The Temptation of Lila and Ethan

Prologue

Lila

Beauty. Vanity. Perfection. Three words my mother adores. They mean more to her than her husband, her daughters, and life. Without these attributes, she thinks she’d be better off dead. Without me having these attributes, she would disown me. Be flawless. Shine bright. Never, ever do anything less than excel. These are her rules and the vanity that makes up my life. And my father isn’t any better. In fact, I think he might be worse, because even with beauty, perfection, and flawlessness, I’m still never good enough.

The constant need to be perfect continuously overwhelms me and makes me feel like I’m going to be crushed from the pressure. Sometimes I swear my house can shrink and expand, that the walls can close in and then retreat. When I’m alone in my house, the space feels overly immense with too many rooms, too many walls. But when I’m in it with my parents it seems like I can’t get enough space, almost as if I can’t breathe, even if we’re on opposite sides of the house.

Maybe it’s because I’m always doing something wrong and they’re always reminding me of my unforgiveable mistakes. Either I’m not doing enough to appease them or I’m not doing things well enough. There are always rules to follow. Sit up straight. Don’t slouch. Don’t talk unless you’re spoken too. Don’t screw up. Be perfect. Look pretty. We have expectations and standards to live up to. We must be perfect on the outside, despite what’s on the inside. I get so exhausted by the rules. I’m fourteen years old and all I want to do is have fun for once in my life and not wear sweater sets, slacks, and designer dresses, not worry about my hair being shimmering and sleek, my skin flawless. If I could, I would cut off my hair and dye it some wild color, like fiery red or streak it with black. I would wear heavy eyeliner and dark red lipstick. I would do anything as long is it was really me. At the moment, I’m not sure who that is, though. I only know the me my mother created.

I’m getting tired of it. I don’t want to worry about what everyone thinks of my family. I don’t want to have to sit at a dinner table that is big enough to seat twenty when there are only three of us. I don’t want to be forced to eat food that looks like it still needs to be cooked. I don’t want to endure one more dinner where I’m told every single thing I’ve done wrong. I want them to just let me be myself and maybe, perhaps tell me that they love me. I don’t want to feel like I’m always screwing up. I want to feel loved. I really do.

“Lila Summers,” my mom says, her tone clipped as she snaps her finger at me. “Don’t slouch at the table. You’ll get bad posture and it will mess up your height, or worse, you’ll get a hump on your back. Imagine how hideous you’d look then.”

Blowing out a breath, I straighten my shoulders, lifting my chest up, and continue to push the food around on my plate with my silverware. “Yes, mother.”

She shoots me a dirty look, displeased with my disrespectful tone. She just had her regular Botox treatment and her face looks frozen in place; nothing moves, wrinkles, or reveals any kind of emotion whatsoever. Then again, that’s how my mother is with or without Botox treatments. To show feeling is to show weakness, something my father and mother despise, along with failure, underachievement, and embarrassment to the family name, something I frequently cause.

“But doesn’t it seem just a little bit silly,” I say, knowing I’m treading on thin ice. My father hates when we question the rules, but sometimes I can’t keep my mouth shut, because I keep it shut too often. “To not be able to slouch just a little since we’re the only ones here.”

“Maybe we should start having her eat at her own table,” my father says, taking a bite of his asparagus. “You know how I feel about distractions while I’m eating.” He’s always in a pissy mood, but he’s extra pissy today. He had to join my mother at a mandatory meeting at my school with the principal because I got caught ditching yesterday. It wasn’t really a big deal. I just missed gym, but they got called in and that in and of itself caused an embarrassment to my father, which he repeatedly reminded me of in the car ride home.

“She never does anything right,” he’d said to my mother as we drove home. “I’m so sick and tired of the drama. Either she needs to straighten up or she needs to go.”

He’d said it like I was a dog or something equally as easy to discard.

My mother continues to glare at me from across the table, warning me to keep my mouth shut, that my father is not in mood for any arguing—like he ever is. She has blue eyes and blonde hair identical to mine, but her hair has started to gray so she dyes it once every couple of weeks so her roots won’t show. She gets manicures, won’t wear anything else besides name-brand designers, and has a shoe closet that’s as big as a lot of people’s houses. She likes her expensive wine and of course her medication. I hope to God I don’t grow up to be her, but if my mom has her way, I’ll be married off to some well-known family’s son, despite the fact that we won’t be in love. Love is stupid. Love won’t get you happiness, she always says. It’s how my mother and father met, which is probably why they sit on opposite ends of the dining table and never make eye contact. Sometimes I wonder how I was ever created, since I’ve never even seen them kiss.

