ECSTASY

by KV Rose

  I shake my head, crossing my arms over my chest. I need to get back to Alex’s room. I need to let this shit go.

  I take another step, but then Eli says, so softly I almost don’t hear it over the creak of the floor and the pounding of my own heart, “Wait.”

  I turn to face him. I watch him grab a glass of water from his nightstand, beside a model car, a flash of white in the dark room.

  He closes the space between us and hands me the water. I just stare at it for a moment, and he says, “MDMA is dehydrating. It also disturbs sleep, if you do too much of it.” He sounds like he’s memorized a PSA pamphlet or something. “It can make you sleepwalk.”

  I glare up at him, still not taking the water. Dread tightens my stomach again like a closed fist squeezing my guts. “Are you suggesting that I have a problem?”

  From the light of his laptop screen, I see the corner of his mouth curve up into a lopsided smile. “We both know you have a problem. I’m just giving you information.”

  I glare up at him a moment longer then turn on my heel, leaving him and his stupid fucking water.

  25

  Alex

  I pick up the bottle by the neck, slam it against the sliding glass door. It shatters into a thousand pieces, the sound soothing my rage, splintering the quiet of the morning.

  There are people passed out in my living room, some idiot naked and drunk on a pool chair. Zara is still in bed and I want all these people out of my fucking house. All of them except her.

  Fuck.

  I run my hands through my hair and hear someone padding down the hall from the living room. I whirl around, glaring at a guy I vaguely recognize as someone on the fucking wrestling team.

  His eyes go wide as he stares at the shattered vodka bottle on the floor.

  He scrubs his hand over his face, blinking, as if he thinks he might still be fucking drunk or still asleep.

  Slowly, his eyes slide to my face.

  “You okay, man?” he asks me cautiously, taking a small step back.

  I glare at him in answer.

  I see him swallow. He doesn’t have a shirt on, his jeans unbuttoned. All I can think about is my fucking father. His jeans shoved down to his ankles while he plowed into that woman in the pool house.

  I was fucking fifteen.

  I’m twenty-one now and he still hasn’t fucking stopped.

  I close my eyes, hands still fisted in my hair, willing it to stop. The memory. The anger. The hatred. The distance between us now.

  What he did to my mother.

  “Hey, Alex, you need anything—”

  My eyes snap open. “Get out of my fucking house.”

  The guy nods. Backs away slowly. “Are you sure you don’t need—”

  “Get. Out!” I point to the door at his back, in case he doesn’t fucking know where it is.

  “Shit,” I hear someone whisper from the living room. “Alex is fucking trippin’.”

  And then it isn’t just the kid without the shirt leaving. It’s a fucking mass exodus from mine and Eli’s house. I turn my back to everyone getting their shit together and leaving, and I pick up a bottle of tequila, ready to fling it at the door, too, when someone grabs my elbow.

  “Alex.”

  A lump forms in my throat at the sound of her voice. I shrug out of her grip and take a step back, lowering the bottle by my side before I turn to face her.

  Her eyes are bleary, tinged with red, some of that fucking excessive eyeliner she wears smeared all over her face. She’s dressed in the same clothes she wore last night, not my clothes. She’s even got her shoes on.

  “You can’t leave,” I tell her, confused. “You can’t leave right now.”

  She glances at the bottle in my hand, her eyes going to the shards of glass behind me, at the sliding glass door. “I’ve got to go,” she says, clutching her phone in her hand. “What…happened?”

  I curl my fingers tighter around the bottle, half-expecting it to burst into pieces. But I’m not that strong. If I was, I’d have found a way to tell Mom before she found out the hard way.

  I slam the bottle on the counter, grip the edge of it with both hands, hanging my head. I was out of bed before Zara, which is no surprise. She sleeps a fuck load in the morning after she tosses and turns all night.

  I slipped out of bed and intended to come down and clean up. To cook breakfast. To have a nice fucking day. But I got the email from Dad to his congregation, just like everyone else. I didn’t even get my own email, nor did he have the decency to warn me beforehand. Instead, he let me read it in his blubbering, half-assed apology, proclaiming that it wasn’t what it looked like.

