I toss my phone aside and scrub my hands down my face, feeling my overgrown stubble scratching my palms. Every one of my muscles feels tight. I gingerly stand, cringing through the discomfort, stretching. I smell like death too, my shirt crumpled and stale. I need a shower. Maybe ten.

I look at the door, at the cabinet blocking it. Each time I’ve been forced to move it so I can use the toilet, it’s become heavier and heavier. I’m desperate for a piss now. But, again, scared to leave. Not because I’m afraid of what I might do or who might be out there, but because leaving means facing my reality. A reality without Ava.

A reality where I put my dick in two other women. A reality where I might go straight to the bar to drown my misery.

I sigh and go to the cabinet, taking the edge and engaging my body to pull it away. It doesn’t budge, not an inch, and I’m quickly out of breath trying to make it. “Fucking hell,” I murmur, flopping back against the wall, feeling weak.

The sound of something hitting the window pulls my attention to it, and I find Sam’s face squished up against the pane, his eyes searching inside my office. My usually cheerful mate looks worried, and when he eventually finds me slumped by the door, he shakes his head. I drag my tired body across the room and open the window, exhausted, my hands falling to the ledge to hold me up. “Hey.” My voice sounds strained, my throat sore.

“Mate,” he says on a sigh, his worried eyes running up and down my bedraggled form. “What on earth?”

I close my eyes, inhaling, trying to soothe my straining lungs. Even breathing hurts. “I don’t want to go back to this shit, Sam,” I say to my darkness, unable to face him. “I can’t go back to this shit.” I’ll be dead before I’m forty, and now I’ve had a taste of heaven, I feel like I’m eternally screwed. I can’t survive this hell.

“Then don’t go back,” he says, as if it’s that simple, and I look up at him. He smiles mildly. “Don’t go back, Jesse.”

“I need help.” It’s the first time in my life I’ve admitted it. “And I have no idea where to turn.”

He reaches through the window and takes the top of my arm. “We’re all here for you, mate.”

All. That’s not true. Ava’s not here. But I appreciate his sentiment.

I inhale and push myself upright, noticing Sam’s in his running kit. “Been or going?” I ask.

“Been. Come on, we need to get some food inside you.” He backs away, and I look back to my office door.