The Temptation of Lila and Ethan

Chapter Six

Lila

I wake up unable to remember what happened the night before. I should be okay with the confusion, since I’m used to it, but for some reason I feel more dirty and ashamed than I normally do.

The scent of cologne flowing from the blanket that’s over me is familiar. I’ve smelled it before and it comforts me. I force my eyes open and instantly recognize the band posters and drum set in the corner of the room. I sigh with relief. I’m in Ethan’s room, lying in his bed.

“Thank God,” I mutter, gradually sitting up and my stomach muscles constrict in protest. I wrap my arm around my stomach and realize that I’m wearing one of Ethan’s shirts.

Holy crap, did I sleep with him? I run my hands through my tangled hair, sifting through my hazy memories. But the only things I can remember are stars, bushes, beeping machines, and the smell of cleaner.

“Feeling better?” The sound of Ethan’s voice makes me jump and my stomach churns from the motion.

“Ah…” I moan, hunching over and clutching my tender stomach with my gaze fixed on the comforter in front of me. “What the heck happened last night?”

I hear him walk toward the bed and then the mattress bows as he sits down on the foot of it, making sure to keep some space between us. “You can’t remember anything at all?”

I shake my head, still looking down, feeling mortified for reasons I can’t explain. Then I notice the hospital band on my wrist. “No… I can remember wandering around the apartment complex… Then this guy took me somewhere…” I pause, daring to peer up. “And then all I can remember are stars and the smell of cleaner.”

He’s wearing a black-and-red T-shirt, his hair is damp, like he just got out of the shower, and there are holes in his jeans. “You pretty much overdosed,” he says, cautiously watching me.

He thrums his fingers on his knees, considering something. “You know, I’ve never been one for pressing people about their problems.” He slides his knee on the bed, turning sideways so he’s facing me. “I’ve never been a big fan of talking about my own shit and so I usually avoid trying to make people talk about theirs unless they’re being stupid and right now every single part of me is screaming at me to make you tell me what happened.” He pauses and I start to speak, but he talks over me. “And don’t try to tell me that you’re taking that prescription because of a doctor’s orders. You told me last night on the way to the hospital that you’ve pretty much been abusing them since you were fourteen, something I probably should have just told the doctors, but I didn’t want to get you into trouble.” He stops and waits for something. A thanks? An explanation? The truth? I honestly don’t know and I don’t want to tell him anything either.

“I don’t know what to say.” I shut my eyes and summon a deep breath, chanting in my head not to cry. But I feel disembodied from my emotions and my stomach feels like I’ve done an infinite amount of sit-ups. All I want to do is lie down, sleep, and forget that all of this happened.

“How about the truth?” Ethan states cautiously, sounding less angry, and I feel him shift closer to me on the bed. “You know I get the whole substance-abuse thing.”

My eyelids snap open at his awful accusation. “I don’t have a substance-abuse problem,” I say, seething and tossing the blankets off me. “It’s a prescription. Doctor’s orders.” I swing my legs over the bed and push to my feet. A rush of blood flees from my head and my knees instantly buckle. I reach for the metal bedpost as I collapse, but Ethan jumps up and catches me in his arms right before I hit the floor.

I blow out a breath, looking at the wall beside me as he holds my weight up. I feel like an idiot. “Let me go. I can walk.”

“You’re supposed to be resting.” He helps me back to the bed and I begrudgingly sit down. “Doctor’s orders.”

I press my lips together, shaking my head. “Ethan, please just don’t. I don’t need this from you right now.”

“Please don’t what? Talk about what I saw last night? Because I’m not going to do that. It fucking scared the shit out of me, Lila… seeing you trashed out of your mind like that.” His eyes are wide and filled with panic as he sits down on the bed again, leaving a little less space between us as he roughly rakes his fingers through his hair. He looks stressed out and exhausted. “And as much as I hate to push you to talk about it, I feel like I have to. I can’t… I don’t want anything…” He’s fumbling over his words and it seems to be frustrating him. He’s acting very out of character and I wonder if something else is wrong.

“You don’t have to do anything,” I mutter, frowning down at my lap. “I’m not your girlfriend or anything—you don’t owe me anything. You should have just told the hospital I tried to kill myself. Then they could be dealing with me and you wouldn’t have to.”

He pauses, contemplating what I said. “You’re my friend and that’s equally as important, if not more important… You’re important…” His forehead creases as he says it, like he’s confused himself as much as he’s confused me. He starts to reach for me, as if he’s going to put his hand on my cheek, but then pulls his hand back.

I cover my mouth and shake my head as tears start to form in the corners of my eyes. “I can’t.”

He raises his eyebrows inquiringly. “Can’t what?”

