So I let the off switch flip me into a state of numbness and I moved through the motions, knowing what I was supposed to do but making myself disconnect from my emotions. What shocked me though is that he was upset about it. No guy has ever been upset about how I act. Then he’d left without finishing and I haven’t talked to him since. I’m a little afraid too, afraid of what he saw in me that night or didn’t see in me.

The last week has been really depressing and the only company I’ve really had is a random friendly call from my sister and my mother’s phone calls that leave me feeling emptier than I did before them. She keeps making threats, telling me she’s going to disown me if I don’t get my ass back to California. It’s not too late, she keeps saying. Brentford Mansonfield is back from his six-month trip to Europe and he’s looking to settle down. I could win him over, start again, and turn myself into someone worthy of the Summers name. I asked her if she really thought Brentford wanted used goods for a wife.

“Well, you’re almost twenty-one, Lila,” she’d said. “No one expects you to be a virgin.”

“True, but I’m also kind of a whore,” I’d responded, mainly because I’d had a couple glasses of wine and was feeling a little bit tipsy.

“Lila Summers, watch your mouth,” she replied sharply. “You will not utter such things aloud.”

“Why? It’s true.”

“I know it’s true. I’m the one who had to come clean up the mess in New York.”

“How can I forget,” I said. “Since you’re always reminding me.”

“Lila, quit being a little bitch. I didn’t raise you to be that way. I raised you to keep your mouth shut and to do what you were told.”

I couldn’t take the frustration building inside me anymore, so I let it explode and screamed into the phone, “Like you do with Dad and his slutty mistress!”

She called me a spoiled bitch and told me she was going to hang up. I told her okay, because I didn’t really have that much more to say and she hasn’t called me since.

It’s overwhelmingly hot today, but I couldn’t turn the fan on since it would rack up my already overdue power bill. I open the candy cane slash pill drawer again, reaching for the bottle at the bottom. Ethan gave me the candy canes as a Christmas present after I told him I’d never had a candy cane, and it was seriously the sweetest moment I’ve ever had with a guy.

“Are you fucking being serious right now?” he’d said. We were in his truck and it was late, the midnight sky above us as chilly winter air filled the cab and frosted the windows.

“Um… yeah… What’s the big deal?” I’d wondered, turning sideways in the seat to face him.

“Because it’s a fucking candy cane.” He’d gaped at me unfathomably. “It’s like the most common Christmas candy there is. My mom even puts them all over our tree every year.”

“Oh, I’ve never had a Christmas tree either,” I admitted, which made him gape at me only longer. “What? She thinks that the pine needles on real ones are too messy and artificial ones are too tacky.”

Later that night, he’d given me an entire box of them. He didn’t wrap them or anything, just dropped them on my lap when I’d been sitting on his sofa in the living room of his parents’ house.

“There you go.” He’d said it like it was such an inconvenience for him as he flopped down in the recliner.

I’d smiled, then leaned over and gave him a hug before I unwrapped one. As I started sucking on it, I told him it was delicious and he’d made a dirty remark about my lips. I made a comeback about the zipper on his pants being undone and that I could see his special man parts bulging out. He’d rolled his eyes, but then checked his zipper anyway. I started to giggle and ended up dropping the candy cane on my leg. I was wearing a dress and the candy stuck to my thigh.

“Okay, maybe I don’t like them,” I’d said, pulling a disgusted face as I picked it up from my leg. I tried to wipe off the stickiness with my hand, but that only made everything stickier.

“Here, let me help you,” Ethan muttered, his eyes locked on my leg. I thought he was going to go get me a paper towel or something, but instead he got up from the recliner and dropped down on his knees in front of me. His dark hair hung in his eyes as he peered over my knees, smirking at me.

“What are you doing?” I asked, intrigued but slightly nervous. I mean he was super hot and everything, but I was fully sober and could feel everything going on, like my accelerating pulse and the weird flip my stomach did.

His eyes darkened as he ran his hand up my leg and it made my skin instantly ignite with stifling, overwhelmingly passionate heat. It was a new sensation for me since foreplay was pretty much absent with any of the people I’d hooked up with. The feeling was piquing my curiosity so I let my legs fall open just a little and suddenly he seemed like the nervous one. I kept thinking about how much I wanted another pill because I could feel way too much, but then I’d have to get up and break the moment.

Ethan had paused with his hand resting on the top of my thigh. I traced the lines of the tattoos on his arms, biting my lip as my heart leaped inside my chest. His breathing became ragged and his palms were starting to sweat the longer we sat there, unmoving in the silence and glow from the twinkly lights on the Christmas tree. Then he did it. He angled his face down, his lips parted, and his tongue slipped out as he licked the candy cane stickiness off my skin.

I dug my fingernails into the arm of the chair and moaned, a loud, blissful moan that surprised me, along with the burst of warmth that flashed through my body. He responded with a sharp intake of his breath and I quivered uncontrollably. I wanted to run my fingers through his hair, touch him, push his face up just a little bit farther, and make him lick me in places that would send me into a euphoric, uncontrolled spiral. But then he quickly sucked my skin, nipping at it before pulling away.

I frowned disappointedly up at him. “Seriously?”

He shrugged, dropping down into the chair. “What?” He eyed me over, like he was waiting for me to announce that he’d gotten me all hot and bothered. “Is something wrong?” He’d pressed back a smirk, like he was the funniest person in the world. “I’m just waiting around for my Christmas present.”

Two could play at this game. Smirking back, I unhooked the front clasp of my red lacy bra through my top, then slid the straps down my shoulders, managing to get it off without flashing him. Then I threw it at his face. “Merry Christmas.”

Most guys would have grinned or said some dirty comment, but Ethan just flicked the little red bow on my bra, then shrugged and set it down on the armrest of the chair. “I’ve seen sexier,” he said, his grin shining through his eyes.

With my mouth hanging open, I tossed a candy cane at him and it hit him in the head. He laughed, picked it up and unwrapped it, and then popped it into his mouth. “Damn, these are good,” he said, smiling as he rolled the candy along his tongue.

I think that’s when I realized how much I liked him. Not because he was being an ass or because he gave me candy canes, but because he’d stopped kissing my thigh. He knew enough about me—how easy I was—to know that he could have pretty much gotten me to do whatever he wanted, yet he didn’t. Even if it was because he didn’t like me, I still kind of liked that he stopped, even if it left me sexually frustrated. I’d had sex with guys before who later made it clear they didn’t even like me, yet they still had sex with me because I was an “easy lay.” And I was left with self-hatred stirring inside me because deep down I knew they were right. I’m good for only one thing. A one-night stand, a good lay, a moment of distraction, and I’ll pretty much do whatever they ask, even when I don’t want to.

But now the good thing I had with Ethan is gone, thanks to my fucked-up head. It makes me loathe myself even more, knowing just how good of a guy Ethan is. He’d stopped it, refusing to have sex with the numb version of me. I’m still baffled over it.