My father’s phone chimes from inside his shirt pocket and he slips it out, checking the screen. He hesitates, and then silences it before returning it to his pocket.

“Who was that?” my mother asks, even though she already knows. We all do. Even the maids.

“Business,” he mutters and stuffs his mouth with asparagus.

Business is his twenty-four-year-old mistress, who my mother knows about but won’t ever say anything to my father about. I overheard her talking to her mother about it and they’d both agreed that it was a sacrifice of her luxurious life. My mother acted like it was no big deal, but I could hear the hurt in her tone then like I can spot agitation in her eyes now. I think it makes her feel like she’s losing her beauty and youth, since she’s getting older, grayer, and the wrinkles are starting to show.

“Well, will you please tell business not to call at the dinner table?” She stabs her fork into her chicken. “And Lila, I will not warn you again. Sit up straight or you will go to your room without dinner. You’re going to end up with a hump on your back and then no one will ever want you.”

“I really think we should reconsider sending her to that boarding school in New York that you sent Abby to,” my father says without looking at me. He straightens his tie and takes a bite of food. “Actually, I think we should. I don’t want to have to worry about raising her anymore. It’s too much drama and I don’t have the patience for it.”

“Now Douglas, I don’t think we need to send her that far away,” my mother says, letting the mistress call go like it’s as easy as popping one of the pills she takes every morning.

It’s almost the same conversation they have every single night. My dad says, “Hey, let’s send her away” to which my mother replies, “Now, Douglas.”

“She’s been getting into too much trouble.” My father grimaces, cutting his chicken. “Skipping school to go shopping and hanging out with people who aren’t up to our standards. She has average grades at best and zero accomplishments besides looking pretty. I ran into Fort Allman the other day and his son just got accepted to Yale.” He stuffs a bite full of chicken into his mouth and chews it completely before speaking. “What do we have to show for ourselves, Julie? Two daughters, one who’s been to rehab two times and the other who’s probably going to end up pregnant before the end of her freshman year of high school. She needs some sort of direction.”

“I’m not going to get pregnant,” I argue, feeling myself shrink, my shoulders hunching in. “I don’t even have a boyfriend yet. Not a serious one anyway.”

“She’s too much of a flirt.” He talks over me with disdain in his voice, like he’s ashamed of who I am. “She’s turning out to be just like Abby and I don’t want another one of those in our house. I want something I can be proud of and boarding school may be able to turn her around, if it isn’t too late already.”

It feels like I’m running out of breathing space, the walls closing in, ready to crush me to pieces. My shoulders bend inward even more until I’m pretty much curled up in ball.

“She will turn into someone you’ll be proud of—I’ll make sure of that. I promise,” she says in a timid voice, rearranging her vegetables on the porcelain plate. “She just needs a little bit more discipline.”

“And if she doesn’t?” he asks. “Then what?”

She doesn’t answer, cutting her chicken into thin slices, and I can hear the knife scraping the plate.

My father looks at me and his brown eyes are cold, his jaw firm, and his expression stoic. “At her age I already knew what college I was going to go to, where I’d work, and I even helped my father out at his office three times a week. What has she accomplished? Looking pretty? Wearing nice clothes? Becoming you, Julie? I don’t see how that will be beneficial to her future. Unless she can find someone to marry her, which at this point, I can assure you no one will.” He says it with such arrogance and self-worth. “She needs to start focusing less on boys and clothes and more on school and work. She needs to stop being such a God damn screwup, and until she does I don’t want her in this house.”

I tell myself to breathe, that the walls aren’t really closing in and that I’m not going to get crumpled into pieces. That feelings stabbing inside me are just feelings and one day I won’t feel so worthless—one day I’ll feel loved. That my father is just being himself, the same way his father was with him (I know because I’ve seen it). My sister, Abby, assures me there’s an entire world out there, past parents, money, expectations, and vanity. One that you can be yourself in—be free to be whoever you want, whatever that might be. She says she’s free now and it’s the most breathtakingly wonderful experience ever, despite her less-than-perfect living conditions and life choices.

“Douglas, I really think—” my mother starts, but my father cuts her off, holding up his hand to silence her.

“You assured me when we decided to have kids that I wouldn’t have to deal with them,” my father says, his tone chilled like ice. “You said that you would take care of them and that I would only have to focus on my job. But now I’m here, with daughter number two and she’s giving me just as much of a headache as daughter number one. This is not what I signed up for.”

