A Little Too Much (Shawn Mendes)

Brittany's POV

My first time in a crisis center, I was around 7 or 8 years old when I burned down an abandoned house because I was tired of seeing it.

It was ugly, crumbling, and sometimes you could hear people screaming from inside.

We'd just learned how to start a fire in girl scouts, and they talked to us about fire safety.

Then a girl who grew up somewhere else asked about controlled burning and how it was done to prevent bigger disasters later.

And when I got home and saw that the house was just there, begging to be demolished, I figured it needed to go.

So, I went into our garage and took Dad's old gas can that he used for the mower, and I walked down the block to the house and went inside.

I poured gas in every room, making a straight line all the way to the door, then I used Mom's lighter from the secret cigarettes that she kept in her closet and set fire to the gas.

My mistake was not running away from the house after, all because I wanted to make sure that it burned to the ground.

At first, the smoke didn't get anyone's attention, but then there was a scream inside the house.

Which I thought was weird because I hadn't seen anyone, but then...I hadn't checked the basement.

Basements scared me, so I ignored them, but apparently, someone was sleeping down there, and they were trapped.

Sirens came next, and then the crowd started.

I held onto Dad's gas can because it was an heirloom from his dad, and the lighter was Mom's, so I didn't let that go either.

My parents figured out it was me at the same time that a firefighter did.

After that, everything went super fast and super slow.

The firefighters got the person out in time and put out the fire before the house could be burned to ashes.

I remember screaming at the top of my lungs because it was still there when I got out of the crisis center three months later.

The second time I went to the crisis center, I was 13, because I got so mad that I shoved my uncle down the stairs, and he snapped his back in two places.

He didn't die, but he should have.

I didn't like the way he was looking at my sister.

Of course, he wouldn't touch me because I was the family looney tunes.

But Court was sweet and trusting.

He kept trying to get her alone, and I caught him going towards her room when she'd just gotten out of the bath.

So, I pushed him, and I'd do it again.

But he denied it.

And Court didn't know what the heck was going on because she was just a little kid.

It was my word against his, and no one had ever heard of him doing something like that.

Mom was the only one that believed me, but Dad wasn't convinced.

So, they sent me away; this time, they sent me away for six months because I was older.

The family was split on whether I was safe to be around, and my uncle was treated like a fucking saint.

Dad didn't want to leave his family, but Mom put her foot down.

She'd grown up in Lima, Ohio, and while her family was all dead, she thought it would be good to move away.

It would be good for us to have a fresh start.

While I was in crisis, they moved to Lima, and I went straight there to a new place, with a new drug that made me docile.

Dumb.

Stupid.

But she'd seen through all of that.

Santana had taken one look at me and decided that fate had laid a hand.

She decided that we would be best friends, and I had never had one of those, so I agreed.

And thus began the obsession with keeping her as my own because, in all of my life, no one had loved me as much as she did.

My parents came close, but they still doubted me.

Even if they'd moved their lives to Lima, which they said was for me, but I think it was more to keep our family safe.

And to rehab their reputations.

We never talked about my past after I was medicated beyond all recognition.

It was only with Santana and sometimes Quinn that I seemed to get past the fog of pills to become more like myself.

So I did what they did and tried to be the most perfect at it.

I kissed every guy in the school because they said that's what popular girls did.

And I had never been that.

We all slept with Puck in the same year; later, I'd find out that for Ana, it was to wash away Marco; for Quinn is was drunken and barely consensual, and for me, it was so that I wouldn't feel left out.

After Quinn got pregnant, though, I decided I'd stick to kissing or blow jobs because getting pregnant seemed like a bad idea.

People like me with broken brains shouldn't be parents.

But even with that, Santana had looked past my fears and misconceptions and insisted that I'd be the best Mama ever.

So I tried to be that.

And every day, that's what I did.

Even when Izzy bit me, punched me, and kicked me because I wasn't her, I worked hard to be the BEST.

But then I started to crack apart because I didn't know who I was anymore.

I'd lost control of being the best at the one thing that I did better than anyone.

Dancing.

And that small ripple became a tidal wave, and I failed at being a good Mama when I hurt Santana in front of Izzy.

She'd done worse with the drugs in Elmo...but that didn't matter to him.

He still loved her, but I was pretty sure that unconditional love didn't carry over to me.

