“Let me check on Dylan real quick,” he says, walking out and leaving me here. I just stand here in this room that smells like a flower shop. I turn my head when I see him in the entryway of the room. “He’s fine. I gave him another snack.” I look at him. “I need you to tell me what happened,” he says.

I take a deep breath and relive the morning that is now burned in my memory. “I went home, and the minute I put the key in the lock, I knew something was off,” I say, and he puts up his hand.

“And you went in anyway?” he asks, his voice tight. I nod at him, and he puts his head back and looks at the ceiling.

“Well, when the door opened, I saw it right away,” I say, his hands going into fists. “The food was all over the floor. The drawers were pulled out and dumped on the floor. The plates smashed all around the room as if someone just tossed them like Frisbees.” I try to get it all out once and for all. “The bedroom was the worst.” I take a deep breath. “They tossed everything on the floor and cut through the mattress.”

“Motherfucker,” he hisses out and charges to me, grabbing me by my hand and pulling me to his bedroom, then closing the door behind us. He walks to the bed and sits down and pulls me down next to him, but my leg starts to shake, and I have to get up and walk, so I pace in front of him. “What did the police say?”

“The police?” I laugh bitterly. “The last time this happened, I called and all they did was take a report. They did nothing,” I say, recalling when it happened the first time. The minute I mentioned Andrew and that he was on drugs, it was like I was wasting their time. They took the report because that is their job, but I doubt they did anything else with it. “I don’t know what they were looking for, but there was nothing there for them,” I start to say. “The futon was also slashed to the point where there is no way it can be salvaged, and the wooden frame looks like someone kicked in every single slat. They even put holes in the walls, and now I’m going to have to patch them up before the landlord sees it and evicts me for good this time.” I walk back and forth. “The bathroom was the only thing not touched.”

“Are you done?” he asks, and I look at him.

“What?” I whisper.

“You could have been home last night,” he says, his voice almost in a whisper, but anger is clearly radiating off him. “You could have been in the middle of that, you and Dylan, and it might have had a different outcome.”