For some reason, I picture my father on his wedding day scribbling his John Hancock on a contract that says he won’t have to deal with his kids if my mother chooses to have them.

“I’ll do better,” I dare say. “I promise, I’ll try.”

“You’ll try.” My father lets out a low, derisive laugh as he drops the fork onto his plate. “Julie, she needs to go to boarding school. It’ll be good for her.” He doesn’t speak to me. He rarely does, like I’m not good enough for him to speak to.

“Fine, we’ll send her,” my mother says abruptly, with her chin tipped low. “I’ll set it up first thing on Monday.”

“What!” I know better than to raise my voice at the dinner table, but this has to count as an exception. I shove my plate forward as I place my hands on the table. “You can’t do that! I’m not going anywhere!”

My dad overlaps his hands on the table and finally speaks to me. “I will do whatever the hell I want. You are my daughter, you carry my last name, and therefore you will act how I want you to and go wherever I send you. And if I say go to boarding school, then you will go.”

It feels like there’s no room left between the walls and the table and myself. I’m going to get smashed between them if I don’t get out of there. I push my chair back from the table. I know better than to act like this, but I can’t seem to stop myself. “What about my friends? School? My life here? I can’t just leave that all behind.”

“Your friends aren’t suitable for you,” my mother says. “They’ve got you missing school and getting into trouble.”

“They have not,” I protest. “I’ve barely done anything and what I have done is normal for a teenager.”

“Sit down,” my father demands. “You will not get up until you’ve finished your dinner.”

Shaking my head, I step back from the table. “This is such bullshit!” I’ve had only a few outbursts like this and every one resulted in my being punished by a very long lecture about how insignificant I am to this family.

He scowls at my mother. “Take care of your daughter.”

She quickly stands up, placing her hands on top of the white linen tablecloth. “Lila—”

I hurry out of the dining room, heading for the stairs, but at the last second, I turn for the foyer, taking long strides, eager to get the hell away from this place, just like my sister, Abby, did. I want to run away from them. Disappear. She used to do it all the time until one day they sent her away and she never came back to the house again.

I hear my mom yell and her high heels click across the marble floor as she chases after me. “Lila Summers, don’t you dare leave this house!”

I throw open the front door and the warmth and sunshine surround me. The house alarm also goes off, but I don’t turn back to turn it off. I sprint down the brick-paved driveway and press the code for the gate to open. I can hear my mother shouting, but I run through the gate and down the sidewalk, seeking freedom. I want to get away from them and their rules. I can’t go to boarding school. I have a life here. I have friends who care about me, and without Steph, Janie, and Cindy, I’ll have no one. I’ll be alone.

The idea is frightening and the fear sends an adrenaline rush through my body. My legs and arms move quickly, carrying me down the block. I don’t stop running until I reach the bus stop a couple of miles down the road where the neighborhood changes from massive, eccentric mansions to ordinary, less appealing suburbs. I’ve ridden the bus only once, but I think I can handle it, and right now I have no other option. I don’t have my phone on me so I can either wander around, go home or take the bus to my sister’s place and stay there for a little while. Reaching into the pocket of my pants, I take out a twenty dollar bill. Then I sit down on the bench and wait for the bus that goes downtown to the main street in the city.

It takes a while for the bus to arrive and I’m kind of surprised that my mother doesn’t show up by the time I’m boarding, although the idea of her endeavoring to this area seems implausible. I try to pretend that it’s not a big deal, even though it is. I’m glad she didn’t show up so I don’t have to hear her lectures. But if I admit the truth to myself, the painful, ugly truth, I wish she had shown up because it’d mean that maybe she cared about me enough to look for me.

The bus ride takes forever and the seat I end up in has a funny smell to it, like unwashed socks mixed with a very overwhelming floral scent. It’s crowded, too, and some of the people look really sketchy. Like the guy across from me who keeps licking his lips as he stares at me. He has his shoelaces unlaced, there are holes in his jeans, and he looks only a few years older than me. He’s not ugly but the scars and slightly bumpy skin would make my mother instantly deem him unworthy of the finer things in life. Only the beautiful deserve to be rich. (I actually heard her say this once to my grandmother during one of their drunken heart-to-hearts.)

“You got any cash on ya?” he asks, sliding to the edge of his seat, rubbing his unshaven jawline.

I shake my head and turn my knees toward the wall. “No.”