Because it never did with anyone, not even Mom after a while.

No one ever took my side unconditionally except Santana...until she looked me in the eyes and told me that she'd never planned to forgive me.

And I didn't really believe her because I knew it wasn't possible for her, just like it wasn't possible for me to never forgive her, but I knew the hurt behind her words.

I had lost her trust.

That's what she meant.

I told Mom and Dad that, but they were sure that she was going to divorce me.

And that I had messed up, but I knew Santana Lopez better than anyone in the world.

She was mine, and I was hers. We were in the same book but never quite on the same page because I read slower.

We needed to get to the same place in our fairytale, but it took me being level.

This was on me; I had stopped taking my pills.

I had gotten jealous.

And I had stopped therapy and lied to her.

So I was to blame for this, but she hadn't seen me.

At some point, she'd stopped seeing me for me.

She started flinching.

And looking like she didn't want me.

Not even after the coma did she fully seem like she was done with me.

But things changed when she spent that time getting sober for good.

Having the kids taken and needing to prove that she deserved to have them made her wake up.

My mistake was treating her like she was the same old Santana when she'd proved that she changed.

I hadn't changed my expectations of her, and that was my ultimate downfall.

That night, when my parents had taken me home, I sat in my bedroom clutching Ana's pillow to my chest, inhaling her scent.

My mind kept going over all the stupid shit I'd done, and then that look.

It haunted me.

She was better off without me, and so were the kids.

But I stand by the fact that I did NOT try to kill myself.

I'd just cut too deep.

Trying to get the poison out was tricky because it involved turning the anger and hurt that I wanted to dish out to the world and hurting myself instead.

No one got it.

I loved myself.

My body moved like water through beats and melodies.

I was magic, which Court always used to say, and I carried that belief with me.

Always.

Then when Ana told me that I was special and a genius.

I let that carry me, and then Court died, taking some of my magic with her. I hadn't realized that my magic came from being her sister and protecting her.

And I didn't realize how special I was until Santana told me she'd never forgive me.

My head got mixed up, and I started feeling woozy, so I went to my Mom because she always knew my heart.

"I need help." I said. "Please make them fix me for good. Please?"

My parents took me to the hospital, and then I was on suicide watch...but before that, I had told them I needed to be locked away.

I needed to be locked away for however long it took for me to change like Santana had so that we could be on the same page and raise our lady babies.

And all of them looked at me like I was crazy stupid, except Mom.

She was my hero when she wanted to be.

Maybe because it was almost Christmas, there wasn't any doubt in her eyes.

She believed me.

I asked her to make sure my wife and kids were okay.

And she promised that she would.

But then I asked her to not come back...to leave me to fight my own demons, and she tried to say no.

Dad, though, agreed.

This was my battle to fight.

I just needed them to have my back while I did this on my own.

When I was in high school, free form dancing was my favorite because there were no rules.

My life to that point had been full of too many restrictions. The only time I was allowed to be myself was with Santana and when I danced.

I convinced myself that the only way to dance was freely, with no structure.

So choreographing for a show quickly went from exciting to boring.

Especially when Frankie came on board and had the final say on moves that I had created.

The longer I trained and danced the same steps, the more I dreaded dancing.

So when UCLA came calling, around the same time that I was getting fed up with New York and all the things it had done to ruin the woman I loved, and I was told that I could dance however I wanted (which turned out to be a lie), I pounced.

I had no clue that they weren't telling the truth, but Ana would have known.

She would have asked all the right questions, but she was trusting me.

In her life, trusting others was hard, but she'd been forced to do it over and over.

And if I had told her that I needed her to step in, to make sure I wasn't getting screwed, she would have, but I didn't.

I stupidly thought I had it all under control, and she didn't need to worry

All because I liked her being able to rely on me.

Now that I was older, I realized that the structured dance of Broadway was better for me.

It gave me a constant.

Stability.

All I had ever wanted was for things to be level and no one to ever look at me sideways because they thought I'd lash out.

But when I started to get it, I ran.

I was afraid that the stillness would make me crazy.

Stupid me, I was already crazy.

The stillness and stability were making me sane.

It took being in a crisis center on Christmas to open my eyes.

Throughout the day, I thought of the kids opening our presents.

And the excitement that Ana would get when she saw her gift from me.

