Chapter Seven

Lila

I’m sweating and it’s not from the heat. In fact, I think the air is kind of chilly, but it feels like I’m drenched in sweat. I need to get to my apartment and I need to take a pill. Now. Before I lie down and die in the middle of this bus. God, this is the worst I’ve ever been and if my mom and dad saw me they’d be so embarrassed they’d probably never call me again. Which doesn’t seem so bad—yet it does. Sometimes I hate them so much I want them to leave me alone forever, but then I’d feel even more alone in world and that’s scarier.

I hop off the bus and sprint for my apartment complex across the street, the asphalt rough against the bottom of my bare feet. I’m panting and nauseous, but I know as soon as I get to the drawer everything will be okay again.

But when I turn the corner of my building, I slam to a stop at the bottom of the stairway. “What are you doing here?” I put my hands on my hips and narrow my eyes. “God, Ethan, can’t you take a hint?”

Ethan stands up from the top step, putting a hand on the railing and the side of the building. “What? Did you seriously think I was just going to let you go?” he asks, arching his eyebrow. “After what happened last night?”

“Yes,” I say with honesty. “You always let me go after I mess up. You’ve picked me up how many times and never said a word? That’s what you do. You let me be and you don’t judge me. You even walked out on me that night after we made out and almost had sex. You just walked away.” I can’t believe how blunt I’m being at the moment and I should be embarrassed, but I have more important things to worry about, like getting to the damn pills.

Ethan briefly winces at my words, but stays composed, making sure to stay on the subject. “Yeah, but this is different.” He trots down a stair and tips his head down so he can look at me. “This isn’t sex. This is drugs.”

“I don’t take drugs,” I snap, rather loudly. I’m making a scene, but at the moment I can’t care because every solitary nerve in my body needs to get into that house. And Ethan is the only thing blocking my route. “It’s just a prescription.”

“A prescription that you abuse.” He steps down another stair and then another, closing in on me like the damn walls always do. “Lila, look at yourself.” His eyes sweep my body and I glance down at his shirt and the bottom of my dress showing out from under it, stained with dirt and vomit.

“So what?” I cringe, knowing I don’t mean it. He arrives at the bottom of the stairway and stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans, looking uncomfortable and scared to death. “I want to help you.”

“I don’t need help,” I snap, stepping back. A few of my neighbors are outside on their balconies and near their cars and they pause to watch the scene unfold. “You were never supposed to see me like this. This isn’t who I am. And as soon as you let me go into my house, I can clean up and we can forget about all of this. I can go back to the smiling, happy Lila.”

“No, you won’t,” he argues. “Sorry to break it to you but I haven’t seen that Lila for a while.”

“Well, I can at least give you the illusion of her,” I retort hotly.

He scratches his unshaven chin with a doubtful look on his face. “After you clean up and take a pill?”

I shake my head multiple times, but I can’t seem to answer him with words. “Please just let me through.”

“Nope,” he says simply, and then his hands come out from his pockets and he reaches for me. “Lila, I want to help—”

I cut him off as I skitter around him and sprint up the stairs, skipping steps even though my body aches and the metal of the steps burns the pads of my feet. Thankfully, I left my door unlocked last night and I get into the house easily. I make a bolt for my bedroom without so much as looking over my shoulder. All I need is one, just one dose inside my bloodstream and all will be forgotten. Everything will be okay and I’ll be back to the normal, happy, full-of-sunshine Lila.

When I reach my room, I jump over my bed to get to my dresser drawer. Right as I get my fingers around the bottle and relax, I hear Ethan enter my room.

“Don’t fucking do it, Lila.” His voice is unsteady, which is really strange for him. He’s usually full of humor and radiating calmness in unnerving situations. “Just give me the bottle and we can talk.”

I shake my head and slam my trembling palm on the lid, pushing down to twist it off. “No, please just go away. I didn’t ask you to be here or follow me. I don’t want your—”

His arms snake around my waist and I let out a spastic wail as his fingers come down over my hands. He tries to pry them off the bottle, but I wrestle my arms away, slipping out of his hold. I bend my knees to jump over the bed, but he catches me midleap and hauls me down onto the mattress.

“Ethan, stop it!” I cry as he holds me down with his body. I writhe my hips and jerk my shoulders, attempting to escape. “You’re hurting me!” It’s a lie, but I’m desperate, needy, obsessed with what’s in that bottle.

“Stop being a baby,” he says, kneeling up so my waist is trapped between his knees. “I’m barely putting any weight on you.’ ”

I hug the bottle to my chest. “Yes, you are!”

“No, I’m not.” He grabs my hands and then pins them down above my head, pressing his forehead against mine. With his free hand he pries the bottle out of my frantic grasp.

“No, please, Ethan. Please, stop it. Please… please… please…” I start to cry and hyperventilate and I despise it because I already look ridiculous as it is.

He doesn’t say anything as he climbs off me and then off the bed. I leap up from the bed, begging and pleading with him to give me the pills back.

“I’ll give you whatever you want,” I say, with my hands overlapped in front of me as I stand vulnerably before him. “Anything, you want. Anything.” I know it’s low to offer myself in exchange for a bottle that’s mine, but that bottle is worth more to me than any part of my used body, worthless mind, and empty heart.

“I don’t want anything from you, Lila,” he says, staring undecidedly at the bottle in his hand. “Except for you to get better.”

I lunge for him, but he rotates to the side, so I slam into his back. He thrusts out his arm and holds me back as he grips the bottle in his hand. The longer they’re out of my reach, the more I feel like I want to claw out of my own skin. I start to tremble as my blood pressure rises. “Please, please just give them to me,” I mutter as I start to sweat. “Help me, please… I don’t want to feel like this.

He suddenly lets go of me and for a second I think he’s giving in. Then he pushes down on the lid with his hand and twists it off.

“What are you doing?” I ask, my mouth salivating as he dumps one tiny pill into his hand.

I notice his finger tremble a little as he breaks the pill in half with his fingers and hands one of the pieces to me. “Take this.”

I shake my head at the tiny piece that’s not going to do shit for me at the moment. “I need more than that.”

He shakes his head. “That’s all I’m going to give you and I’m only giving it to you so you’re body won’t freak out from withdrawals.”

“They’re not yours to hand out!” I shout and lunge for him again, but he catches me in his arms and holds my weight as my legs give out on me. “They’re mine! Not yours.” I’m shaking from head to toe as my mind screams at me to take the half and then do whatever it takes to get more from him. “Ethan, please just give me the bottle. I’ll do whatever you want…” I shut my eyes and take a deep breath before I offer him something I’ve offered other guys before in exchange for pills. “I’ll let you fuck me. And I mean fuck me, without any of the relationship, needy crap afterward that I know you hate.

His arms tighten around me as he presses me closer to his chest. “Lila, stop. I already said I don’t want anything from you except for you to get better.” Then he moves the insignificant-sized pill into my line of vision.