“You sure?” He eyes the pockets of my pants while he keeps licking his lips.

“Yes, I’m sure.” I scoot toward the window, while he continues to stare at me like a creeper.

“You are fucking fine. You know that?” he asks and for a second I feel flattered, but in an uncomfortable way. “Are you lost or something?” he wonders and when I don’t answer, he puts his hand on my knee. “If you want, I can help you find your way back home.”

“Don’t touch me,” I utter quietly, my pulse accelerating as he glides his hand up my leg.

“Why, sweetheart?” he asks, his hand reaching my thigh. “It’s okay, you know that.”

I don’t move right away. It takes me a minute to sort through the confusion in my head, because my head and my body are saying two different things. It’s not like a guy hasn’t touched me before, but for some reason this guy’s hand on my thigh makes me feel special. Human contact, skin to skin. I hate that I feel starved of it and there’s a slight bit of enjoyment his touch brings, which makes me feel ashamed and dirty, yet at the same time wanted. And I rarely feel wanted.

Working up the courage, I fling his hand off my leg. He starts laughing at me, but doesn’t say anything else, and finally he gets off the bus, making a remark about me going with him so he can show me a “real good time.”

I unstiffen a little once he’s gone and try to stay focused on the outside as the bus passes street after street, the sun dipping lower on the horizon until it vanishes altogether. My reflection stares back at me through the window nearly the entire ride: my deep-set blue eyes, shoulder-length blonde hair, and my fair complexion that’s so smooth everyone thinks I wear makeup but I don’t. Beauty. I get told I have it all the time and people seem envious of it, yet it never gets me what I want. Love. Affection. To feel whole inside instead of so empty.

It’s dark by the time I reach my destination and the air has gotten chilly. The neighborhood my sister lives in doesn’t help either. It’s in the rundown section and there are a lot of people roaming up and down the sidewalks littered with garbage. There’s a man passed out on the bench at the bus stop, along with a group of guys standing in a circle shouting in front of a vacant building with boarded-up windows. One of the guys notices me when I step off the bus and he nudges the guy to the side of him, saying something in a low voice. They both look at me and I don’t like the expressions on their faces or the fact that they’re three times my size.

I veer to my right, even though my sister’s place is to the left, just to avoid walking by them. I keep my head tucked down, wanting to hide what I look like, because, like I’ve experienced before, my looks can cause trouble.

“Hey, where you goin’, baby?” one of them shouts out, his eyes following me. “Come back here and play.”

I take off and don’t slow down until I’ve rounded two of the corners on the block, practically making a U-turn. Finally, I reach a quieter area of the sidewalk, which borders a chain-link fence around a junkyard. I continue walking with my head tucked down, walking swiftly, until I reach my sister’s apartment a few blocks down.

I remember when I first visited her, how shocked I’d been. She’d just been kicked out of the boarding school for drug possession and my dad wouldn’t let her move back home or give her any help financially. She’d left home a loudmouth who liked to speak her mind, and rebelled every once and while, but nothing major. When she returned, she was subdued, addicted to drugs, and barely acted like the sister I remembered. This was the only place she could afford and I’ll admit it’s disgusting. Most of the windows on the outside of the three-story brick building are either broken or boarded up and there are people sleeping on the stairway. My mother calls it a crack house where trashy, unwanted people live, and she tells me she’ll never, ever visit my sister. I manage to make it to Abby’s floor without any confrontation from the people sleeping on the stairs or the woman shouting obscene things to a man who lives across the hall from her. It takes five knocks to get my sister to answer the door and as soon as I see her, I can tell she’s blissfully high.

“Hey, Lila,” she says dazedly as she blinks her blue eyes. “To what do I owe the honor of your being here?” She’s wearing an overly large gray sweatshirt and cutoffs, something my mom would disown her for wearing, although I guess my mother already kind of has so it doesn’t really matter.

“Hey.” I wave idiotically, feeling uneasy.

She opens the door wider so I can step inside. “I bet it was Dad, right?” she jokes disdainfully as she shuts the door behind me. “He must have sent you here to check up on me and make sure that his dear daughter is doing okay and isn’t dead in a ditch somewhere.”

“I just needed some place to go to clear my head,” I tell her, drawing a deep breath as I turn in a circle, taking in her living room that’s the size of the foyer in my house. The air smells smoky and kind of like garbage and there are all these eccentric glass vases everywhere and a lot of alcohol bottles. “Mom and Dad don’t know I’m here,” I say, facing her. I think about giving her a hug, because I really need one right now, but she looks so fragile, like if I hug her too tight, she might crumble.