Even if she was mad, my girl could never resist diamonds.

I'd cleared out my savings to make sure our holiday was the best one yet, and then in one drunken, brain-muddled moment, I had thrown it all away.

She'd been fucking with me all day, and I wanted to get her back.

Her going off with Quinn while everyone was busy was enough to trigger me.

But she wasn't who she once was, and neither was Quinn.

My brain didn't understand that two plus two was no longer six; it was finally four.

They had both finally gotten to a point in their lives that dreams were made of, and I didn't see that.

I couldn't see that.

Stupid.

Stupid.

The look in her eyes was haunting me. I lost control of myself and got jealous of her running off to be alone with Quinn, just like she'd run off during Dani's birthday to be alone with Angie.

I could feel her pulling away from me, and who could blame her.

My brain was broken.

Ripped up.

Angry.

Everything that I did was the wrong thing, and I knew it, but I couldn't seem to stop myself.

Getting back on the pills was supposed to fix everything, but it wasn't.

I still got fired.

Academic probation was still this black, icky fog around my whole head.

Then there was punishing her, Dad had warned me about doing the punishment stuff with Ana because of my history, but I thought I knew better.

I thought I had my anger under control because it was so easy to have my way with her.

Until spanking her as a joke that day, made her go red.

I hadn't thought of her body being wet when I did it, and I didn't realize that drinking would make me hit her too hard.

But I tried to make it better.

I got on my knees and sucked her dry before making love to her for hours, but it still wasn't enough.

She was still going to do a show, which terrified me because I knew she'd go on more shows and be away longer once people saw how amazing she was.

I loved my little buddy, so much but I didn't want to see him break again over Ana not being around.

He'd gotten violent, like me, and it scared me.

Even if he wasn't my blood, he was still being raised by me. What if my violence had rubbed off on him?

And Dani, I could see it in her eyes. Every single time Ana held Izzy instead of her, she seemed sadder.

More closed off, just like Ana.

That's not what I wanted; she had stopped being that bubbly baby that she'd always been.

Seeing her close off made me ache.

We were screwing up these two innocent souls, over and over, but I was always sure that when Ana fell, at least they had me.

Until that day, when I lost control and tried to take some back, only I was hurting her in front of Izzy.

Her eyes burned into mine, and she said those words.

"I'll never forgive you for this."

Over and over, I could hear it more than anything else.

I went home to drink the sound of her words away, but they wouldn't.

Then I tried to cut them out; it'd been so long since I'd done it, but it distracted me enough.

Until Mom started screaming because I'd gone too far.

Suicide watch was a waste because I didn't want to die.

All I wanted was to carve out the parts of me that were no good.

The parts that made me hurt my wife.

But it didn't work.

I didn't work.

And she was in her right to divorce me.

It's what I probably should have done when she'd hurt Izzy, but I knew she wasn't herself.

She loved our kids more than her own life.

Her parents had sucked, so she was winging it.

I knew that and wanted to stay with her because we were always better together.

But she'd had the strength to do what I never had the guts to do.

So, I went through my time in crisis, expecting to be served divorce papers.

And in my last few days, when I got the visitor pass, I was sure it was the beginning of the end.

Especially when I walked into the visitation room to see three sets of eyes that reminded me of Ana's.

Sandra and Mari stood up when I entered, both with tight smiles on their faces, while Celia looked away from me and began to pick dried paint off her hands.

I looked back to the door, hoping that someone was close enough to hear me scream if they decided to jump me.

But then Sandra came over to me and opened her arms.

"Can I hug you?"

I stared at her like she'd lost her mind, but she had the same genuine look in her eyes that my wife got when she was trying to be better than everyone else.

"Sure." I stepped into her hug and only relaxed when I smelled the faint scent of my wife on her shirt.

Mari stepped close and hugged me; there was no fear there with her.

Of the sisters, we'd been the most formal, but also, she'd been the least judgmental.

For her, my anger was an illness, and she seemed to understand what made me tick better than I did.

"How are they treating you? I used to work at this hospital; I can make some calls if they step out of line." She raised her eyebrow, and I saw Ana in her features.

I smiled and shook my head. "They are nicer than the doctors in Chicago."

"Good. Feel free to throw around my name if they get funny."

"Okay...I will." She nodded and then sat, seeming satisfied that I wouldn't let myself be treated like crap.

