The Temptation of Lila and Ethan

Chapter Sixteen

Lila

Ella and Micha’s house is adorable. I would have thought I’d dislike the place, seeing how small it is and that it’s perched at the end of this really bumpy road that weaves through a neighborhood where all the houses look different. It’s pretty, though, the way the yellow shutters stick out from everything else around and how the grass is covered with a variety of flowers, none of which go together but make it colorful and lively. It’s Thursday morning and the sun is hot, but in a bearable way, unlike the stifling desert air in Vegas.

“I really love your house,” I remark for probably the third time as Ella and I sit on the back porch beneath the sunlight. We have shorts and tank tops on. My hair hangs down to my shoulders and I haven’t put my makeup on yet, but no one’s around so it doesn’t really matter.

“Thanks.” She stretches her feet out in front of her. “We got it dirt cheap, too, thanks to Micha’s mom,” she says and when I glance at her funny, she adds, “An old friend of hers works out here as a realtor and she hooked us up with this place. They lady who owns it is really old and probably bought it back in the 1940s when it was built so she wasn’t asking a lot for it. We were really lucky.”

“I’m glad,” I say. “You guys needed some good luck.”

“We did?” She crooks her eyebrow, questioningly.

“I think everyone does,” I say, hoping that I’ll get some good luck soon and finally work up the courage to tell Ethan how I feel about him. That would be the best luck ever. “So,” I say, changing the subject, “you’re really getting married on Saturday.”

Ella nods, sipping her coffee as she stares out at the fence that divides her yard from the next-door neighbors, who apparently collect wind chimes, since there’s a collection of them trimming the entire back end of the house.

“I really am. Totally weird, huh?” she asks, seeming a little nervous, but that’s just how Ella is. When I nod, she adds with a discrete glance at me from the corner of her eye, “About as weird as your new hairdo.”

I touch the ends of my hair, scrunching my nose. “It doesn’t look that bad, does it?”

She shakes her head and sets her coffee mug by her feet. “No, I like it…” Her green eyes sweep over me as she readjusts the elastic around her auburn hair. “It just looks different—you look different.”

I examine my nails, pretending to be blasé. “How so?”

She shrugs, staring at me with a quizzical look on her face. “You’re dressing different… less fancy and more like me. And I don’t know… you just look different. Happier or something.”

That throws me off the slightest bit. “Happier? That’s weird, because a lot of people have said I was the happiest person they’d ever met.”

She reaches for her coffee, again tucking her foot underneath her as she brings the brim of the glass cup up to her mouth. “I can see why they’d say that, but I don’t know…” She takes a sip, shaking her head. “You just look different for some reason. I can’t put my finger on it.” She rotates her cup in her hand, pressing her lips together, and it looks like she’s trying really hard not to smile.

“What?” I finally say as I reach for my coffee. A little laugh slips through my lips because she looks so amused and I have absolutely no idea what’s going on. “Why do you keep giving me weird looks?”

“Is there anything you want to tell me?” she asks.

I shrug, taking a gulp of the coffee. “That you have a nice house.”

She gives me a tolerant look. “Lila.”

I press back a smile, even though I have no clue what’s going on. “Ella.”

She grins, and then shakes her head, laughing. “Fine, if you’re not going to fess up, then I’ll just say it.” She pauses, griping the handle of her mug. “I heard a rumor that there finally might be something going on between you and Ethan.”

I hold my cup in one hand and thrum my fingers on the wicker armrest of the chair. I haven’t talked to Ethan since we parted at the airport. I texted him a few times, but he always gives one-word responses, so I decided to give him some space, seeing how he’s probably really busy with London. God, even thinking about it hurts a little. “By rumor, you mean Micha told you about us.”

She shrugs, grinning amusedly. “Maybe.”

“What did he say exactly?” I ask curiously, a little worried about what he said, but the fact that he did tell him has to mean something, right? That he cares enough about me to tell Micha. “Or should I say, what did Ethan tell him?”

She turns her head toward me with a mischievous grin on her face. “Why don’t you tell me your side and then I can compare?”