She looks so much different from the last time I saw her and it’s been only six months. Her blonde hair looks greasy and thin and her pores are huge and she has a few sores on her skin that look like pimples she’s been picking at. Her lips are really dry and she has a couple of cold sores. She’s lost a lot of weight, which isn’t good since she was already too skinny to begin with.

She blinks her eyes at me and then motions to a tattered plaid sofa that fills up the narrow living room. “You can have a seat if you want,” she says, flopping down in the sofa herself.

I brush some crumbs off the cushion and take a seat. There’s this weird-looking lightbulb on the coffee table, sketched with colorful art, and I reach for it. “What is this? Art?”

“Don’t touch that,” she snaps, slapping my hand away. “That’s not art, Lila.”

“Oh, sorry.” I’m starting to regret coming here, since she seems unhappy to see me and is completely out of it. “Maybe I should go.” I start to rise to my feet, but she grabs my arm and pulls me back down.

“No, don’t go.” She sighs. “It’s just that…” She scratches her head and then picks at her face. “I don’t know why you’re here, especially since Mom made it pretty clear that the family was going to disown me.”

“I would never disown you,” I tell her, remembering how we once used to have a good relationship, before boarding school came along and then her drug addiction. “I just… it’s just that… Dad’s sending me off to boarding school,” I blurt out. “The same one that you went to.”

She stays quiet for quite a while, staring at the lightbulb on the coffee table. “Why? What happened?”

I pull a guilty face. “I got caught ditching school.”

She shakes her head and hatred flashes across her face. “Dad is such a fucking asshole. It’s like you can never screw up. Not once, even if it’s something small. And if you do… if you do, then you no longer exist to him.”

I don’t disagree with her. In fact, I’ve felt pretty nonexistent for most of my life. “What should I do?”

She shrugs. “There’s not much you can do… not until you’re eighteen and can get the fuck away from our parents.”

I slouch in the sofa, staring at the colorful poster on the wall that has a picture of a guitar on it. “How bad is it?”

She picks up a lighter from the coffee table and reaches for the lightbulb. “How bad is what?”

“Boarding school?” I ask, watching her with curiosity. What is she doing? Who is this person sitting beside me? I barely even recognize her.

She puts the lightbulb up to her mouth. “Not any worse than being at home.” She flicks the lighter and starts moving the flame along the glass. I have no idea what she’s doing, but it feels like I should look away. So I do.

“So I can handle it?” I stare at the dark hallway that leads to a door covered with strings of beads. “I mean, going there. It won’t be that bad, right?”

She snorts a laugh and then it’s echoed by a cough. “That all depends on how great you think our home life is.”

“It not that bad,” I say, but the lie is thick in my throat.

She snorts another laugh. “Oh, Lila, don’t kid yourself. Our home life is a bunch of shit based on lies for the public eye. To everyone, we seem like the perfect family, but on the inside—behind closed doors—we live in a hollow shell of a home. No hugs. No kisses. No affection. An unemotional zombie mother who’s obsessed with her beauty and money. An absent father who hates us and prides himself on telling us that all the time, letting us know how much we annoy him just because we exist.” She coughs again, louder, until she hacks something up and then spits it out onto the floor. “It’s like he wants us to be as miserable as his father made him.”

I finally glance back at her and she’s setting the lightbulb down on the table and I notice the air is a little musty. “What is that?” I ask, pointing at it.

“Let’s hope you never find out. Let’s keep hoping you live some kind of rainbows and sunshine life instead of this.”

“But I thought you said things were better out here. That you felt freer.”

“I do feel freer.” She yawns, her eyelids growing heavy. “But I don’t want this version of free for you.”

“But if you don’t like it then why do you do it?”

“Because it makes me happy and all the dark things in the world not so dark.” She drops the lighter on the table, considers something, and then draws her knee onto the couch as she turns to face me. “You want some sisterly advice?”

“Umm…” I glance around at the apartment that I’m fairly certain is littered with drug paraphernalia. “I guess.”

“Live your life, Lila, the way that you want to, not how Dad wants you to or anyone else.” She reaches for the lighter on the table again, her eyelids growing heavier and she begins to ramble, looking dazed and barely coherent. “And if you end up at the boarding school keep clear of the trouble-making guys, the rough-looking, wild, and dangerous ones. They can make you feel really alive and loved and like life can actually mean something. But all they fucking do is use you. And they’ll only bring you down with them. They don’t really love you, Lila. They don’t. Love doesn’t even exist, despite how much you want it to.”

