The Temptation of Lila and Ethan

Chapter Ten

Lila

I’ve been living with Ethan for two weeks and I’ve been pill free for two days, not even taking my half pills anymore. It’s a strange feeling, one I’m still adjusting to and learning how to handle. I’d never realized how altered things would get when I was popping pills. Even the heat of the sun feels a little more blistering. Plus, I haven’t slept with anyone. I think it’s a record for me. Even when I dated guys, like my fleeting relationship with Parker a year ago, the relationship was based solely on sex that I barely felt, barely remembered. This has been my life since the first time I had sex. Even then, I had no idea what I was getting into, and when I finally did, it was too late. The things that happened forever changed who I was and how I saw things. I’ve pretty much never looked at guys the same way since, except for Ethan. He’s a genuinely nice guy, which is rare, and makes our situation complex. Ethan and I have always had an interesting relationship, one that’s pushed the boundaries of friendship yet hasn’t quite crossed it. Now that we spend so much time together we barely touch each other, despite the fact that we’re constantly defying friendship boundaries. Like when he walked into the bathroom while I was taking a shower this morning.

“What the hell are you doing?” I’d yelled when I heard the door open and shut.

“Relax, I’m just getting my toothbrush,” he’d replied and then I heard him rummaging around in the medicine cabinet.

“If you don’t get out of here, I’m going to pull back the curtain and flash you.” I said, feeling squirmy about the fact that the curtain was very thin and nearly clear, almost see-through.

The water turned on and then he busted up laughing. “Okay, best punishment ever.”

My stomach fluttered with butterflies as I smoothed back my wet hair and cracked the curtain back, peering out at him. “You know just as well as I do that you do not want to see me naked.” I’m not even sure why I said it—whether I’m challenging him to admit something I hope exists or if I really do believe he doesn’t want me that way.

He was wearing a pair of plaid drawstring pajama bottoms and no shirt. He had a toothbrush in hand and he was leaning over the sink, staring at the curtain. “Do you not know me at all?” He cocked an eyebrow as he stuck his toothbrush, coated with toothpaste, into his mouth. “I love seeing naked women.” His voice sounded funny and he waggled his eyebrows, completely cool and casual.

I narrowed my eyes, wondering just how much he could see of me through the curtain, and wondering if I cared. “Yeah, but you made the friend line between us for a reason.” I was being blunt and I didn’t know why. I blamed it on withdrawals because I was learning quickly that they could make me insane and turn me into a crazy, emotional mess. “And you…” I almost bring up that night when we touched each other, but I’m scared.

His eyebrows knitted and he leaned over the sink, spitting out a mouth full of toothpaste. “No, we both agreed on that line, I thought.” He rinsed off his brush and returned it into the holder near the sink. Then he turned around, leaned against the counter, and crossed his arms. “Am I wrong about that? Do you… do you… What do you want?”

Why is he asking me this? What does it mean? Why am I asking myself so many questions?

Water ran down my eyes and face as I discreetly gazed at his body. He’s so beautiful in a way I’m not used to. A rough beauty, one that has substance, the kind that’s real, not masked by tans, perfectly sculpted bodies, and fancy suits and ties. He’s art, pure and simple—wispy hair that always falls into place right over his dark, smoldering eyes, creating the perfect shadowy look and those tattoos… dear God, the tattoos. He is the kind of art you really have to look at to get what it means—to understand what he’s thinking.

I suddenly realized just how out of character I was. I was noticing him more than I normally do and I could feel it through every inch of my body, the pulsating urge to fling the shower curtain back and beg him to take me now. Beg him to. I never do that with sex. Usually guys just take it from me and I shut my feelings off. But I was contemplating going there with him, asking him for the first time, and being sober. It was making me wonder if I really knew who I was. All these years, the person I’d become was based on pills and this crazy need to feel loved.

We stared at each other for a while, and then Ethan cleared his throat and stood up straight, heading to the door. “If you want, we can pack up the rest of your clothes and go down to that consignment store and see if you can get anything for them.” His voice sounded a little off pitch, but his expression was unfaltering.

I nodded, trying to stand motionless through the steam and the heat coiling up my inner thighs. “Sounds good.”

He smiled, and then winked, his gaze skimming to the curtain hiding my body, and then he walked out, shutting the door behind him. I released the curtain, moving back below the showerhead, allowing the water to wash the heat and want off my body and down the drain, telling myself I’d get over it—get over Ethan. But for some reason, the idea seemed unlikely and very out of reach.