“I’m not supposed to talk about stuff like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like this.” I wave my hand down in front of my terrible state. “All messed up and not put together.”

His head cocks to the side as he crooks his eyebrow. “Lila, I’ve told you some of my fucked-up stories about drugs and sex and you’ve seen where I live—you know what kind of a home I was raised in and what my parents did to each other. Messed up is nothing new to me.”

“That doesn’t matter,” I say exasperatedly as I gather my hair around the nape of my neck. “I’m not supposed to be this way, or at least no one’s supposed to know that I’m like this.”

“You keep saying like this but I’m still trying to figure out like what?” His eyes scroll over my body carefully, as if he’s searching for visible wounds. And there are a few, on my ankles and waist and even a very faint one on my wrist, but most people never notice them. “As far as I can tell, the only thing you’re acting like is someone who needs to talk about their problems.” He’s being nice and it’s only making me feel worse.

“It’d be easier if you just yelled at me,” I say, releasing my hair and spanning my arms out to the side. “Or left me alone. That’s what you usually do.”

“Easy is overrated,” he replies. “And I can’t leave you alone this time. Not about this. I’ll hate myself if I do.”

“Ethan, please just take me home,” I plead, wrapping my arms around myself. “I just need to go home.”

“No,” he responds stubbornly. “I’m not going to just let you run home and pop a pill. You need help.”

My body and mind are yearning for a pill and only one thing is going to make it better. I keep running my fingers through my hair, trying to subdue the anxiety overcoming me. When I raise my head back up, I force a neutral expression on my face. “Look, Ethan, I appreciate your help and everything last night, but seriously I’m okay. I just need to go home and get something to eat and shower and I’ll be better.”

“Pftt, don’t try to bullshit me,” he says callously, folding his arms and leaning against the footboard. “You can’t bullshit a bullshitter.”

“You’re not a bullshitter,” I argue, slamming my hands down on the mattress, wanting to scream at him. “At all.”

“I was once,” he reminds me. “Over stuff just like this. It’s what people with addictions do. You’ll do whatever you can—say whatever it takes—to get to the next high.”

My mouth plummets to a frown and I clasp my hands out in front of me, desperation coursing through my body more toxically than the pills do. “Ethan, please, pretty please just take me home and forget about this.” My voice is high and pleading. “Then you don’t have to deal with it.”

He considers what I said, then gets to his feet, and I think I’ve won. “No, I’m not going to just forget.” He backs for the door and grabs the doorknob as he steps out of the room. “You know where the shower is when you’re ready to take one.”

“I don’t have any clothes!” I shout and then throw a pillow at him, feeling the angry monster inside of me surfacing. I’m plummeting into a dark hole filled with every negative thing that makes up my life and I don’t have any pills on me to bring me back up to the light. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because I care about you,” he says matter-of-factly and then he shuts the door.

No one’s ever said they care about me, not even my sister, Abby, and his words should make me feel better. But they don’t. If anything, the craving and hunger for another pill amplifies, ripping through my body, leaving abrasions that only a dose will heal. Because I don’t deserve for him to care about me. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done to myself. Everything—where I am and who I am—is all my fault.

I sit on the bed for a while, stewing in my own anger as I stare out the window, rocking my body, trying to still the nervous energy inside me. It’s a sunny day, the sky blue and clear and breathtaking. I should be out suntanning by the pool, but no, I’m stuck in here, feeling like I’m going to rip my hair out. And the longer I sit, the more desperate I become until finally I get up from the bed. Fighting the pain in my stomach, legs, and head, I search his room for my clothes. I find them draped over the stool in back of the drum set.

“Jackpot,” I say and wind around the drums, picking up my white dress, and then I frown. It’s caked in mud and some sort of gross green stuff and it smells like puke. I tap my fingers on the sides of my legs, trying to figure out what to do. Half my instincts are screeching at me not to put the filthy dress on and go out into public looking so disheveled, but the other half of my instincts, the ones connected to the pills, are conflicting with how I was brought up.

I ball my hands into fists, gritting my teeth, constraining a scream, and then slip Ethan’s shirt off. I put the dress on, and then pull the shirt back on. I comb my fingers through my hair and then glance in the mirror. I look like death: pale skin, bloodshot eyes, and makeup smeared everywhere. Again, I’m torn. Run to what I need or hide what I am?

Turning in a circle, I search the floor for my shoes. I look under the bed, in the closet, near the dresser, but they’re nowhere to be found. I give up and head for the door. There’s only one way to get out of Ethan’s house without jumping out a window or off a balcony and that’s to walk through the living and out the front door. I wonder if he’s in there, if he’ll argue with me again. It doesn’t matter, though. I’m a grown woman and I can walk out of a house if I want to.