I set the coffee cup down on the ground again while she takes a drink of hers. “Fine, we fucked.”

She sucks in a sharp breath and then quickly moves the mug away from her mouth as she spits coffee all over the deck in front of her feet. “Holy shit, Lila.” She presses her hand to her chest, coughing as she works to catch her breath. “I was not expecting you to be so blunt about it.”

I can’t help myself. A big silly grin rises on my lips. “Me neither, but I think I’ll have to do it more because it’s really, really fun.”

She wipes the coffee from her face with the back of her hand. “You’re starting to sound like me.”

“The new, fun you or the old, boring one who I first met?” I joke. “I need clarification.”

She shields the sunlight with her hand. “The new one, which is the better one. Trust me.”

“I do trust you,” I say. “But the Ella I’ve always known, new or old, was still a good person and that’s a great thing to be compared to.”

She shakes her head, stifling a smile. “Are we going to have a moment here or something?”

“Maybe,” I say. “We never really did have one in the entire two years that we’ve known each other. Maybe it’s time. We can hug, cry it out, and tell each other how much we love each other.”

“I’m not one for crying.” She lowers her hand to her lap. “Or for throwing out the L word.”

“I know and honestly I’m trying to cut back on it,” I joke. “We could have a girl-bonding moment though and you could ask me how sex with Ethan was while we eat popcorn and watch a really sappy movie.”

She makes a gagging face, pressing her hand to her chest like she’s choking on the idea. “I never ever want to hear you talk about sex with him. Ever.” She shudders. “So gross.”

We giggle over it for a moment and then talk about lighter things, like how Micha and she have been over the last couple of months. She presses me for more Ethan details, asking me why he couldn’t get off work to fly out with me. Apparently, Ethan never told anyone about London and I decide to keep it to myself, figuring Ethan must have his reasons. Other than that I don’t have much to say, besides the fact that kissing Ethan is amazing and that only makes her dry heave. She understands my need to be vague for the most part, because she’s pretty much the vaguest person I’ve ever met, and she doesn’t press much, which makes me glad she’s my best friend. I didn’t even realize how much I’d missed being around her and it makes me feel happy that I have that kind of friendship with someone but kind of sad because I know I’m only going to miss her when I go back to Vegas.

“So what about your dress?” I ask as we head back into the kitchen, deciding for a subject change. I need to talk about something happy and clothes always do that for me.

She sets our mugs into the sink and rinses them off. “You want to see it?” she asks, shutting the faucet off.

I nod eagerly and clap my hands together. “Of course. I love wedding stuff. And the dress is the best part.”

“I know.” She frowns as she winds around the tiny island in the middle of the kitchen. “Which makes me reluctant to show you.”

“Why?” My face scrunches up. “Ella, what did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything.” She sighs. “Which is why you’re not going to like it.”

I stare blankly at her, confused, and she sighs and motions for me to follow her as she walks toward the hallway. She takes me back to a small bedroom. The blue walls are covered with artwork and there’s a wrought-iron bed piled with sheets of paper that are smudged with penned lyrics.

I pick up one of the sheets of paper from the foot of the bed. “What? Do you guys just sit around and write and draw together all day?”

“Kind of,” she says, opening the closet door. “I mean, I’m not in school right now and I only work part time down at this art gallery, so I have to fill up my day somehow.”

I nod and set the drawing down on the dresser. “I’m trying to find a job,” I admit. “But I’m having no luck.”

She’s searching through the clothes hanging up, but pauses, glancing at me from over her shoulder with her eyebrows elevated. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” I sit on the edge of the bed and cross my legs, but then pull a face and put my hands on my lap. “Wait, is this safe to sit on?”

She sifts through the small amount of clothes in the closet. “My bed? Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Because God knows what you two do on it.”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s fine, just keep your hands on your lap.”

Laughing, I lean over and examine the sheet of lyrics on the bed. “So, does Micha work every day?”

“Sometimes,” she replies. “Sometimes he gets a week off at a time. Sometimes he’s on the road all week. Right now, he’s recording at a studio in town.”