“So how much do you think I can get for all of this?” I ask Ethan as he loads up the back of the truck with boxes of my clothes. My beautiful clothes I never want to let go of, but I know I need to in order to buy things like, say, food. I thought it would feel horrible to do this, and it kind of does, but there’s also simplicity in it, like I’m getting a do-over, which I know isn’t real, but at the moment everything feels real. Like the heat and the way my clothes stick to my damp skin. How my hair is in a messy ponytail, tugging at the nape of my neck. My hair has never been this messy and my cuticles never this dry. But I’m in simplicity land, where BMWs and designer purses and platinum rings don’t exist and I’m trying to figure out what kind of person I am and where I fit in all this. Can I handle being poor? Taking care of myself? Who do I want to be? Who is Lila Summers?

Ethan heaves the last box into the bed of the truck and then slams the tailgate shut. “How the fuck would I know?” He wipes the sweat from his brow with his arm. He has on a green T-shirt and a pair of black shorts secured by a studded belt, along with an array of leather bands on his wrists. He’s sweaty and kind of cranky, but beneath the sunlight he’s freaking hot and I’m fixated on him.

“What?” he asks, noting my staring.

I press my lips together, shaking my head. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s something. Otherwise you wouldn’t have a goofy grin on your face.”

I self-consciously rub my hand over my mouth like I can erase my smile or something. “I don’t have a goofy smile.”

His lips curve up into a playful grin, and for a moment his grumpy mood vanishes. “Yeah, you’re right. Now will you tell me why you have that beautiful smile on your face?”

“It’s nothing.” I shrug, trying not to let my smile broaden at the fact that he called it beautiful. “I was just lost in how nice you look today,” I say, telling him the truth in the most casual way that I can.

He glances down at his sweaty T-shirt, then peers up at me warily. “You think I look good?”

“Sure.” I shrug again, not really wanting to delve into the details of the fact that I think he’s ridiculously hot looking and I want him to touch me. This feeling has become a growing desire over the last week. Living with him has seemed to sprout it like a flowering blooming on a tree. It’s annoying and I wish it would go away because apparently without the pills I am one sex-starved person. Plus, Ethan has gotten a glimpse into what lies beneath my makeup, jewelry, and designer clothes—he’s seen the real me at the ugliest times. I fear that having sex with him would be different, carrying more depth, at least for me, and I’d become emotionally involved. And then what would happen when our relationship ended? I’d probably pretty much be where I was at after Sean, the first and last guy I cared for and who used me and discarded me like trash.

He slants his head to the side, assessing me with a quizzical expression on his face. “Really?”

“Yeah. Why are you acting so weird?” I shield my face with my hand as the gleaming sunlight reflects off the metal roof of the apartment building.

He doesn’t say anything, opening his arms and stepping forward. “Are you really, really sure you think I look good right now? So good that you want to touch me?” He does this weird thrusting thing with his hips that causes all my attention to center on his manly area.

I roll my eyes even though I shiver on the inside. “You’re so weird sometimes.”

“Weird, huh?” He comes at me, giving me little to no warning.

I try to gracefully sidestep out of his way, but I step on my own toe instead and trip over my ankles. I stumble to the side and he catches me in his arms, laughing under his breath as he intentionally rubs his sweaty body against mine.

“Oh my God!” I squeal, wiggling, attempting to get away. “You’re all wet and gross.”

“You’re the one who said I look good.” He lifts my feet off the ground and I stay straight as a board, trying to maintain distance from his sweaty body. He rounds the back of his truck, heading for the passenger side and somehow he gets the door open without letting go of me.

“What are you doing?” I yell, trying to sound like I’m turned off by his sweaty touch, but the pleasure of the moment is evident in my voice.

He drops me down on the seat and then grabs the seat belt. He leans close as he moves the strap over my shoulder to buckle me in.

“You still think I look good?” he asks with a dark look in his eyes, his face so close I can see the faint freckles on his nose.

I nod slowly, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Yes, but I also think you smell.”

“I smell like a man,” he says, grinning at himself. He leans in, getting his chest closer to my face so I can get a whiff of his man scent.

“Blah!” I scrunch my nose, turning my face to the side, even though the smell of him isn’t that bad. He actually smells like cologne and sweat and heat. Very nice. Very manly. I discretely breathe him in, letting the scent of him saturate my lungs. He must notice the rise and fall of my chest, because he leans back and looks me in the eyes, sheer perplexity burning in his pupils.