I straighten my shoulders, open the door, and step out into the hall. There’s music playing from the stereo in the living room, so I’m surprised when I walk in the room and he’s not in there. He isn’t in the kitchen either. For a second I wonder where he is, but then I realize it doesn’t really matter. All that does matter is that I’m free to leave without further confrontation.

I open the door, step outside, and blink fiercely against the sunlight. Shielding my eyes with my hand, I hurry down the stairs and walk swiftly for the bus stop. I know I look crazy, with no shoes on, a baggy T-shirt over my dress, and my hair and makeup all ratty. But for the first time in my life I don’t care about my looks. All I care about is getting home, so I can sedate the hungry beast waking up inside my chest.

Ethan

I’m wondering if I’m seriously in over my head. I realized this when she admitted to me last night while she was in the hospital waiting to get her stomach pumped that she’s been taking the pills since she was fourteen to numb her pain from something. I probably should have just told the doctors the truth and that she was an addict or even that she was suicidal, but I was afraid she’d get in trouble. Plus, she’d thrown up quite a few times by the time we got there, so there was little proof of what happened left in her. All she had to do was dazzle them with a smile and feed them a bullshit lie of mixing too much wine with a little too many pills and they let her go. Although, I wonder if they really believed her, or if the insanely busy emergency room aided her easy release.

Part of me wishes I would have spoken up. Then maybe they could have assisted her with the approaching withdrawals. When my dad came off of them things got really intense and the medication he’d been taking was dangerous to quit cold turkey so he had to come off it in low doses. My mom helped him through it, battling with him every single God damn day when he’d ask for more, and only giving him a little, slowing weaning him off them. And I start to wonder if that’s what I’m facing—if this is how it’ll be when Lila comes off the pills she’s been taking. If so, can I do it? Can I help her get better? Especially if she doesn’t want to? Part of me wants to just walk away and leave the drama behind, but the feelings I have for Lila, the ones I realized I had when I saw her on the ground like that, beg me to help her.

But I’m not a fan of drama and helping with other people’s problems, partly because it’s overwhelming and partly because I’m worried I’ll mess up, like I did with London. And Lila’s is an addiction. I’ve seen it many times. Felt it. Had it consume every single cell in my body, mind, and fucking soul. I had to get over it myself and it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. And I did drugs for only a year. Lila’s been popping pills for over six years. That’s a fucking deep addiction. Plus, I know nothing about what’s even behind her addiction. What I do know is the wounds behind the addiction are even harder to heal.

After I walk out of her room, I crank up some music and sit down at my computer in the living room. Then I start researching opiate addiction and find the name of the one she told me she was taking when she was barely awake. What I find out pretty much describes what I saw with my dad. Anxiety. Irritability. Vomiting. Tremors. Confusion. The list is pretty long. And it says for long-term drug abusers either medication should be used during detox or the user should gradually be weaned off from it, like my dad was.

Jesus, it would be so much easier to check her into a facility. Although I’d have to convince her to check herself in and that seems fucking complicated, too. Everything does at the moment. I’m not sure if I can do this.

I try to figure out what to do—what kind of person I really am, the kind who can just walk away from a situation like this and not help her or the kind who wants to do the right thing and help her overcome the very hard obstacle of quitting. I think about the last time I walked away and what resulted from it. I don’t want to go down that road again, but I also don’t want to help her and fuck up her recovery because I did something wrong. What I need is some advice from someone who’s helped someone get through a tough time in their life.

I crank up some music and then wander back to Micha’s old room and lie down on the floor. I retrieve my cell phone from my pocket and delete all the text messages Rae has sent me over the last three days—the ones I’ve refused to read—before I open up the dial screen. I hesitate for probably ten minutes before I finally dial Micha’s number. It’s weird to be asking advice from him—usually it’s the other way around. But he’s been through something like this with Ella, who’d run away and completely changed her identity after her mom committed suicide. She had a lot of psychological problem, but Micha stuck by her side and never gave up on her even when things got hard.

“What the fuck?” he answers with a laugh. “You hardly ever call me.”

“Yeah, I know.” I rub my forehead with my hand, totally out of my comfort zone. Normally, I’m the one listening to his problems. “I have a question… about Ella.”

“Okay…” He sounds really lost and I don’t blame him. I’m acting like a weirdo right now.

“All those problems that you went through with her… was it hard?”

“Um, yeah. Problems usually are.”

I know I’m not verbalizing myself very well. I do better with a pen and paper. “Yeah, I know that, but was it hard to help her out with stuff when you knew it was going to be hard?”