“And it’s not hard for you?” I ask. “To be away from him like that, because I remember how hard it was for you two the first time around.”

“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t, but I go with him to every performance I can and we spend every waking hour together when we’re not working.”

I sit up straight, leaning back on my hands. “I’m not really surprised that you guys are doing well.”

She removes a hanger from the rod and turns around. “You aren’t? Really? Because I kind of am.”

“I already told you that you guys have the most beautiful relationship that’s ever existed and although you’re kind of crazy, you’re not stupid and I knew you’d eventually get it all right.” I make a swoony face, tipping my head to the side as I drape my hand over my forehead. “You guys are so dreamy together.”

She rolls her eyes. “Whatever, Miss Smarty Pants. Maybe I should be giving you a hard time.”

I lower my hand. “About what?”

“About whether or not you’re in love with Ethan.” She arches her eyebrows, waiting for my response.

I am! I want to scream, but I haven’t told Ethan yet, so telling her first seems wrong. “So how about that dress?” I say, trying for a subject change and reaching out for her to hand it over. “Let me see it.”

She lets my abrupt subject change go and slowly pulls out a plain black tank dress. “I hate white,” she says, holding the fabric up to her body, “so I thought this could work.”

It goes to her knees and has no detail at all. Plus, it has a really high neckline and the straps look really worn out.

“Are you going to a funeral?” I ask, pulling a face at the hideous dress. “Or a wedding?”

She sighs, defeated, lowering the dress to her side. “I don’t like fancy stuff, okay. And besides, fancy dresses are expensive.”

“It doesn’t have to be fancy.” I get to my feet. “But this…” I touch the fabric and then cringe at the roughness of it, like it’s been washed a thousand times. “Ella, you seriously can’t get married in this. It’s hideous.”

“Well, what do you suggest I wear?” she asks. “I don’t have a lot of money and I don’t have anyone to help me besides you.”

I mull it over for a minute, wondering if I really want to go to where my brain’s heading. How much do I care for Ella? A lot obviously, since I’m even considering what I’m considering right now. I mean, she’s my best friend, and she deserves a really pretty dress. “I have an idea, but you’ll have to trust me. And I mean really, really trust me.”

“Why?” She’s wary. “What are you up to?”

“I’m not up to anything,” I tell her, heading for the door. “I just don’t want you to be shocked.”

Her mouth turns downward as she trails after me. “Okay, I’ll trust you, but I have a few rules.” She counts down on her fingers. “Like no ruffles, no pure white, no poofiness.”

I laugh as we head out the door.

Ethan

It’s Thursday morning, only about twelve hours since I left Las Vegas and Lila behind. I find that I’m missing her a lot more than I’d expected. She’s texted me a couple of times and I want to call and talk to her, but I promised myself I wouldn’t until after I talked to London. That way I could have a clear head. Maybe. Hopefully.

I’m at London’s aunt’s house, where London lives most of the time because it’s closer to her doctor’s office. I’ve been sitting in a living room that smells like cat food for about an hour, counting the tics of the grandfather clock while drinking iced tea and listening to Rae talk about hope while we wait for London to come back from her doctor’s appointment. I’m getting a little restless waiting, wondering what she’ll look like and the stupid part of me believes there’s a small possibility that she’ll walk into the room and recognize me. It’s making me regret coming here and making me really want to hop onto a plane and go back to Lila, just so I can hold her.

I’m just about to tell Rae that I can’t do this when the front door swings open and London walks inside. It’s mind-blowingly strange, seeing her again. She looks older, yet the same. Her black hair is still resting at her chin and streaked with purple, and she still has a scar on her lip and her nose is pierced. She also has a faint scar on her head where she hit it on the rock when she fell out the window, the thing that caused the brain damage. I swear, if I didn’t know any better, I’d guess that I’d somehow stepped back in time four years.

There’s this fleeting moment when I swear her eyes light up like they used to whenever she looked at me, but it vanishes so quickly I wonder if I was imagining it. She glances at her mother, who she does recognize, but not from her childhood. She can’t remember anything from the past, except the basic functions of walking, talking, and breathing.