“So apparently you like the smell of sweat.” He tries to joke but his voice cracks and I wonder why. Ethan never gets nervous. I’ve seen him hit on women many, many times, and he always gets them to come home with him.

I don’t say anything and I’m not sure why. I just keep staring into his eyes and it feels different—I feel different, giddy, alive, and not numb for once. That switch that always flips off stays on. I’m not sure if I like the feeling—the vulnerable, misplaced emotions swarming inside my chest—or not.

Without even realizing it, I hitch my legs around his waist. The need to feel someone close to me, connect with me, touch me, is conquering anything else within me. I haven’t been touched in a while and it feels good—better than good.

Ethan’s breath hitches in his throat and it startles me. He’s nervous. I’m nervous. I feel this strange shift between us, the heat between us intensifying, and I get excited, my nerves bubbling up inside me. Suddenly I’m a completely different person. I’m not broken. Lost. Numb. Confused. I’m a girl enjoying a moment with a guy I really, really like.

I close my eyes as he leans in. He’s going to kiss me. I can tell. And I mean really kiss me this time instead of almost kissing me. I’ve been waiting for this more than I realized and despite all my concerns about my new feelings, ones that I’m sure existed before this moment but I was too medicated to feel anything, I want him so much it consumes every part of my body. I can feel all the warm, hot, overpowering sensations, and I breathe in his delicious scent, taste the anticipation. Kiss me. Please God, kiss me. Don’t back away.

I moan from the heat of his breath and trace my hands up his back as I arch into him. I wait for it. Wait for the kiss, feeling his cheek touch mine. He rests it there, pressing our skin together, and I know that next he’ll touch his lips to mine. I wait as he moans my name under his breath. And I wait. Seconds later his cheek leaves mine. Break me. Throw me away. You don’t want me. Of course you don’t. No one does.

Even though I don’t want to, I open my eyes, feeling angry and humiliated when I realize he’s watching me. This is a first for me. Usually, when I get to this point with a guy, they’re staring at my breasts, ready to rip my clothes off, like I’m an object they’re ready to devour.

“We should get going.” That’s all he says.

I’m struck dumb. Speechless. And feeling more unloved and undesirable than I ever have. “Yeah, I guess.” I force a tight smile as I sit up, the inside of my body shaking with anger and disappointment. Tears actually start to sting at my eyes, something that’s never happened to me before. I’m not sure how to handle it as I struggle to suck them back, twisting the ring on my finger as I remembering everything I used to be.

“Are you sure?” He steps back from the door, farther away from me, and the sunlight hits his face. He looks sad and in pain, almost as if he’s trying not to cry, just like me, and very un-Ethan like.

I nod, adjusting my pink tank top over my stomach. I feel defeated, unwanted. Honestly, I have no idea what I feel and it’s scaring me. I’ve lived my life moving through a string of very similar guys, ones who are polite in public, buy me nice things, have nice cars, and always tell me what I want to hear, at least until we screw, but I’ve never felt a single thing with them. And now there’s Ethan. He’s poor, drives a truck, and I’m pretty sure that every word he’s ever said to me is real. He didn’t bail on me, even when things got tough—he actually tried to help me, something no one’s ever done. What does that say? That all this time I’ve been looking for the wrong person in the world? One who I thought I was supposed to look for? The type of guy my mother has always told me I needed. Is that what I’ve been doing all this time?

I feel like I’m about to burst into tears, not just from rejection from Ethan or the lack of confidence flowing inside, but because I’m worried that all this time I might have been doing what my mother’s wanted and was too blind to realize it. All I want to do is pop a pill and make everything I’m feeling go away. I want my confidence back, at least my fake confidence. I want my blissful, numb, never-having-to-experience-shame state because it’s easier than reality.

Luckily, Ethan walks around the truck and climbs into the driver’s seat. This seems to break the strange, depressing desire bubble that’s formed around us.

“So to the store then, right?” he asks, turning the key.

“Where else would we go?” I say it softly as if it doesn’t matter, but somehow it does.

He nods again and then backs away and the simplicity that I’d been feeling just moments ago evaporates and I’m left with a massive void in my chest and only one thing will fill it.

One tiny, fit-into-the-palm-of-my-hand, forbidden pill.

Ethan

Things are getting weird between us, just like I guessed they would. I’m not even sure what the hell the problem is. I mean, one minute she’s taking a shower and for some damn reason I go in there, pretending I need to brush my teeth when really I just want to flirt with her. And then the truck thing. What the fuck? I seriously almost kissed her and then cried about it over all the emotions pouring inside me, emotions that I haven’t felt since London. I have strong feelings for Lila and I know it; it’s getting hard to handle. And we live together now, which makes things even more complicated. What happens if we end up doing something? We just live together? Kissing and touching and fucking, and if relationships go how I’ve seen then, we’d ultimately end up fighting.