It takes him a second. “Are you asking if I ever considered bailing out and not helping her?”

“Kind of,” I say. “But not bailing out so much as worrying about even getting into it with her because you knew it was going to be a pain in the ass to help her get past her problems and you weren’t sure if you could handle it or even really help her.”

“Not really,” he answers guardedly. He’s never has been too comfortable talking about Ella’s problems. “I mean, in the beginning I hesitated to be with her, but that’s only because I knew she wasn’t ready for anything more than friendship.”

“Well, what if you were just trying to help her as a friend?” I ask. “And you knew you were just going to stay friends. Would you still have helped her then, even if you knew you’d have to deal with a lot of shit?”

“Of course,” he says straightforwardly. “I know I’m going to sound all stupid and cheesy here, but isn’t that what friends are for? I mean, you’ve always kind of been there for me.”

I snort a laugh, rolling my eyes. “You know you sound like some kind of cartoon special, right? The ones with bouncing kangaroos that talk about how wonderful and neat it is to have a friend.”

“Bouncing kangaroos?”

“Hey, I’ve never been a cartoon person so how the hell should I know what kind of characters they have now?”

“I’m pretty sure there aren’t any kangaroos.”

“Okay, well, it doesn’t really matter.” I waver. “So you’d still have helped her?”

“Absolutely,” he assures me. “And I’ve never once regretted doing it.”

I’m not sure if I feel better or not now. “All right. Well, thanks I guess.”

“Not what you were wanting to hear, huh?” he asks.

“No… honestly I’m not really sure what I wanted to hear.” I sigh as I sit up, dragging my fingers through my hair. “But anyway, I’ll let you go.”

“What? You’re not going to explain where this really random phone call came from?”

“I can’t just yet.”

“All right, gotcha.” He hesitates. “Totally off the subject, but you aren’t by chance coming out to California anytime soon, are you?”

I rub the back of my tensed neck muscles. “No, why?”

“It’s nothing,” he replies and I hear a door shut. “It’s just that Ella and I are thinking about having the wedding in a month, around Christmas time, and I was thinking that maybe you and Lila could fly or drive out together.”

“In a month?” I question, lowering my hand to my side. “Isn’t that, like, really soon?”

“Soon for two people who’ve known each other for almost seventeen years?”

“Yeah, good point, I guess.” I try not to roll my eyes because I think marriage is ridiculous. Look at my father and mother. They are prime examples of what can happen to a couple if they forever bind themselves to each other.

“So will you?”

“Has Ella talked to Lila about this?” I ask. “Or talked to her at all lately?”

“I don’t think so,” he says, sounding confused. “Why? What’s up?”

“It’s nothing.” I get to my feet and head for the door. “I’m down for California, but I’m going to let Ella ask Lila if she thinks she can go.”

“Sounds like a plan, man.” He turns on some music, letting it play quietly in the background. “Talk to you later, then.”

“Sounds good.” I hang up and take a deep breath before going out into the hall and veering to the left toward my bedroom. The door is open and I know right away that Lila’s gone and I don’t doubt for one second where she’s going. I’ve been in that desperate place before and it’s an overwhelming place to be trapped in. It makes not wanting to help her feel easy and wanting to help her feel hard, but the feelings that I have for Lila, ones I didn’t know existed until I saw her laying on the ground completely out of it, also make it impossible to turn my back on her.

I hesitate for a moment, thinking about everything Lila and I have been through, the long talks, the flirting, the touches that almost led to something but never fully did, the way she makes me feel, the fact that I’ve broken my rules with her a ton of times, the fear that overtook my body when I saw her in the bushes. As I remember it all, it makes it slightly easier to make my decision. I snatch my truck keys off the dresser and head for the front door, knowing I’ve got to beat her to the apartment, otherwise this is going be even harder than it already is.

As I trot down the stairs, gripping my keys in my hand, I try to mentally prepare myself for what I’m diving into so hopefully I’ll be able to handle it. At the bottom of the stairs, I take out my phone and call my mom to get some advice on the right way to try to wean someone off an opiate addiction, since she’s done it herself. I just pray to God, Lila and I won’t turn into what they turned into during it, yelling and fighting and my mom always crying secretly in her room over the things my dad said to her. I can’t picture this happening, at least the crying part, but I can’t erase everything I saw when I was a kid.

There’re so many emotions crashing through me at the moment as I make the final decision to be there for Lila, but out of all them, what really gets to me is the fact that I’m going to help her, because I care about her—more than care. That in and of itself is fucking terrifying, more than running head-on into traffic. More than walking into a room and looking at the girl you thought you might love, only to find out she has no idea who you are anymore and that you might have never really known her and never will.