And it was the first inkling that this was no visit to kick my ass.

Were they worried about me?

Had Ana put them up to this?

The timing of them showing up only after two weeks in crisis wasn't lost on me.

I was more leveled out by that point.

But it was January...Sandra had six kids; Mari and Celia had newborns in New York. Why were they in L.A. talking to me when they had lives to get back to?

Sandra sat next to Celia and nudged her side, but she didn't look up when she spoke.

"Quinn was telling Santana that she's expecting. I had wanted to tell everyone that night, but Q insisted that Santana needed to know first. That's all it was." She looked up at me, her eyes bloodshot, and my heart dropped.

"Is she...is the baby okay?" My voice came out so small. "I'm...I'm so sorry for what I did, Ceily."

"Q stumbled but threw herself towards the bed. She's okay, and the baby is fine...no thanks to you." Her voice was cold, and I think maybe the polite thing to do would have been to stay quiet or apologize again, but that's not what I did.

"You're right. Quinn has been amazing to the kids and me; she's stood by us since the beginning. When I see her, I will make sure to apologize."

I had spent time with Celia; she didn't like small talk or empty promises; she liked concrete statements, so that's what I'd given her.

And it worked.

She sat up then, leaning forward so that her elbows rested on her knees as she looked at me still.

"My sister doesn't know we're here. We were told to back off, but we couldn't. You are our sister, and we needed to make sure that you were okay for ourselves." Celia said, then she sighed. "Also, my wife needed to make sure that you knew what was happening in that room; it's been keeping her up at night."

"Really?"

"Are you more surprised about us wanting to be here or Quinn being a worrywart?"

"She's always worried; I'm surprised you see me as a sister, even after I hurt Santana."

"I knocked out Brenda's two front teeth when we were seven because she borrowed my bike." Mari said, and we all looked at her like she was nuts. "What? I'm simply saying that we all do things out of anger, and with your neurodivergency, mixed with your chemical imbalance, your restraint that night was admirable."

"Mari put the shovel down." Celia said and then looked back at me. "I don't know about your restraint; all I know is that Ana is insistent that her bruises looked worse than they were. Even in anger, she's defended you and threatened all of us that if we talked shit or attacked you, that she'd bring our worlds crashing down."

Sandra laughed at that, "Yes, she was her usual dramatic self within a matter of hours."

"So you still had Noche Buena and Christmas breakfast?" I felt relieved that my actions hadn't ruined the family's holiday.

"Yup. The kids forgot about the chaos and freaked out at their awesome gifts."

"Even Izzy?" Their smiles vanished.

Sandra looked away from me, and Mari was twirling her wedding ring.

I looked to Celia, and she nodded slowly.

"He took longer than the rest of the kids and kept asking for you. Ana distracted him with a bunch of gifts, and he finally fell in with the rest of the kids."

"What about now?"

"From what Ana says, the kids are fine. She's on tour; last I heard, she was in Atlanta."

"She went?" I expected the anger, but it didn't come. They seemed to be waiting for it too, but I didn't have anything. "I'm happy for her...does that mean she has the kids?"

"Yes, she took Angie with her." They waited again for a reaction but, I had time to reflect; Angie wasn't Ana's type.

She liked blondes.

Ari. Me. Quinn. And even Ian.

Blonde. Blonde. Blonde. and Blonde.

Angie was dark and stormy like Ana.

Definitely not her type; I'd gotten all bent out of shape over nothing.

Anyone else that she didn't take seriously wasn't a natural blonde, like Sugar or Marco.

I forgot who my wife was.

As much as I felt like she'd stopped seeing me, I had also stopped seeing her.

Were we even reading the same book?

"Good, she's amazing with them."

"We just wanted you to know that you are still our sister. You still have our love and support; even if you two end up apart, you won't lose your village." Mari said.

"Exactly, we fucked up the last time that you hurt our sister. We cut you off, and one of us had to be stopped from killing you." Sandra and Mari both looked at Celia, who shrugged, then Sandra looked back at me. She reached out and took my hand, giving it a little squeeze before continuing. "This time around, we want to extend to you the same level of support that we give each other because you will always be our sister."

I looked at Celia, and she rolled her eyes. "You know better than to expect me to get all Ra-Ra. We love you. End of story. Take your fucking meds forever, and be the person that we all love...we don't like seeing you like this. So don't make us have to do this again. Okay?"