But for a brief second I look past the idea of turning into my parents and actually like the idea of Lila and me kissing all over the apartment… fucking all over the apartment… having a relationship.

No, I can’t go down that road. Yes, I want to help her, but as a friend, because that’s what both of us need right now. I need a break from all of this, my emotions for her and my overanalyzing thoughts. What I need to do is go back to what always helps me clear my head and go get laid, yet the idea of sleeping with someone else makes me feel guilty, and not over London. Over Lila, even though I don’t belong to her and she doesn’t belong to me. I’m free to do whatever I want, yet for some stupid reason, it feels like I’d be cheating on her if I hooked up with someone else.

This living-together thing is seriously screwing with my head.

After we sell off her clothes, we wander around the secondhand store for no other reason that it helps avoid awkward time alone in the closed-in truck and then in the apartment.

“Ethan, what do you think?” Lila holds up this really tacky pink fluffy rug with flowers on it. She flashes me a teasing grin, totally trying to work through our awkward moment in the truck.

I make a face, but I’m seriously distracted by my thoughts, which are stuck back in the truck, wishing I’d kissed her. Yet at the same time wishing I could kiss London again. What the fuck is wrong with me? “It looks like a nineteen seventies shag rug that a lot of people probably had sex on.”

Awkwardness builds around us at my use of the word sex. She shifts uncomfortably and I clear my throat.

“So should we go?” I ask, stepping to the side as a man walks up the aisle. I grow anxious and I need to get the hell out of here.

She lets out a breath and then sets the used rug back onto the shelf, seemingly depressed. “Yeah, I guess.”

I feel like an ass. She doesn’t need this right now. She needs a friend. Why can’t I just keep my hands to myself? Why can’t I just be her friend? The answer that pops into my head frightens me to no end. Because I want Lila and not just as a one-night stand.

I try for a lighter mood and subject. “We could go get some ice cream before we go home.”

She shuffles to the end of the aisle, shrugging. “It’s fine. I’m kind of tired anyway.” She heads for the door, looking down at her feet, a broken version of the person I first met, and yet she’s probably even more whole now. The brokenness just isn’t hidden inside her anymore.

The drive home isn’t any better. It’s quiet and she keeps picking at her nails and won’t look at me. I’m about to drop her off at the apartment, ready to bail out for the night and get my mind out of depression land and my stupid thoughts of being with her. It’s getting late, the sun is setting behind the sandy hills, and the Technicolor sky looks like a watercolor painting, beautifully unreal.

“Aren’t you coming?” she asks, holding the truck door open, ready to climb out. Her blonde hair is slipping loose from her ponytail, her tight white tank top and shorts showing off her curves, and her blue eyes looking sad.

I shake my head, pressing my foot onto the brake, ready to bolt. “Nah, I got somewhere to be tonight.”

Her eyes shadow over as she narrows them. “You mean you’re going to go find someone to fuck you?” Her voice is sharp and she’s clenching her fists so hard I think her fingers might break.

I feel like the biggest douche who’s ever existed, but I’m also very confused. About everything. How I got to this place where every rule I set for myself I’ve managed to break. Where I’m looking past London and my guilt and all I want to do is be with Lila. “Yeah, probably.”

She nods her head vigorously and then hops out, shooting me a heated look before slamming the door. I back away and before she even makes it to the curb I am spinning the tires. I head straight for the strip, parking as close as I can get and hop out. I wander over to the busiest section of the town, where the lights are glowing all over people’s faces and pictures of half-dressed women litter the sidewalks. I search the crowd and nearby buildings for a potential hook-up. Because I need to fuck someone. Now.

I start searching for someone who looks like they’d be good for a one-night thing. There are too many people out tonight, so I end up going into one of the casinos and searching around the slots until I spot a group of women around my age laughing near the front of the building. I head over to them, knowing it’s not the best scenario because they’re in a group, but I need to clear my fucking head and screwing is the best way when my thoughts get this mixed up, because it distracts me. Not even the quiet will give me that right now.

A shorter woman with curves and tits that bulge out of her leopard-print dress starts eyeing me the closer I get. She whispers something in her friend’s ear and then giggles as she starts twirling a strand of her blonde hair around her finger. I’m trying to decide if she’s really my type, and if I even have a type anymore, when she starts to approach me.

