With a shaky exhale, I lean up and kiss him. Slow and gentle, just like his touch. “I’ve missed you,” I tell him.

He looks away. “Me too.”

He holds me to him, his arms around my waist and his chin resting on my head.

“Why are you home early?” I manage to ask.

He doesn’t respond, just holds me tighter.

“Are you hungry?”

“I’m tired, Ry,” he says, releasing me. “I’m so fucking tired.”

I take his hand and lead him to bed, my mind racing with so many thoughts I can’t focus on one. He climbs on the bed and gets under the covers, his hands behind his head as he looks up at the ceiling. I remove the towel and stand still, just for a moment, trying to gauge his response. Again, there is none. His eyes, his body, his everything remain still. I walk over to the bedroom door, switch on the hallway light, and turn off the bedroom one, before making my way back to the bed, wondering the entire time what the right thing to do is. It’s obvious his mind is elsewhere. It’s also obvious he’s not interested in me. I lie next to him, my arm around his waist and my leg over his while I rest my head on his chest. I wait for his hands to move, to touch me, even if it’s not for sex but we’ve always, always fallen asleep in each other’s arms but tonight… nothing.

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.