“I guess not.” I offer her a small smile.

She continues to stare at the bracelet, looking sadder with each passing moment. Finally she sighs and sets it down on the table. “So tell me something happy,” she says, shifting her mood in the amount of time it takes me to catch my breath. “And not about my past.”

I take a deep breath and start telling her about the last few years of my life, which aren’t really happy or sad, just neutral, because I’ve basically been stuck in the same mentality, never moving forward, always thinking about the past. Except in this very moment, I want to be moving forward to the other side of the country to be with some else. By the time we’re done talking, it’s midafternoon. My flight doesn’t leave until the morning, but the idea of waiting until then seems impossible. I need to see Lila now and I need to tell her how I feel so I don’t miss my chance again.

Chapter Seventeen

Lila

“So I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m becoming a very bad influence on you,” Ella says as she roams through my old room in my parents’ three-story mansion located up in the greener, more luxurious side of town. The ocean rushes toward the shore from outside the window and the sun beams brightly against the pale pink walls.

“I guess so.” I open my closet and walk into it, the immense space almost overwhelming because it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it. So many memories overwhelm me, ones filled with loathing from my parents and self-loathing from myself. For a moment, I swear to God the damn walls feel like they’re closing in on me again.

I run my fingers along the fabrics of each dress and shirt, remembering what it was like to have an endless amount of clothes, money, anything of material value. I was showered with things, and in return, I was not showered with affection and love. I would trade anything, live on the streets in a soggy wet box, just to have my parents genuinely love me.

Ella steps up behind me and evaluates my closet. “Are you sure your maid’s not going to tell your mom or dad we snuck in here?”

I shrug as I sift through the dresses, the sight of each one making me sick to my stomach, because each one carries a memory of a time I wish I could forget. All the horrible things I’ve done in them, all the horrible things I felt. “I doubt it. She hates my mother and father almost as much as I do. It doesn’t really matter, though.” From the back section, I select a dress that flows to the floor. “I mean, what are they going to do? Kick me out?”

“How about make you stay,” she says from behind me. “I know you don’t want to be here.”

“I don’t.” I glance over my shoulder at her, forcing a smile. “I guess you’ll just have to owe me for this big time.”

“I think that all kind of depends on why you brought me here.” She wanders around, her eyes huge as she takes in the large selection of shoes on the back wall. “Because I’m really confused right now.”

I smile at her and then hold the dress out toward her. “We’re here for this.”

Ella examines the dress with a wary expression on her face. “What is that?”

“You’re such a goof sometimes. Seriously.” I push the dress at her. “It’s for you. I thought you could wear it at your wedding.”

She stares at the dress that has a shimmering black silk top, a red ribbon securing the back, and an elegant flowing white bottom bunched together in places by red and black sewn roses. She tentatively reaches out and touches the fabric with a stoic expression as she runs her fingers along one of the black flowers.

“Where did you get this?” she asks, touching the silk top.

“I wore it one year for… for Halloween,” I say, choking down the images of what I did while wearing the dress. I drank drink after drink that night and chased them down with pills. I’m surprised I didn’t end up in the hospital, although I probably would have been better off, instead of sleeping with two different guys in the same night and then throwing up alone in the bathroom afterward. I almost puke just thinking about it now, thinking about who I was.

She glances up at me. “You wore this for Halloween?”

I nod. “But it was actually just a dress I bought from a store and then turned it into a Victorian-style dress.”

“I guessed that much.” She lets her arm fall to her side. “But it looks so… unlike anything you would wear.”

I laugh, because she’s right, yet at the same time I’m also standing next to her in an old pair of shorts and a band T-shirt I stole form Ethan’s room. “I guess, but it was also Halloween and I was supposed to dress up as something unlike myself.”

“That’s true.” Her gaze returns to the dress and she bites back a smile. “Can I try it on?”

“Of course.” I hand it to her and head for the door so she can change in the closet. “You’re not offended I gave you an old costume, though, are you?” I ask as I shut the door.

She shakes her head, slipping the dress’s straps off the hanger. “Are you kidding me? It’s, like, the perfect dress, Lila. Seriously.”

I smile. “I thought it might be.”

“Lila?”

“Yeah.”

She offers me a genuine smile and makes me feel good inside, like I did something right. “Thank you.”

I return her smile wholeheartedly. “You’re welcome.”

I shut the door and sink down on the four-post bed. It still has the same satin white comforter on it that’s trimmed with lace. There are fluffy throw pillows all over it and the same floor-length curtains hang over the French doors. Everything is clean and tidy. Everything looks perfect. When I turned thirteen my mom spent weeks redecorating this room as a birthday present for me. I told her I wanted a pool party with my friends. Hell, I would have taken letting my friends come over and hang out over curtains and pillows that made the room pretty in theory—but it’d always felt so overly empty and unwelcoming. This used to be my life, and even back then I didn’t like it very much, yet I always kept going with it because it was what I was supposed to do. This kind of lifestyle, flourishing on the outside and no substance on the inside, was ingrained into my mind since the day I entered the world. I was pretty much doomed to be just like either my mom or my sister, and I would have probably ended up like one of them eventually, but I got lucky. Lucky because I met Ethan. He saved me not just from an addiction but also from myself. He showed me that I was worth getting clean. I’m worth more than self-destruction and emptiness.

I really wish I could talk to him at the moment. I just want to hear the sound of his voice. God, I wish I could kiss him again, feel his arms around me, feel him inside me, pushing me over the edge, making my body feel things I never thought were possible. He said I could call him whenever I needed him and it feels like I need him because this God damn house is getting to me and is surfacing the need to take a pill. It affects my emotions too much, the place where I endured my father telling me over and over again just how worthless I am. It’s where it all began, where I entered the world, doomed to strive for perfection, even though it doesn’t exist. I strived and strived, with everything I had in me, nearly killing myself to achieve something that I could never achieve because it’s not real. This life I’m in now, with Ethan, with Ella, is what’s real.

I decide to take Ethan up on the offer. I take my phone out of my back pocket and dial his number and put the phone up to my ear.

“Yeah?” he says quickly, answering after the fourth ring.

“Hey, it’s me, Lila” I say stupidly, and then roll my eyes at myself. We’ve talked to each other a thousand times on the phone, but it feels different now that we’ve had sex and I feel sort of nervous.

“Yeah, I know,” he replies in a rushed voice. “Your name came up on the screen.”