“Hey,” she says, smiling at me. She has some pink lipstick on her teeth and her eyelashes are a little too long, but she’ll do, at least I think she will.

But as soon as I think it, my thoughts drift back to my apartment where there’s already a beautiful blonde. I wonder what she’s doing. If she’s okay. Why did I just leave her like that?

“Hello, are you listening to me?” the blonde in front of me says and I blink out of my daze.

“No, sorry, I can’t hear you over all the noise.” I gesture around at the machines flashing around us.

She nods, biting on her lip. “Well, maybe we could go somewhere quiet.”

I want to but all I can think about right now is how I bailed on Lila because my emotions were getting the best of me. Because I wanted to kiss her in the truck and then take her upstairs and fuck her again. I want to be with her and for it to be more than just a one-time thing. I want to break my rules for her. The last person I broke my rules for was London, and I wanted her to be my last, at least I did at one point in my life, but now I’m not so sure.

The sounds of the slot machines are driving me crazy, along with the music playing. I could go with this woman somewhere that’s less noisy, like a hotel room. Stay there for a few hours until I’m sweaty and temporarily content. Yeah, I could do that.

“Sure, we could go some place else.” I smile at her, but I feel anything but happy on the inside.

She tells her friends she’ll be back in a while and we head up the strip, weaving through the people. She starts telling me about her life, but I barely listen. I just keep nodding my head, thinking about Lila and how I feel about her, and every time I reach the same conclusion. That I don’t think I can think about being with her completely yet, not without thinking about London as well.

I’ve always been good at controlling my actions and emotions, but they’re out of control at the moment, a wild reckless tornado sweeping through my body. I can’t think straight. Lila. London. Lila. London. The slutty girl in front of me. I have no idea what I want and the truth is, whether I want to admit it to myself or not, I’ve been dependent on the idea of London, holding on to her and on to the guilt I felt for walking away from her that day. I can pretend all I want, but all the sex and numbness I’ve been seeking, just like I’m about to with this girl, was just covering it up, not getting rid of it. And now I’m trying to do the same thing with Lila because I feel guilty over having feelings for her. I think until I can let London go, I won’t ever really be able to be with Lila on a complete emotional level where I’m just thinking of her. And that’s what she deserves. Not my halfhearted attention or my moodiness where I run off to avoid what I’m feeling through sex. It’s a revelation. A big, painful revelation and I have no idea what to do with it, although my original instincts say to go fuck this woman and forget about stuff for a moment.

I suddenly stop in the middle of the strip and people run into me.

The woman I’ve been walking with slows down, looking confused. “What’s wrong?”

I blow out a breath, raking my fingers through my hair, thinking about how bad I just want to fuck her and momentarily feel better and how Lila is probably at home feeling the same way about taking pills, especially with how sad she looked when I bailed on her. “I have to go,” I tell her, backing away from her through the crowd. I may not be able to have a relationship at the moment with Lila, but I can be her friend and I can walk away from having sex with this woman because I really don’t want to be with her.

“What do you mean you have to go?” she calls out, but doesn’t follow after me, probably because she doesn’t care enough to try. We were simply two people looking for something in the wrong places and we didn’t even bother to get each other’s names.

When I make it back to my truck, I try to call Lila but she doesn’t answer, so I make tire-ripping veer onto the road and floor the gas pedal, pushing the speed limit until I get back to the apartment. I’m worried about what I’ll find and feel guilty that I’ve bailed out on a girl again.

When I open the door, my nostrils are instantly flooded with the scent of paint thinner. Or nail polish anyway. Lila peers up at me from the couch, her damp hair a veil around her flushed face. She has her foot propped up on the coffee table and she’s painting her toenails as music plays in the background. My eyes instantly go to the half-empty beer on the table.

“It’s just a beer,” she quickly says as she swipes the paintbrush on her toenail.

“Is it the only thing?” I hate asking, but I need to know.

She blows out a breath, her bangs fluttering up from her face. “What do you think?”

I shut the door and toss the truck keys next to the lamp. “Whatever you tell me, I’ll think.” I hope though that, like me, she was able to stay away from the one thing that helps her numb the stuff she doesn’t want to feel. I hope she still feels her emotions right now like I am. Because seeing her sitting here makes me realize that even though I still have a lot of shit to work on, mainly with figuring out how to let London and my guilt for her go, walking away from that woman on the strip was the right thing to do.

