His words sting. I don’t want him to shut me out. He needs to open up and tell me what’s wrong. Slowly, he grabs my elbow, ushers me toward the doorway, gently pushes me out into the hall, and shuts the door in my face.

Him shutting me out hurts as much as him slicing my heart into a million pieces. I need him to know that he isn’t alone, and whatever he’s going through we can face together. I go to the kitchen, grab his glass plates and bowls and head back upstairs, waltzing inside the room.

When I throw plates at the wall, Gunner stops swinging and rests the base of the bat on his shoulder, staring me up and down like I’m crazy. “What the fuck did I say? Rainbow. Go. To. Bed.”

“No,” I say, tossing another plate against the wall. “You’re not alone in this, Wolf, and whatever you’re going through you don’t have to face by yourself. You don’t have to tell me the details, but I want you to know that I’m here.”

“I have PTSD,” he says, like it’s acid burning his tongue. “I can’t look at blood or smell it or watch certain shows, it’s a goddamn trigger. I’ll start having flashbacks. I feel like I’m living in a box.”

I swallow hard. My broken wolf saves everyone else but doesn’t know how to save himself. I want to ask him what happened. But he’ll tell me when he’s ready. “Okay, we’ll deal with it.”

Surprise flickers across his face, and he opens his mouth, then closes it, then stares at me like I’ve grown three heads.

I want Gunner to know it doesn’t bother me he comes with baggage or that he’s broken. Last time I checked crayons break but they still color.

He walks up to me, tilting my chin to look at him. “You want me like this?”

“I’ll accept the good and bad about you, even the version that drinks like a sailor.” I exhale. “Do you have another bat?”

He assesses me for a long time, then he answers, “Yeah.” He goes to the closet and hands me a black one. After we smash all the mirrors and plates, Gunner wobbles over to me, drapes his arm around my shoulder, and we head to his bedroom.