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Lincoln suddenly grabbed my medication off the dresser. My heart stopped in my chest, my face paling. Shit.
I hadn’t been taking my meds.
“Why is this bottle still full?” Lincoln asked me, not looking up from my medication bottle as he looked at the date it was filled.
I swallowed thickly, the fight suddenly draining out of me. I was in a world of shit—already knew it. I’d wanted a fight…well, I was definitely about to get one now. But it wasn’t on my terms, and I didn’t fucking like that. Felt like my skin was crawling.
“West, you’ve got three fucking seconds to answer him,” Jessie growled at me, anger simmering in his dark eyes.
I fisted my hands at my sides. “I stopped taking them,” I informed them.
There was silence for a moment before Jessie broke it. “Fuck!” he roared. I flinched. “This is why you’ve been so goddamn different lately!” he barked at me. I flinched. “Your doctor fucking warned you what would happen if you fucking went cold turkey on them!”
“Jessie—” I begged, stepping toward him. He was pulling back from me. I could feel it. And I was panicking.
I couldn’t fucking lose him.
“Nah,” he snarled at me. Tears welled in my eyes, and I reached for him, desperate to keep him with me. He knocked my hands aside. My lips trembled. “I’m going to fucking work. When you decide you want to be a goddamn adult, you know how to find me. I’m not sitting around and watching you willingly destroy yourself after all I’ve been trying to do to keep your freedom, to fucking help you become whole again.”
With that, he walked out, and the sound of the front door slamming closed reached my ears a moment later. I sobbed, my lungs constricting.
I couldn’t lose him.
Was this what it was like to have your heart ripped from your chest? I didn’t want any part of it.
“Baby, don’t,” Lincoln urged. He moved forward and wrapped me up in his arms. “Jessie loves you so damn much, West. He’s not fucking leaving you.”
I fisted his shirt in my hands. “He hates me,” I cried. “I fucked it all up, but I hate taking them. Lincoln, I can’t lose him.”
My shoulders shook as I cried. “I’m here, baby,” Lincoln tried soothing me, but he and I both knew it wasn’t enough. “I’m not going anywhere, West. And Jessie will come back, too. Just give him time to calm down.”
“I broke his trust in me,” I whimpered.
“No,” Lincoln said softly. He pressed a light kiss to my temple. “He’s worried about you, West. The medicine is supposed to be helping you, and you’re basically shitting on everything he’s trying to do for you by not taking it. That doesn’t mean you broke his trust in you.”
“It makes me feel weird.” I hiccupped. “I don’t feel like myself. I hate that medicine. It doesn’t help me, Lincoln.”
He gently lifted me into his arms and carried me to the living room. He sat down on the couch and held me on his lap. “Calm down, baby, and once you do, talk to me about how the medicine makes you feel,” he coaxed.
I wrapped my arms tight around his waist, desperate to keep Lincoln with me. I couldn’t lose him, too. It would kill me. Maybe if I held him tightly enough, he wouldn’t be able to leave me.
“I feel zombified,” I told him. I hiccupped again. “I just feel like I’m going through the motions throughout the day, not really enjoying myself or having any real emotions. It just shuts me down.” I sniffled. Lincoln leaned down and lightly brushed his lips with mine, calming me and soothing me. “It’s like it’s created to make me feel nothing.”
“Did you talk to your doctor about it?” Lincoln asked me.
I nodded. “She only told me that it would just take time for my body to adjust, but it never got better, and she wouldn’t change my meds. She claimed they were helping me, but I feel like they just shut my emotional system down completely.”
“Did you ever tell Jessie about how the meds make you feel?” Lincoln asked me.
I shook my head, hiccupping again. “If the doctor thought they were best for me, Jessie would, too. There was no point.”
Lincoln held me tightly. “We’ll see about finding you a new therapist,” he told me softly. “In the meantime, it’s important for you to try to just breathe and be as relaxed as possible. Let me deal with Jessie and everything else.”
I nodded, sniffling, clutching him tighter. “I know I was a bitch about it earlier, and I’m still pissed, but thank you for what you and Jessie did,” I told him quietly.
Lincoln leaned down and softly kissed me. “I will always do my damnest to make sure you’re happy and taken care of, baby. Don’t ever doubt that.”