Talking like this made her uncomfortable, so I jumped up and pulled her to her feet. "Hug?"

"If we must." Celia grumbled, reminding me of the grumbly part of my wife. She still hugged me, though, really tight before kissing my cheek and pulling away. "Knock Q over again, and I'm going to trip you."

"Noted."

"I guess I should hug you for Q, too, since she'll ask." Then she hugged me back, and I could tell it was more because she enjoyed being hugged more than she let on.

Like an annoyed cat that loved the attention but hated to be touched.

My favorite.

The sisters...my sisters...I guess, stayed with me until dinner time, updating me on everything I'd missed, even sharing pictures.

I noticed Ana standing stiffly to the side in all of them, with a smirk on her face, but her eyes looked sad.

Even when she was with the kids and should have been laughing, but I could tell her spirit wasn't in it.

Maybe because she was wearing a hoodie in all the pictures instead of the cute outfits she'd planned for the week.

Her arms must have been bruised by me.

I kept trying to reach for my sadness or anger, but I kept coming back with a feeling of resolve each time.

Even if she never spoke to me again, I knew that I had to be better for myself.

For so long, my parents had done everything they could to keep me from becoming the villain that my family had made me out to be.

And for the most part, they'd succeeded, but now that I was an adult, I needed to do that for myself.

I had a family of my own that needed me, and I wanted them to trust that I would always take care of them.

So, when the sisters left...my sisters, I got down on my knees like I had seen my wife do a million times, and I prayed without ceasing.

That's what Ana called it.

Prostrating yourself...supplicating yourself before God, and the universe...humbling yourself, and maybe because she was more submissive than I was, it came easily. Still, for me, it had always been difficult.

But after all that I'd been through, doing it was easier because I was too tired to try to control things.

I was over everything because it hadn't done me any good.

All I wanted was to get better, no matter what it took.

That was my mantra in the days leading up to my release.

I spent 18 days in the crisis center, doing all the work I had been putting off since I got to L.A.

Ana had found me a new therapist when we came to L.A., who I saw one time and never again.

When she didn't like her therapist, she'd arranged to still talk to Amy, and I had realized when she told me that I hadn't even considered that an option.

So much for being a genius.

But I realized I had to stop that, thinking I was stupid just because something didn't make sense to me.

Apparently, I do that a lot, according to my newest therapist, who Mari had recommended after I called her the day after her visit to tell her that I hated the guy there.

Within an hour, there was a really cool guy who used to be a dancer that I clicked with right away.

He told me that finding a therapist that you click with is not only a journey but also, ultimately, a part of your success.

Which is why Ana clung to Amy.

"I like you." I remember telling him after he told me that he'd like to spend our second session in the activity room, working through a routine of my choosing. I sweat through my favorite number from the show, and then I told him how I had left it because I was bored.

We talked through all of my fears, and his biggest takeaway in just three sessions was that I have a habit of downing myself before other people can.

Then he asked me if my wife did that...or if it had come from something deeper.

And my heart got warmer as I thought of those dark chocolate eyes looking up at me with pride. "No, my wife is one of the only people who see me for who I am no matter how I'm acting...she has more faith in me than anyone. I want to have the same amount of faith in her, but it's hard."

"Show me the hardest dance move that you know." He said, and I didn't think; I just moved, and he watched me in silence until I was finished. "How long did it take you to learn that move to perfection?"

"Four years."

"Why?"

"Because it's hard, obviously."

"But you kept working at it even though it was hard?"

"Yes...oh...I see what you're doing. I gave it my all even when I wanted to quit. That's how my faith in her should be, right?"

"Precisely."

"Yeah, I really like you."

I expected my parents to pick me up, or maybe one of the sisters.

Of anyone who I thought would be waiting for me at reception, I didn't think it would be Ana.

But there she was, with bleached blonde hair, looking stylish and smiling brightly at me.

"Hey, Britt Britt." She said cheerfully...I stopped short and blinked hard.

This was not how I thought she'd be...but there she was.

"You're here?"

"Duh, silly, where else would I be?"

"Anywhere else."

She held out her hand until I slid mine into hers, and then she gave it a squeeze.

"For better or worse, Britt. You asked me to honor my vows, and I promised you that I would."