  Zara’s hand rubbing my back brings me back to the present. “Alex,” she says softly, “what’s wrong?”

  “It’s my fucking Dad.” She doesn’t know everything. She doesn’t know how I saw him. How I caught him the first time, before people started paying attention. Before Pastor Cardi became a local celebrity and a big fucking dumbass at the same time. Before he started being more brazen about his mistresses, seemingly uncaring that everyone in Grove Beach has a fucking cellphone and could snap a photo at any time.

  Zara doesn’t know all of it. She and my father already dislike each other. I didn’t want to add more fuel to the fire.

  But she knows enough.

  Her hand stills on my back. I wonder if she’s thinking of saying something snarky. I wonder if she’s about to piss me off even more.

  But surprising me, all she says is, “I’m sorry.”

  I glance over my shoulder and meet her blue-green eyes. I think of my mother’s own deep chestnut eyes. I think of her curled up under the sheets of her fucking oversized bed. I think of coming home from school to a silent home. Of tiptoeing up to her bedroom. Of watching her slight form move up and down under the sheets confirming that she was still alive. The relief I felt knowing the prescription bottle that dwindled far too quickly every day on the nightstand hadn’t yet killed her.

  I think of her trying to fake it every Sunday, smiling and standing beside my father in the church that looks more like a mall than a house of God.

  I would never do that. I would never fucking do that to Zara, and yet all this bullshit started because Rihanna fucking Martinson kissed me on the cheek after practice one day, and Zara is immature and childish.

  She’s already doped up on pills half the time she’s awake and she doesn’t even have shit to deal with like my mom does.

  I want to step out of her touch. I want to scream at her too. But I don’t yell at her, because I don’t want to push her away. Not really. I just want her to wake the fuck up and realize that, just like my mother, she’s on a collision course to an early grave.

  I straighten and she drops her hand.

  For a moment, I feel guilty. For the video that’s going around, and the pool shit and all of it. For a moment, I feel fucking bad about that and everything else I’ve done to fuck with the women in my life.

  But the moment passes. Quickly.

  I was drunk then. It’s not an excuse, but I was drunk, and…

  It doesn’t fucking matter.

  “Where are you going?” I ask her instead. “Where do you need to be?”

  She twirls a lock of hair between her fingers, shaking her head and looking at the floor. “It doesn’t matter. I was going to…I was going to walk anyway. I’m sorry about your dad and—”

  I run my hand through my hair again. “Just fucking answer me. Where do you need to—”

  “Her mom’s engagement party,” Eli says, coming up behind her and brushing past us both without sparing a glance at the glass all over the floor. He walks over to the fridge, opens it up.

  Her mouth falls open.

  I turn to stare at Eli. He’s not wearing a shirt, his black hair is disheveled and he’s just staring into the fridge like something is going to float out and pour down his throat.

  “What—” I start to say.

  “Yeah,” Zara interrupts qui
ckly, swallowing hard. She’s looking at the floor again. “Mom’s having that stupid—”

  “Shit, I forgot that was today.” I scrub a hand over my face. I should remember. Zara sent me a calendar invite one night while Eli, she, and I were in the living room. Eli was on his phone, silent as usual. I made a shitty joke about Zara’s mom, and the fourth fucking husband. I didn’t even know Eli was listening.

  He’s still staring into the fridge.

  Zara’s eyes are flicking from me to him and the silence in the kitchen is weird. I clear my throat. “I’ll take you,” I tell Zara, and she wrinkles her brow. Like she doesn’t want me to take her.

  She shakes her head. “You should be there for your mom,” she says softly.

  “It’s okay, I’ll just go down after. I don’t want you to have to go by yourself.” I know she’s pissed with her mom as is about this fourth engagement shit. I know she doesn’t want to go alone. She never really wants to do anything alone.

