“You. Hid. It. From. Me,” I grit out in a barely audible voice.

“I did?” he says incredulously, taking a few steps in my direction as Ace continues to cry, feeding off the room’s atmosphere. “I told you I was going to look into it. The email is sitting on the fucking computer clear as goddamn day. If I was hiding it from you, don’t you think I would have deleted it? Or better yet, tell CJ to send it to my work email so you wouldn’t see it? I was just getting our names in the system, trying to show interest in Z to maybe fuck with the social worker and have him stop the process. Get a grip, Ry—”

“Don’t you dare say that to me,” I scream, hysteria unhinging at the simple statement because I don’t want to see the truth in it. Can’t. “Don’t you waltz in here like you have a fucking clue what’s going on and treat me like I’m your goddamn nanny.”

He startles his head from the whiplash in my change of topic. “What in the fuck are you talking about? I’ve told you twenty fucking times to let me help and you won’t. It’s like you’re on some goddamn mission to prove you’re supermom. Last I checked this isn’t a competition, so stop making it one. Nanny? Jesus Christ, have you lost your mind?” He looks at me, chest heaving, head shaking, like he doesn’t even know me and the sad thing is, I don’t even know me right now.

I despise this woman who picked a fight with her husband because she’s scared and confused and not sure what is going on inside her. However, I can’t seem to stop for the life of me. We stand ten feet apart but there is nothing but animosity vibrating in the air between us.

There’s so much I want to say to him. So many things I need to try to explain and yet I can’t find the words, and Ace’s constant crying is like rubbing gravel in an open wound that just seems to agitate me more.

Colton closes the distance between us, his eyes searching my face for answers I can’t give him. “When you want to fight about something worth fighting about, Rylee, you know where to find me.” His eyes dare me to come back at him, press those buttons of his he wants me to push. When I don’t say a word, he holds a crying Ace out for me to take. “Until then, your son is hungry and has been for who knows how long before I walked in the fucking door.”

I look down at Ace and then back to Colton as my body freezes and words fall out of my mouth I can’t even believe I’m saying. “Feed him yourself.”

No. I don’t mean that.

“What?” Confusion like I’ve never seen before blankets his face.

Help me snap out of this, Colton. Please help me.

“Feed him formula.” My voice doesn’t even sound like my own.

Something’s wrong with me. Can’t you see it?

“Rylee . . .” Ace’s cries escalate as Colton holds him in that space suspended between the two of us. I know Ace can smell the milk on me, know he’s hungry, but that goddamn veil of listlessness falls like a lead curtain around me to the point that it’s taking everything I have not to turn and run. And at the same time to not fight to the death on this single point I am still shocked I’m even fighting over.

Take my shoulders and shake me. Tell me to snap out of this funk.

My thoughts, my breath, my soul all feel like they are being suffocated to the point that the room starts to spin and my body starts to feel like I’ve stepped into an oven. The air is hot, thick as I suck it in, making it hard to breathe and my head to be fuzzy.

He eyes me, frantic flickers from Ace to me as he tries to figure out what’s going on. He’s scared. Worried. Freaked.

I am too.

“I thought you wanted to only nurse for the first two months, that—”

“I’m not producing milk,” I lie, as I struggle to wade through this viscous veil of darkness that feels like it’s taking hold of me, seeping from my feet up my legs.

No. No. No. Fight, Rylee. Fight its pull on you.

“Quit lying to me.”

“I’m not lying.” He points to my shirt. I look down to see two wet patches staining my red shirt dark where my breasts have leaked through my nursing pads from Ace’s continual crying.

This is not you. Ace. Think of Ace. He needs you.

My mind is utterly exhausted and depleted from this civil war inside me that continues to rage regardless of whether I want to step on the battlefield or not.

“Give him to me,” I sob. Suddenly, the tears come harder than before as I reach out to take Ace. And the thing that affects me even more than my own thoughts is the look on Colton’s face and the slight way he pulls Ace back, searching my eyes to make sure I’m okay, before handing him over to me.