"Even after...you know."

"Yes, B, even after you know." She winked at me and gave me a little tug until I fell into step with her.

Her heels clicked on the tile of the hallways as we made our way to the parking garage.

Forever, I drove us around; it was my thing which was why I took it personally when she wouldn't let me drive to Mari's.

But I hadn't communicated that to her; I knew better now because when she pulled open the passenger door for me, I hesitated.

And like she always had, she looked at me and gave a soft smile.

"I know that you love driving me around; believe me, you've saved me a lot of shoe creases over the years, but I wanted to take you somewhere. It's a surprise, so just this once, do you mind if I take the wheel?"

"Can I hug you?" I asked, feeling so choked up because she knew, which means that day, she was just reacting to my craziness. Usually, I can see when she's pushing me because she just wants me to let out my irritation so we can get back to silliness, but that day I had been too far gone.

This was progress.

"Please?" She said as she stepped into my open arms.

I buried my face against her hair, frowning when the smell of dye messed up the normal smell goods of her hair.

"Thank you for explaining." I said as I let her hug strengthen me. "I'm going to work on being better about asking you to explain when I don't understand."

She nodded against my shoulder and took a shuddering breath.

"Me too."

I sat anxiously in the passenger seat while Ana took us out of L.A. and onto the highway headed north.

"Can I ask where we are going?"

"Sure." She had a devious look on her face.

"Are you going to tell me if I ask?"

"Probably not."

"Will I like it?"

She sighed, gripping the steering wheel; I couldn't take my eyes off of how different she looked.

Acrylic nails, blonde hair, and falsies.

It was like teenage Santana done over by Hollywood.

Of course, she looked good, but I had started to like the more laid-back version of her.

But I think I needed to see her like this because this was her without my input.

For a while, I had been squashing down her sexiness, feeling jealous of the looks that she would get.

"I hope so."

I touched her bare leg, and she didn't flinch like I thought she would.

"You're beautiful." I no longer focused on our destination because I was just so in love with watching her. "I forgot how much I liked when you got all cute like this."

"Really?" She gave me a quick glance before focusing on the road again; her eyes had looked almost panicked. "But...before, you didn't even want me to wear my normal dresses."

"I was jealous, but I have faith in you, and I trust you."

"Fuck." She whispered, and then she signaled and cut across three lanes until she was parked on the shoulder.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she put her head back on the headrest.

"Please don't cry...I didn't mean to make you upset, Ana...I just...I'm sorry?" I was so unsure of what to say to her.

She pulled down her rearview and methodically wiped her tears before her mascara could run.

"You don't hate me?" She finally said, her eyes meeting mine. She looked tortured, and I knew that I put that feeling in her.

I took her damp hand and brought it to my lips.

"I could never hate you. I want you to be happy, and if changing your look makes you happy, I am happy. I love you, in all forms."

"Damn it, Britt...I didn't think I'd cry today." She wiped at more tears, her beautiful bottom lip trapped between her teeth before she let it go. Even though her eyes held pain, I never wanted her to stop looking at me.

Ever.

"You're beautiful...and I know you have a makeup bag tucked away to fix your face. I just needed to tell you that I love you. I needed you to know that I love you. Before, I was so overwhelmed with everything, and it's not an excuse...I was overwhelmed and took it out on you. I see you, okay...I never want to stop seeing you, ever again."

"I guess you got what you wanted." She said, taking off her seatbelt.

"Huh?"

"You need to drive; I can't go anywhere looking like this. Switch with me...the address is in the GPS...just follow it."

While I adjusted the driver seat, Ana took off her shoes and tossed them in the backseat before pulling out her makeup bag.

She got right to work, but I didn't move the car.

"Are we going to a place where there are other people?" Her hand froze as she pumped her mascara.

"Yes."

"Do you mind if we stop someplace to talk before we get there?"

"That was my original plan, but...I don't know; I thought you might want to see the kids first."

"Of course I want to see them, but this is the first time that we have been near each other since that day...I need to talk to you alone."

"You're right, of course. What kind of alone do you want, a diner or like a hotel room?"

It felt like a trick question, or maybe a test, but diners had people in them, and I wanted just her.

"A hotel." I said and waited for her to call me out on my shit, but she just nodded and pulled out her phone.