  She glances at the glass on the floor. “No, you really don’t need to—”

  “Fuck, Zara, just let me fucking take you.” I walk toward her and it looks almost like she flinches. What the fuck? “I need to get out of this house anyway,” I tell her, my voice lower. “I don’t want to deal with my parents’ bullshit.”

  She swallows hard, then looks up at me. “You need to deal with your mom. She’s probably hurting right now.”

  Eli clears his throat and we both turn to look at him. The fridge door is still open, but he looks at me when he says, “I can go with her.”

  I start to tell him that that’s completely fucking unnecessary, but Zara speaks first.

  “Thanks,” she says quietly.

  Eli holds my gaze.

  I’m torn, because I know Mom will need me. Even if she doesn’t want me to come down, she’ll want to talk. And if she doesn’t talk, she’ll be using, and I don’t want that.

  I clench my hands into fists and turn to Zara. “Are you sure? Look, Za, I really don’t—”

  She wraps her arms around my neck, pressing her body to mine.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Eli is still watching us.

  “I’m sure,” she tells me, her voice low. “I’ll be okay with Eli. Take care of your mom.”

  26

  Zara

  Eli’s car smells just like him, mixed with leather.

  It’s really clean, and I feel dirty sitting in it. Knowing I fucked Alex last night. Knowing I’m wearing the same clothes I was in yesterday.

  But as Eli pulls out of his driveway, he grabs my hand, threading his fingers through mine without looking at me.

  I glance at him out of the corner of my eye, warm butterflies tumbling in my stomach. His side profile is so hot, a straight nose, the slight scruff on his strong jawline. And his fucking lips.

  I press my thighs together, force myself to look straight ahead.

  “Thank you for taking me,” I say quietly, the music a low noise in the background. I can make it out though. It’s Falling Apart, by CVLTE.

  Eli squeezes my hand. “I wanted to be alone with you.”

  I feel my stomach flip at those words. “Eli,” I whisper after a moment as he pulls into my apartment complex, the drive was way too short for everything I want to say. “What are we doing?”

  He puts the car in park, and turns to face me, still gripping my hand. “What do you want us to be doing?”

  I bite my lip and his eyes go to my mouth. Right now, all I want to be doing is fucking him, but I don’t say that. “I…I don’t know,” I answer him honestly. “Are you…did you fuck that girl last night?” I blurt out, even though I know I shouldn’t. Even though I know I don’t get to decide who he does or doesn’t sleep with. Not after what he saw last night.

  His eyes are glued on me, his fingers pressing my hand against his thigh just a little harder. He’s in black slacks and a grey, fitted tee. A lock of dark hair is over one eye and he just looks so fucking good.

  “I see you,” he told me. And I didn’t believe him then. But I do now.

  “Yes,” he answers me, and I close my eyes tight.

  “Hey,” he says quietly, “look at me.”

  I don’t.

  He lets go of my hand and grabs my chin between his fingers. I snap my eyes open.

  “Does that hurt?” he asks.

  For a second, I think he’s talking about his hand on my face, and that doesn’t hurt. But a second later, I realize what he’s really asking.

  I nod. “Yeah,” I admit. “It does.”

  He lets go of me, pulling back and blowing out a breath. “End things with him. For good,” he says without looking at me.

  My insides squirm at that. “Even if I did, Eli, he would not be okay with this.” And would I? Do I want to give Alex up just yet?

  Eli laughs, but it’s cold. He turns his gaze to me. “I don’t give a fuck what Alex would or wouldn’t be okay with. If you want me, if you want me to be just yours, end shit with him. If you don’t, fine. But until you figure it out, I want to experience everything too, baby girl.” And then he gets out of the car, slamming the door shut.

  27

  Zara

  I’m late.

  By two minutes, which is fantastic because people are already there, crowded around the private room reserved for Mom and Cory. It means Mom can’t blow up at me just yet and if I leave early with Eli, she’ll have to get me on the phone.