I turn my back to him and sit down on the couch, grabbing my nursing pillow and within seconds Ace is latching on, greedy hands kneading, and little mouth frantic for food. My sobs continue uncontrollably, but I refuse to look up and meet Colton’s eyes. I can’t. I need to do my job. Be the best mom I can be to Ace while fighting this invisible anchor slowly weighing me down and pulling me under.

“Rylee?” Colton says calmly, restraint audible in his even tone as he tries to figure out what in the hell just happened.

It takes me a second to stop crying long enough to be able to speak. “Can you please run to the store and get some formula. I just really need formula.” My voice is so quiet I’m surprised he hears it. But I need him to go so I can have a moment to pull myself together so he doesn’t think I’m losing it, although I really feel like I am.

“Talk to me, please.”

“I’m fine. Everything’s fine. I just have a little case of the baby blues and what would really help me is if you went to the store right now and got me some formula so when I feel like this you can help me by feeding Ace.” I try to gain back my business-as-usual attitude with slow and measured words asking for help the only way I’m capable of right now.

Please just go and give me a few minutes to have this breakdown so when you come back I’m better.

I can sense his hesitation to leave by the way he starts to move and stops a couple times before blowing out a loud sigh. “Are you sure that—?”

“Please, Colton. I’ll be right here feeding Ace the ten minutes you’re gone.”

“Okay. I’ll hurry.” And the fact he hesitates again is almost too much for me to bear. The tears burn my throat again.

But he goes and the minute he’s gone, I welcome the unsteady silence that wraps itself around me like a warm blanket fresh out of the dryer. I want to snuggle in it and pull it over my head until I can’t see or think or feel. Lose myself to the nothingness around me.

I look down at Ace and hate myself immediately. I have this beautiful, healthy baby I know I love very much, but I can’t seem to muster up that feeling when I look at him. This love is the most natural of instincts, the most simplest and complex form of love—from mother to child—and yet somehow something is so broken in me. When I look at him, all I feel is the ghost of it, instead of that all-encompassing rush I felt just days ago.

And knowing it and losing it is incomparably worse than never knowing it at all.

“Now that you have him, could you imagine if you lost him?” Eddie’s taunt flickers through my mind. It haunts me. Make me question myself.

He did this to you, Rylee. He’s responsible.

How is that possible? He can’t be the cause of this.

It has to be me. Something has to be wrong with me.

My mom told me most new moms would drive on sidewalks to get home to their newborn. What does that say about me if I just want to drive the other way?

All I want is that connection to be back. For it to not feel so damn forced, because that’s exactly how I feel right now, sitting in this empty house. I’m nursing him because he needs to be fed, not because I want to. I’m just going through the motions. I’m watching my life from behind a two-way mirror, and no one knows I’m hiding there.

I close my eyes, a contradiction in all ways, and try to quiet my head. And the minute I feel relaxed for the first time in what feels like forever, I’m scrambling up as fast as I can, Ace still latched on, and running for the office. I grab my phone and frantically dial Colton as that black veil of doom and gloom slips over my sanity.

Ring.

Images of Colton lying dead on the side of the road somewhere fill my head. Car smashed. Thrown from the car because he was in such a rush to help me he forgot to put his seatbelt on.

Ring.

Colton lying shot dead on the floor of the local minimart just up the road where he walked in and interrupted a robbery in progress.

Ring.

Tears are burning. My mind like a horror slide show telling me that Colton isn’t coming home again. Panic claws at my throat, claustrophobia in wide-open space.

Ring.

“Pick up the phone. Pick up the phone!” I scream into the receiver, hysteria taking over as I move back into the family room, one hand still cradling Ace, the other on the phone.

Beep. Colton’s voice fills the line as his voicemail begins.

No. Please no.

I pace the floor, nerves colliding with anxiety, panic crashing into fear. Working myself into a frenzy as I wait for the knock on the door from the police telling me something has happened to Colton.

The problem this time though is I can’t step outside the emotions holding my thoughts hostage and realize I’m losing my mind like I was able to a few days ago. No, this time I’m in such a state of agitation that when Colton opens the door from the garage into the house I almost tackle him with Ace in my arms. “Oh my God, you’re okay.” I sob, wrapping my free arm around him, needing to feel the heat of his body against mine so I can believe it’s true.