says, “Missed you last night. Mark said you got hung-up with a friend.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. She’s been going through a rough time, so I decided to stay with her last night.” I was supposed to go out to a private concert to hear one of the bands that Gavin had just signed. I told Mark to go ahead and go when I decided to stay the night with Candace.

“You missed a pretty good show.”

“That’s what Mark said.”

Ryan laughs and says, “Your guy’s a little crazy when he drinks.”

“I’m not even gonna ask, but he was in a piss-ass mood when I saw him earlier,” I say through my laughter as I shake my head.

“Ha! I bet. He drank a shitload, probably hungover as fuck.”

We both laugh when the door opens and Mark walks through. “What’s so funny?” he asks as he stands there.

“You, man,” Ryan says.

“If this is about last night, I don’t even wanna know what the hell I did. My head has been pounding all damn day, and now I have to play for the next two hours.”

“Go find Max. He always has earplugs,” Ryan tells him.

“Not a bad idea.” Looking at me, he asks, “Can I stay with you tonight? My new roommate just decided to tell me that he’s throwing a party tonight.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“Well, I gotta run. I just wanted to catch you,” he says and then turns to leave.

Mark has been keeping more distance between us when we are out, knowing that it still makes me uncomfortable. I hate that he feels like he has to do that for me. I know I need to get over it and try to force myself to show more affection with him when we are around others. I just need to push myself to take that step. But now I need to be honest and tell him about Preston. I never even felt like it was something I ever had to disclose to him, but now, knowing that they know each other, makes what happened relevant.

When Ryan and I walk down, I head over to the bar to say hi to Mel. We talk off and on, like we usually do, while I sip my beer.

“What’s up with Mark?” she asks as she nods her head towards the stage.

Turning to look at him, I laugh at the crap mood you can tell he’s in and the neon orange earplugs he’s wearing. I look back at Mel, and say, “He’s hungover.”

“That sucks.”

I look over to see Ryan being mauled by some redhead. He normally pushes off every girl that comes his way, so I’m a bit shocked, and just laugh as I turn back to Mel.

“Looks like he’s back to his old self,” she says with a smirk before walking away to help some customers.

After some time has passed, I watch Ryan take that chick out the back by her hand.

“Hey, Mel,” I holler down the bar. When she looks up at me, I say, “You think I could get a bottle of water when you get a chance?”

“Sure, hun.”

I overhear the two girls next to me talking about Mark and how the one girl plans to slip him her number. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this. Girls are all over his junk, and lately it’s been making me feel more possessive of him. Everyone assumes he’s single and straight because I’m so self-conscious of what people will think of me if they saw us simply holding hands.

I continue to eavesdrop as they start downing shots and getting drunk. The band takes a break between sets and Mark approaches me as he lifts up the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat off his forehead, exposing his abs, which the drunken girls thoroughly enjoy. Sitting next to me, his elbows propped up on the bar, I take a big push and lay my arm up on the bar and hold his hand, lacing my fingers with his. He looks over at me and into my eyes as he smiles. I know this gesture means a lot to him, and all that really matters is that this makes him happy.