I put the car in drive and stayed in the left lane as she searched for a place.

Five minutes later, she told me to pull off on the next exit.

She'd gotten us a hotel that looked way too fancy for us to just have a talk, but I wasn't going to judge her.

My wife liked being fancy, and she could afford to be that way; I needed to stop trying to change that.

I was at the point where at least she's sober was the bar.

Because at some point, that was all I wanted from her, nothing more, and she was delivering.

She checked us in and then talked her way into an upgrade to the penthouse.

While we rode up to the top floor, she fidgeted beside me as she looked at her phone screen.

"I know you're brave and strong, but if this is too much for you. If being alone isn't something you're ready for, you need to tell me...please?"

She nodded, and then the elevator opened up into this giant suite that had to take up the whole top floor of the hotel.

"Holy shit, this is awesome. The concierge said it has 360 views...I think it has enough space for us."

"Enough space?"

She pulled my hand and took us to the closest window.

The view was breathtaking.

"Everything since that day has terrified me, Britt. I felt personally responsible for breaking you, and in some ways, I was valid in feeling that way. I cheated on you; even if it was just for drugs, I still did it twice. I lied to you multiple times, and don't even get me started on the ways that I have failed you as a co-parent. The problem was that I didn't draw a line. Not everything was on me, but I carried it like it was."

"You shouldn't have, though." I sat on the couch and looked up at her, back in her heels, rocking back and forth. "You're going to ruin those shoes." I reminded her, and she kicked them off and then stepped between my knees, her fingers tracing my face. "I am proud of you staying sober despite me."

"I...I was close a few times; cocaine is everywhere in L.A. I mean, EVERYWHERE, and I'm only richer than when I first started in New York. I was terrified every time I left that house that I would fuck up. When we started to fall apart, I would take the edge off with a drink...but just one. When that started to feel like every day, I knew that I needed to leave. So I did."

"In October?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry."

She didn't respond to that; she just traced my lips with her thumbs before continuing. "Then, you kept pushing...and I started to feel like I should go do what you were accusing me of. I should go fuck the world, but I couldn't. I'm not that person anymore. Being vindictive... just doesn't work for me. I am past it all, and I want you to be too."

"I want to be."

"Did you not before?"

"I stopped seeing you, Ana. You came out of rehab a different person, but I don't think I realized that, not really."

"But I am."

"I know."

"You need to let out whatever it is...all the things that you're holding, please tell me so I can work on them. Stop holding things, please?"

I held her wrists and said what I should have said a long time ago.

"Spanking you and being in control like that is too much for me. My brain doesn't know how to draw a line. I...I thought I could do it for you, but it's not...something I can do. If you need to find a dominatrix...or go back to Quinn, I'll try to accept that."

She cackled and shook her head.

"Actually, B...I think I'm past that too. I was moving towards that realization, and then you hit me in that shower, and I knew that I couldn't do that anymore. It brings up a me that doesn't exist anymore. Dr. Cray beat that out of me, and I tried to get it back, to give you that part of me because I thought it was who I was."

"But you changed."

She nodded, "I changed."

I kissed her hands and then moved mine to her thighs, rubbing up and down her bare skin, enjoying the way her skin raised.

"I don't ever want you to be afraid of me again. I just want to love you. That's it."

"And that's all I want."

I stood up and pulled her tightly against me. "I missed you."

"Be honest, B; how much do you hate my hair."

I laughed and kissed her head.

"I'm not into blondes...it feels like incest, but you are gorgeous, so if you like it, then I like it."

"Good, because I think I look hot."

"Baby, you would look hot in a garbage bag with neon blue hair."

"Hmmm." She said, and I took her face in my hands.

"Don't you dare." I growled a bit, but I was grinning, and she shivered before closing the gap between us and kissing me.

"No?"

"I mean if you want, but be prepared for me to do something to match you." I said, winking at her.

She squinted her eyes, "Like what?"

"I was thinking a buzz cut...or maybe losing my abs that you love so much?"

"Don't you dare! I like to fuck myself on those abs, Britt."

"So you can dye your hair like a box of crayons, but I can't get fat?"

"Exactly."

"I guess I can live with that."

A/N: A much needed conversation is coming but I needed it to have more room than a paragraph at the end. Hope you are doing well homies. Ciao! Thanks for rocking with me! :) -NR