  But it seems like Eli Addison helps soften her anger anyway. She has no idea he’s Alex’s roommate, and besides that, she’s only met Alex once before, over the summer when I was blitzed out of my mind and she had no idea. The whole exchange lasted five minutes or less, a run-in at the grocery store where Alex was buying me wine.

  She was pretty mad I hadn’t told her I was dating someone. I lied to her and told her I wasn’t. I don’t need them to talk. It’s enough that Alex is using Kylie to keep tabs on me. I don’t need her talking to Alex too.

  Mom’s big blue eyes light up when she sees Eli though, which is a relief. The pressure is no longer on me. Mom pulls him in for a hug, which is a little comical, I get my height from my father and she looks like a child in his arms, and she admonishes me for not mentioning I was bringing my “boyfriend”. She said she would’ve had a place setting for him.

  I glance around at the private room of Crate & Egg. It’s a high-end brunch spot just outside of Monkey Junction, but place settings definitely aren’t fucking necessary.

  “He’s just a friend,” I tell her quickly as Eli laughs softly to himself, slipping his hands into his pockets. “We’re just, uh…we just met for coffee this morning,” I add awkwardly. Despite myself, I almost laugh, too. Like, why the hell would I bring a friend to meet my future new stepdad?

  “Well, friend of my daughter, it’s nice to meet you.”

  Eli flashes her a grin and I think about him holding me underwater on Wednesday night. I think about his forearm against my throat. “You, too, ma’am.”

  Oh, wow. There’s that Eli charm. “Where’s Cory?” I ask Mom quickly, looking around the room for him before she can question Eli about our non-friendship. I can’t think straight enough for questions.

  My body is sore from sex with Alex I guess, and I’m feeling pretty fucking low after last night’s high, but I’m here. That’s what matters. I made it, and clearly, Mom doesn’t suspect me of using anything right now even though I swallowed an Adderall at the apartment in my bathroom while I changed.

  Even Eli doesn’t know that.

  I spot one of my cousins, Jessica, across the room, eyeing the pale pink cake on the banquet table. She looks up and offers me a little wave, her eyes going from me to Eli and back again, brows waggling. I roll my eyes with a smile and look away.

  Many of the people here are Mom’s coworkers, a couple who I assume must be Cory’s parents because the man has his same sad brown eyes and the woman has his rather large nose. It occurs to me that this is a little elaborate for
an informal engagement party from two people who have been married before and have already met the family more or less, but then Mom holds up her hand, wiggling her slender, manicured fingers and I see why this is happening.

  Jesus Christ.

  There’s the diamond engagement ring that Cory gave her two months ago, but there’s another ring, too.

  A fucking wedding band.

  They’re already married.

  What the fuck?

  “What the fuck?” I can’t stop the words from tumbling out.

  Beside me, Eli brushes his arm against mine casually in a sort of silent warning, I guess, but I don’t give a shit. He doesn’t know my mom. He probably doesn’t really understand what’s happening right now, so I spell it out for him, refusing to take my mom’s hand.

  “When did you get married? I thought this was an engagement party. A chance for everyone to meet Cory, before you went and married him?” The chatter of voices at my back has grown quieter, and Mom glances nervously over my shoulder, fiddling with the neck of her pale pink satin shirt, to match her stupid wedding cake.

  “Zara, I told you to come early specifically so—”

  But I don’t let her finish. “You couldn’t have told me before today?”

  Mom swallows, twirls her necklace between her fingers.

  My stomach churns. “You lied to me!” Mom getting married a fourth time was bullshit enough, but this shit… “You fucking kept this from me!”

  “Sorry, Miss…?” Eli says quickly and then trails off, uncertain if Mom shares my last name. Ha. I have my father’s last name. That was three husbands ago, apparently.

  Mom swallows again, glances up at Eli and brushes her pale blonde hair over one shoulder. It’s just past shoulder-length and beautiful, just like Mom herself. She’s got the same pale skin as me, but her eyes are bigger, a lighter shade of blue, and she’s petite and well put together and I’m not surprised at all that she keeps convincing men to marry her but for fuck’s sake.