I wonder why she’s telling me this. “Um… okay.”

She never explains further and that is the end of our conversation. She gets up and starts cleaning the house like a robot dosed up on sugar and caffeine. I sit there and watch her, wondering how she got to this point in her life, so ugly and broken—so messed up. Was it because of a guy? One she loved? Is that why she said that thing about love?

A week later I go off to boarding school with her words of wisdom a shadow in my mind, there but barely. The problem is she forgot to warn me about the guys who seem perfect on the outside, the ones who are charming, seemingly unflawed, and make you feel loved for the very first time. She forgot to tell me about the illusion of love and the darkness that comes with it. That eventually when the illusion is gone, the walls close in on you, crush you, and all you’re left with is feeling more unloved and worthless than you did before.

Ethan

I’m sitting at the kitchen table, surrounded by garbage, alcohol bottles, and cigarette butts in probably the shittiest house in the neighborhood, which is saying a lot because there are a lot of shitty houses in this town. It’s dark outside and the guy who owns the place decided to go 1960s hippy style and decorate his entire house with lava lamps. He’s also got a black light so the house has this haunting glow and everyone’s teeth look stupidly white.

A year ago I was an average guy, going to school, and getting decent grades. Now I’m an almost seventeen-year-old high school drop out who’s sitting in some druggies’ house, unsure how the hell I got here. It feels like I’m abruptly plummeting off a cliff, hanging out with a bunch of people who I barely recognize and who don’t seem to care about anything but getting high and talking about how hard their lives are.

At first the fall was kind of fun and easy, especially turning off my thoughts, because they drive me fucking nuts. But then things descended toward rock bottom and I can feel myself about to splatter against them. I don’t want to be in this deep. Not just because I hate needles. I mean I can stand them to an extent, as long as they’re going in someone else’s body, not mine. This should be enough to keep me out of situations like these, yet here I am watching some guy shoot up right in front of me, for no other reason than I’m kind of curious and can’t seem to find a good enough reason to get up and leave. Plus, there’s London, my one weakness in this world, despite how much I want to deny it. London is the one person who I’ll make dumb choices for, even when I know they’re dumb choices. She’s the reason I broke my no-girlfriend rule.

The owner of the house flicks the needle with his fingers and then aims the tip at his forearm. He opens and closes his hand a few times, pumping his fist, then makes a final fist before he plunges the needle into his forearm, sliding it under his skin, deep into his vein. I wince as his muscles tighten, and then he pulls it out and drops the needle onto the table in front of him next to a spoon. He flops back in the kitchen chair and lets out a moan that seriously creeps me out.

“And that’s how you get high, fuckers,” he says, as his eyes roll into the back of his head. “This seriously feels…” He drifts off, his head flopping to the side.

I’m trying to figure out why I’m still here. I know why I came here. Because of London. I first met her almost a year ago. She’d been really drunk at this party I was at and needed a ride home. Somehow that ended up becoming my job. At first I was pissed and made a point to be an ass the entire drive home. But then she started crying to the point where I thought she was going to pass out, so I pulled the truck over and she immediately took off into the field to the side of us.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I’d muttered, shoving the truck into park. I’ve never done well with crying and for a moment I considered just letting London run and get lost in the dark. After seriously contemplating how big of a douche I was being, I couldn’t just leave her there. Cursing under my breath, I got out of the truck, chased her down, and found her crying in the middle of the field.

“Look, I don’t know what the problem is, but I really need to get you home,” I said, stopping in front of her, working to keep my cool. It was getting late, the sky already gray and I wanted to have time to go back to the party. “So could you please do me a favor and get in the truck?”

She shook her head, hugging her knees closer to her. “Just leave me here.”

“Oh, trust me, I’m seriously considering it.”

“Good.” She buried her face against her knees. “I don’t want to…” She trailed off, wiping her eyes.

I stood there in the middle of the dry grass, trying to figure out what the hell to do—if I should ask questions or keep my mouth shut. I was about to leave her when she started to sob, like these gasping, hyperventilating sobs. I suddenly had a flashback to when I was around eight and my dad went through this phase where he would beat the shit out of me every time he was coming down from his pain medications and I used to curl up in a ball and sob. It really wasn’t a big deal or anything and it only lasted, like, a year, but still, it sucked at the time.