“Who’s he?” she asks her mom in a robotic kind of voice.

Rae looks just how I remember her the last time I saw her right after London’s accident. She’s still the spitting image of London, only twenty-years older. She gets to her feet. “This is an old friend of yours.”

London’s eyes lock on me and I remember how she sometimes used to just stare at me with this thoughtful look on her face, like she was memorizing what I looked like. But now, well, she just looks lost, like someone who wandered off into the forest and can’t find her way back.

“I don’t remember him,” she says, stepping back toward the door. “Why is he here?”

Rae quickly winds around the sofa and grabs London’s arm, stopping her from bolting. “He came here to talk to you. A long way actually, so the least you could do is sit down and listen to what he has to say.”

London glances at me and I force a smile. It’s too weird. I just keep thinking about all the time we spent together and how I can remember it but she can’t. I’m a stranger to her, but I realize now she was kind of like a stranger to me the entire time we were dating.

“What’s your name?” she finally asks me.

“Ethan,” I get up from the sofa and walk toward her with my hands tucked into the pockets of my jeans. “Ethan Gregory.”

She considers this for a moment. “I have no idea who you are,” she says and then shrugs like she’s at a loss for words. “Sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” I reply, but I’m not quite sure what I’m sorry for. Whether it’s for leaving the house that day, not ripping the needle out of her hand when she was about to shoot up, or for the plain and simple fact that I can’t make her remember me. Or maybe it’s because even though I’m standing here with her, I can’t stop thinking about Lila, her smile, her sadness, and the fact that at the moment I really just want to be with her, not here.

“Why don’t you two sit down?” Rae gestures at the sofas. “And I’ll go get you some iced tea.” She smiles at me with hope in her eyes as she walks past me, heading to the kitchen and leaving me alone with London.

London shakes her head and then sighs and sits down on the sofa. “I don’t know why she tries so hard.” She tucks her hands underneath her legs. “I can barely remember her and she’s my mother.”

“She just cares about you.” I take a seat in the recliner across from her. “It’s a good thing.”

“Or a stupid thing, depending on how you look at it.” She eyes me over as she leans back in the sofa. “What’s your name again?”

“Ethan,” I say, picking up the glass of iced tea Rea has placed beside me. She’s disappeared back into the kitchen, and I can’t help but wish I was back there with her. “Ethan Gregory.”

“And we dated?”

“Yeah, pretty much?”

“And we had sex.”

I’m in the middle of a sip and nearly spit the iced tea all over the floor. “Yeah, I guess you could say that,” I say, setting the glass down.

“Was I any good?” she asks curiously as she leans forward. “I mean I had to be if you’re here to visit me.” Her feistiness resembles the London I remember so much it’s kind of hard to take in.

“You were,” I admit, wiping my lips with the back of my hand.

She arches her eyebrow. “The best you ever had.”

I open my mouth to answer, but then clamp my jaw shut because the answer is no. The best I’ve ever had is back in San Diego doing who knows what, hopefully smiling and being happy.

“Aw,” she states, her eyebrows arching as she relaxes back in the chair. “There’s someone else.”

I nod slowly, sadly. “Kind of.”

She seems amused by this, the corners of her lips quirking. “Are you in love with her?”

I lean forward, overlapping my hands on my knees. “You know, you ask a lot of questions.”

“Only about things I can’t remember,” she replies. “You know it’s a pain in the ass not being able to remember everyone, yet they’re always looking at you, hoping you will.”

“You can’t remember anything at all?” I know the answer, but I still ask the question.

“Nope, not really.”

“You seem so calm about it, though.”

“Not calm. I’ve just accepted it. I can remember the last four years, so that’s something. I’m not completely clueless and from what I understand—the fact that I threw myself out the window while on heroin—maybe I needed this.”

“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” I say uneasily. “Forgetting your past is a really big deal.”

“Maybe.” She pauses, crossing her arms over her chest.