She puts the brush into the tiny bottle and twists it on, screwing it tightly closed. Then she sits back in the sofa, staring at me with an unreadable expression. “I didn’t take anything, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

I lower myself down onto the armrest and I’m overwhelmed with the scent of nail polish and her shampoo. “I’m not getting at anything, Lila. I just walked into my apartment.”

“Yeah, but that’s why you came back, right?” She scoffs. “Because you thought I was going to do something stupid.”

I let out a stressed breath. “Look, I know things have been weird between us, but—”

“Weird,” she says, cutting me off and throwing her hands into the air exasperatedly. “Ethan, you almost kissed me in the truck and then that night… that night we refuse to talk about…” She shakes her head, discouraged. “I don’t even know where we stand anymore.”

“I don’t…” I struggle for words, surprised by how she tossed it out there so openly. It throws me off and I struggle to get my balance back, but I’m hopelessly falling to a place I’m unfamiliar with and I need to regain my footing before I do anything drastically life-altering. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I don’t either,” she says. “And it’s been driving me crazy, because I have no idea what I want or what you’re thinking. I’m going so crazy that I seriously thought about using again. Every single thing is driving me crazy!” She balls her hands into fists, about to scream. “I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to lose it. I seriously think I’m losing my mind. I mean, maybe I need to be on pills. Maybe they were what was keeping me sane and now all of my insanity is out there for the whole world to see.”

She doesn’t have to explain. I know what she means. I thrum my fingers on the side of my leg, racking my brain for something that will make this situation better. I need to calm her down and make her understand that she’s not in this alone. “Did I ever tell you about the time I ran my truck into the ditch?” I have a vague idea of where I’m going with this, but honestly I just might be rambling.

“What?” She gapes at me, dumbfounded. “How does that have anything to do with what I just said?”

I slide off the armrest and down onto the cushion, leaving a little distance between us as I kick my feet up onto the coffee table. “It happened two days after I decided to clean up my act. I was pretty much insane and my mind was all over the place. I seriously thought I was going crazy.” I omit the fact that a major part of this had to do with London, because even though I’ve realized my issues with holding on to London, I’m still not ready to talk to Lila about her. “I ended up dozing off and ramming my truck into a ditch. I was completely sober, and that in and of itself can be even more complex than getting high. It’s distracting, you know. And hard.”

She taps her foot on the ground, refusing to look at me. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because”—I lean closer to her and start to shut my eyes when I get a whiff of her perfume, but quickly blink my eyes open—“I want to let you know that I understand how you’re feeling and that sometimes things do feel all crazy, but it’ll fade.”

She sighs begrudgingly. “How long?”

“Until what?”

“Until it goes away completely?”

I stare ahead at the wall in front of us. “I’m not sure it ever does go completely away. It’s always kind of there, you know. Like a sleeping beast or something, but the intensity of the cravings fades away.”

She turns her head toward me. “Did the beast ever wake up for you? I mean, have you ever slipped up?”

I nod. “Once. About a year after I stopped doing drugs.” The day I saw London again. It was too much to see her like that, a shell of her old self.

“And then what?” Lila asks. “You just fixed yourself again?”

“Pretty much,” I say, again omitting the truth. That I was afraid of myself when I do drugs. Afraid of what I might become. Afraid I’d lose my mind, too, and end up jumping out a window, following in London’s footsteps. The people at the house had said they had no idea she went upstairs. That they didn’t see her. That’s because they were out of it and I should have been there for her. And she shouldn’t have shot up the damn heroin in the first place. What really gets to me though, and I’ll always wonder, is why did she jump? Was it because of the drugs? Or was it for another reason? Did she want to jump? If I hadn’t left her, then I’d know. If I hadn’t left her, then she might have not jumped. But she still might have. I’ll never really know.

Lila bites on her lip, soaking my words in like a sponge and I pray to God I’ve said everything right. She looks at me, her eyes big and blue, and she frees her lip. “You’re seriously like Mr. Miyagi or something.”

My eyebrows shoot upward and the dark tone of the night flips to amusement. “Did you seriously just reference the Karate Kid?”

She shrugs. “What? It’s just an old movie about kicking ass.”

“Yeah, but…” I shake my head. “It doesn’t seem like something you’d watch.”

“Well, I’m full of surprises.” She rolls her eyes like she’s saying the most ridiculous thing that’s ever existed, but really, it’s the truth. Good and bad, Lila has been surprising me over and over again and I wonder just how many more surprises I’m in store for. Good and bad.

“Yes, you are,” I say, truthfully, remembering how different she was when I first met her. “You really are.”