Even though I had no idea why London was crying, I felt a little sympathy for her because there was obviously something going on. “Look, are you okay?” I crouched down in front of her. “Do you want me to take you somewhere else besides home?”

Her tears silenced and when she peeked up at me, she had a cynical look on her face, which surprised the shit out of me. “Like where? Your place? So you can fuck me?”

“No.” I stood up and took a step back because the girl was seriously intense. “I was just trying to help. That’s all. But if you’re going to be a bitch about it then I’ll let you sit here and cry.”

Her eyes stayed on me as she rose to her feet and her sadness gradually shifted to inquisitiveness as her gaze strayed up and down my body. “You’re an asshole.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, not giving a shit. It wasn’t the first time I’d been called this. In fact, I’d been called a lot worse.

“If you really want to help me,” she said, grabbing ahold of my hand, “then stop talking.”

Before I could respond, she dragged me back to my truck on the side of the road. I thought she was going to pour her heart and soul out to me or something, but instead we climbed into the truck and she took a joint out of her bra. We smoked it and when we were done, she asked me if I wanted to fuck her. As much as I loved sex, there was something about her—sadness in here eyes maybe—that made me hesitate for the first time since I’d started having sex. Sure, London had a rebellious, skanky kind of look to her, in her tight leather skirt and cleavage-baring top, but she also looked like she was hurting inside. It felt like she was searching for a way to get rid of the sadness and at the moment it seemed to be sex.

“Maybe I should just take you home,” I’d said, putting the joint out in the ashtray of my truck.

“Why?” she questioned in a feisty tone, raising her eyebrows. “Are you afraid of me or something?”

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. “Don’t be fucking ridiculous.”

She eyed me up and down. “Are you a virgin or something?”

I snorted a laugh. “I haven’t been a virgin for two years, sweetheart.”

She smiled condescendingly. “Then what’s the problem?”

“I have no idea,” I lied.

She kept biting her lip and her eyes were all swollen from crying and there was mascara running down her cheeks. I hardly knew her, but I wanted to take that sad look off her face, which is something I didn’t want to be thinking. No strings attached. No relationship. Those were my rules.

“Then have sex with me.” She’d scooted across the bench seat and pressed her lips against mine roughly, biting my bottom lip. I thought about pulling away, but I was too turned on and ended up thinking with my cock and kissing her back.

We had sex in the backseat of my truck. Rough, sweaty, passion-filled sex that blew my mind at the time. I mean, I’d had sex before, but this was different and all that overthinking and wanting to be alone momentarily dissolved into desire for something more in life, not that I could figure out what.

After that I kind of became addicted to her and her erratic, impulsive, wild behavior. She introduced me to a world of weed and we’d spend hours having sex, never really talking, making our relationship easy and perfect, never complicated.

And now, six months later, I’m sitting in a heroin addict’s house because she asked me to be here. It’s not my scene. I mean, I get high and everything with weed and I’ve tried cocaine a few times, but heroin is a whole other ballgame, one I’m not sure I want to play.

London extends her arm across the table. She’s got short black hair, streaked with purple, and her eyebrow is pierced, along with the spot just above her lip, next to a gnarly scar that runs from the side of her nose to her lip. I’ve asked her a ton of times how she got it, but she refuses to tell me. She refuses to tell me a lot of things.

“Ethan?” London looks in my direction with a hopeful expression on her face. “I can’t shoot myself up. Will you please, pretty please help me?”

I pull a wary face and shake my head. “Sorry, I don’t know how.”

“I know you don’t, baby, but I can tell you how to do it. It’ll be fine, trust me.” Her eyes plead with me to help her as she runs her free hand through my hair, trying to warm me up. “Please, I really need this.”

She always really needs something and I usually let her, because she’s not mine to own, but this… this might be a little too much.

“Since when are you into this stuff?” I ask her, glancing around at the people lying around on the living room floor. “I’ve been with you for the last six months and I’ve never seen you do anything but weed and coke.”

“Well, I guess you don’t know me that well, then,” she snaps, jerking her hand away from my hair. “And you haven’t been with me. I just let you follow me around.”

I’m getting aggravated. I crack my knuckles against the table and then pop my neck. “Well, I’m not helping you with this.” She pouts out her lip, but I don’t feel bad for her.

“That’s not going to work on me,” I tell her. “Not with this.”