I take a deep breath, preparing myself to say what I came here for. “About that day… the day you…”

“Threw myself out the window,” she finishes for me bluntly.

I nod. “Yeah… I wanted to say…” I fidget with the sleeve of my shirt. “I want to say that I’m sorry. I should have never left you in that house.”

“You left me?” she asks. “Why?”

I shrug. “You were frustrating me because you were obviously upset about something, yet you wouldn’t talk about it—you never would. You wanted to shoot up heroin instead and I didn’t want you to.”

She tucks her hair behind her ear, her analyzing gaze boring into me. “You told me not to do it?”

I nod. “A few times, but I should have tried harder. I should have made you stop.”

“How would you have done that?”

“I don’t know… ripped the needle out of your hand or something.”

She thrums her fingernails on the armrest, considering something. “You know, if I’ve learned one thing through this whole ordeal it’s that sometimes you can’t make things happen, even if you want them to. You can’t change things or make people do things they don’t want to do or can’t do.”

I swallow hard, understanding what she’s saying. “But I could have tried harder.”

“And in the end I’m sure I still would have put the needle in my arm,” she says. “And probably went out the window.”

“Maybe not though.”

“But maybe.” She pauses. “But we’ll never know. And it’s not for you to feel guilty when I can’t even remember you.”

I shake my head. She’s still so London and it’s crazy. “I guess so.” I get what she’s saying. I really do. But it’s hard to accept because we’ll never know what might have happened or might not have happened if I’d just gotten her to put the needle down.

“I don’t want to talk about me anymore,” she says dismissively. “I’m always talking about myself—with my mom, the doctors, everyone I come across who used to know me. I get so sick of it.”

“What do you want to talk about, then?” I ask, leaning back in the seat, feeling a little lighter and at the same time a little sadder because I know this is it. This is how things will always be between us and I can’t change it.

“You.” She crosses her legs and stares me down so hard I swear she’s trying to burn a hole in my head.” Tell me, Ethan Gregory, this girl who’s the best you’ve ever had, do you love her?”

“Love?” I ask. “You want to talk about love?”

She nods. “I do.”

I shrug, feeling uncomfortable under her scrutiny. “What the fuck is love anyway?” Giving your heart to someone completely? Saying here, take it, I’m yours? Letting them love you, hug you, own you? Yell at you and tell you you’re worthless? Hold you and tell you you’re important? What is the definition of love? How can you tell?

I open my mouth and decide to just go for it, letting the first answer that pops into my head slip out. “I think I do.” My mind is flying about a million miles an hour with the declaration and it’s hard to process, especially since I just said it for the first time in front of my ex-girlfriend who has amnesia.

She tilts her head to the side, studying me. “Did you love me?”

I think about her question, knowing the real answer, but it’s hard to admit it. “I think I did, but in a different way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our love was kind of chaotic and careless and we really didn’t know each other enough to actually completely love each other.” I reach into my pocket and retrieve the bracelet London gave me, the one with our initials intertwined. “But I think in some way or another we did have some kind of love for each other.” I lean over the table, holding my hand out to give her the bracelet.

“But not as much as this other girl?” she asks, taking the bracelet from my hand. “What is this?”

“You made it for me,” I say, leaning back. “You said it would always help me remember the time we spent together.”

She runs her finger along the leather. “Was I going to break up with you when I gave it to you? Because it kind of sounds like I was.”

I shrug and then shake my head. “You could have been thinking about it, but honestly I don’t know. Half the time I never knew what you were thinking.”

She grins as she looks down at the bracelet in her hand. “And now you’ll never know.” Leave it to London to have a sick and twisted sense of humor about the whole thing. But she’s right. I’ll never know what she was thinking, how she really felt, how I really felt, because we never got around to telling each other. I was so afraid of my feelings that I held them in and now the chance to tell her is gone. She’ll never know whether I loved her or not. How much I cared for her. I’ll never know if she felt the same way, whether she loved me so much she’d hang on to me if something happened to me and I was no longer part of her life. I will never know a lot of stuff about our relationship and there’s no changing that. It’s done. Final.

“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.