“I’ll help ya, baby.” This guy who’s her age—I think his name Drake or Draven or some weird vampire-sounding name—comes walking into the kitchen. He’s a complete asshole and disregards me, looking at London like she belongs to him or some shit. “You got a needle?”

She shakes her head and tucks her hair behind her ear, brushing it away from her shoulder and I can see her tattoo on her shoulder: broken. I asked her what it meant once and she said it was because she was broken. I asked her why she thought that and she shook her head and told me she didn’t want to talk about it. That she just wanted to fuck. She says that a lot.

“Just the one right here.” London flicks the used needle that’s on the table and my face twists with revulsion.

He plops down in the seat next to her and picks up the used needle that belongs to the guy passed out on the table. Then he picks up a spoon and a lighter.

“You know that’s not sanitary, right?” I ask London, tugging down the sleeves of my plaid shirt. “Or smart?”

“Since when have I ever claimed to be smart?” She arches her eyebrow at me, daring me to tell her otherwise.

“Never, but it doesn’t mean you have to act like an idiot.” I glance at Draven or Drake or whoever he is. “When you’re obviously not.”

“Well, Drake’s going to do it for me,” she states, with a challenge in her eyes because she knows it’s a sensitive subject. I hate looking weak and right now I’m letting some guy take control over my girl.

I glance at the needle in the guy’s hand as he extracts some liquid from the spoon. I want to punch him in the face. I want to yell at him. I want to yell at London, not just for doing it now but because I’m starting to wonder if she’s done this in the past, shot up with dirty needles. Shit, what if she gave something to me. But I don’t yell at her because then I’d be a replica of my father always yelling at my mom. Honestly, what I really want to do is run out of this damn house because I don’t want to be here.

“Can’t we just go?” I say. “There’s gotta be something else you want to do. We can go hang out with Jessabelle and Big D.”

“Those two are amateurs,” she retorts and I can tell by her firm tone that she’s not going to back down because once London makes up her mind, there’s no changing it.

“Who brought the whiner to this place?” the guy interrupts, targeting a glare at me. He nods his chin toward the front door. “If you’re not big enough to handle it then get the fuck out.”

The guy is twice my size—thick neck, tall, hefty—and I’m not one for picking fights anyway. “Just come with me,” I say to London. “I can take you home or I can take you back to my place.”

“To do what? Talk? Make out? Fuck?” She shakes her head. “That’s not what I want right now, Ethan. What I want—what I need—is this.” She directs her attention back to the needle and pumps her fist a few times. “God, I need this so bad.”

Something’s obviously bothering her and it seems like for once I need to get to the bottom of it before she does something drastic even for her. “London, please just come with me and tell me—”

“Shut the fuck up, Ethan!” she cries, slamming her other hand down on the table. Some guy in the living room busts up laughing and the guy high in the chair tips over and falls to the floor, hitting the ground hard. No one seems to care. “I don’t need a fucking hero. Or some pathetic little high schooler trying to save me. What I need is to be with someone who will give me what I want and allow me to live my life how I want.”

Grinding my teeth, I shove up from the chair. “Fine. Do whatever the fuck you want then. Find someone else. See if I give a shit.” I do give a shit, though. Really badly. I want London, more than I’ve wanted anyone else. I’ve always secretly wished I could just leave all my stuff behind, hitchhike across the country, and write about what I see and feel and how much I hate being around people and the world and the constant chattering. It always feels like there’s the rest of the world and then me. But now there’s London and me. I think I might be in love with her even though she’s kind of messed up in the head and I really don’t know much about her. But I’m the same way. I rarely share who I am and confuse the hell out of people when I do. Deep down, I think we could be beautiful together, living in our own little messed-up world, where we would talk about being outsiders and living life to the fullest. But not like this. Not with fucking heroin in our systems.

London’s emotions mix in her expression as I head for the door. She looks enraged, irritated, and hurt, but I keep putting one foot in front of the other. As I leave the kitchen, I get this small urge to turn back around and try one more time to convince her not to do it, but when I glance back over my shoulder, the guy’s already plunging the needle into her forearm. Shaking my head and internally cringing, I storm out of the house, knowing she’ll call me either later tonight or in the morning to pick her up, like she always does. That’s the thing with London. She always comes back to me no matter what and I’ll probably always take her back, because in this lonely world, she’s the only person who gets what it’s like to feel out of place. She promised me that no matter what happened, she’d always come back to me and she always has. So when she doesn’t call me by the next morning, I instantly know that something has to be wrong. And for the very first and last time, she doesn’t come back to me.