I cupped my cheek with my head hung low so she couldn’t see the hurt in my eyes. “You’re acting like this was entirely my fault, but I didn’t even know what I was doing. I didn’t understand… I didn’t…” I shook my head, discouraged at myself, but still able to will myself to sit up straight. “It really hurts.”

“Hurting and crying over something a guy did to you is pathetic, Lila Summers,” she said and I had to resist an eye roll because she was seriously one to talk about being pathetic. “And it is your fault. You made the decision to be with him, even though you knew he was older, and now we have to deal with the consequences.”

“We?” I questioned.

“Yes, we,” she said in a calm voice as she tugged off her leather gloves. “Everything you do is done to this family. Your father has family here—you know that. You have cousins and some of his business colleagues’ kids go to the school. How do you think I found out about this to begin with?” She tossed her gloves onto the seat, then reached for her purse. She took out a prescription bottle and read the label. “And the outburst in the middle of class… you’re making us look like we’ve raised some kind of lunatic.”

I’d balled my fists. “The other kids are tormenting me, though. Those stupid Precious Bells told the entire school, and now everyone keeps saying what a little slut I am and how I threw myself on Se…” I trailed off, unable to utter his name. “A-And I haven’t been sleeping very well… I’ve been having nightmares about waking up underneath… underneath him.” I summoned a deep breath, wishing she’d hug me or something, or try to make me feel a little better. She used to give me hugs when I was little, but then my father got a mistress and she got her pills and wine. When she was taking them, which was almost always, they became the most important things to her, and everything else, including me, didn’t seem to matter.

She stared at me with a little bit of sympathy as she twisted the cap off the pills. “Take one of these a day until you’re feeling better.” She grabbed my hand and dumped a pill into my palm.

“What is it?” I held the tiny white pill warily.

“It’s something that’s going to make this all better,” she insisted, screwing the cap back on. “For everyone. You, me, and your father.”

I knew it was wrong, yet she was watching me expectantly, and all I really wanted to do was make the heavy, humiliating, filthy, self-loathing pain vanish, so I tipped my head back and swallowed the pill.

“Good girl,” my mom said like I was a dog who had just done the correct trick and had been rewarded with a treat. She handed me the bottle and then pulled her sunglasses back over her eyes and crossed her legs. “And if you run out, let me know and I’ll get you more.”

And she did. Every time I’d run out, she’d get me a refill. Sometimes when I was visiting at home, she’d share her stash. We’d take the pills and then go shopping or something, the only visible thing inside either or our bodies were the shallow, materialistic, shadows of our true selves.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in Micha’s old room, which is my new temporary room. And a lot of that time I spend staring in the mirror, not in vain or anything, just looking at my reflection and trying to figure out who I am without pills in my system. The blue eyes that stare back at me are not recognizable, too wide and confused, instead of blank like they’ve been for years.

As sobriety starts to seep in with each passing day, I try to figure how I got to this exact moment when it felt like I’d been okay just a few days ago. In four days’ time it feel like a thousand bricks have tumbled down on my chest and are pinning me to the bed. And I wonder if I’ll ever be able to stop them from crushing me.

Ethan

What the hell am I doing?

I’m not looking for a relationship. They’re ugly, raw, brutal, painful, life destroying. They exist only in the hearts of the needy and I don’t need anything from anyone. I’m perfectly content being alone, hiding in the desolate place inside myself. It’s what I need to exist because I don’t think I can handle anything else. Even with London, I made sure to keep as much distance as I could and I’m glad. If I hadn’t, I might have broken apart that morning when I got the news. But instead I felt numb, barely feeling a thing about it, almost like it never happened. And being in that place is a great place to be. It’s quiet and still and peaceful. There’s no yelling inside my head, no commotion, no anxiety. I don’t have to worry about being walked all over by someone, being controlled, or losing myself, or trying to take away the identity of another person, pretending to love them, when really I just want to own them.

Within the loneliness inside me, I don’t have to worry about turning into someone I don’t want to be, like my mother or my father. I’m just Ethan. And I can live with that. But with Lila… Jesus fucking Christ, I’m turning into a person I barely recognize. A nice guy who cares way too much, who’s breaking his rules and getting involved.

Yep, I’ve become everything I promised I never would be after I lost London.

“Your couch smells like old cheese.” Lila walks into my room with a scowl on her face. It’s the same scowl she’s been wearing for the last four days, ever since I learned about her habitual pill popping habit. “And your fridge has mold in it.”

“Well, at least it runs.” I put my pen away and shut the notebook, toss it on the nightstand, and lean against the headboard. “It could have no power and be growing mold.”

Her forehead creases as her scowl intensifies. Her hair isn’t combed, and she still has on the pair of boxer shorts and the tank top she slept in. “What were you just doing?” She eyes the notebook. “Writing about what a bitch I am?”

I cross my arms and stretch my legs out on the bed in front of me. “Why would I have to write about that when I can tell you in person?”

Her blue eyes turn cold. “You’re an asshole.”

“You know, you’ve said that about twenty times in the last few days and it’s getting really old, especially since most assholes wouldn’t just let you move in with them.”

She shakes her head and huffs with frustration. “It’s time for you to give me another stupid piece of my pill.”

I glance at my watch and then shake my head. “Not yet.”

She lets out a scream through gritted teeth and then flips me off before leaving my room. My head flops back against the headboard and I stare up at the crack in the ceiling. I’m not sure if I’m doing anything right, whether I’m helping her or harming her. She’s so much different, more closed off and stubborn and bitchy. She won’t talk about anything and complains about everything. She’s driving me fucking crazy.

I rub my forehead, cursing the nonstop headache I’ve had for days. Finally, I can’t take it anymore. I need to relieve the stress and there are only two ways for me to do that. Sleep with someone or play the drums. Usually, I’d go with the first, but I’m not feeling it at all.

I get up from the bed, take my shirt off, and sit down on the stool beside my drums, scooping up my drumsticks from off the floor. I reach over to my dresser and grab my iPod from the dock. I select “Gotta Get Away!” by Offspring, put the iPod back in the dock, and crank the volume, wanting to drown out the noise of my thoughts and any more potential Lila drama.

Once the song clicks on, I slam the sticks down on the drums and start pounding to the rhythm with more force than usual. I’m usually considerate of the neighbors, but right now I need to let off some steam. The longer I go, the more into it I get. Midway, I just close my eyes and let myself drown in the music and beat, my skin covered with sweat and my pulse hammering against my chest. I feel myself getting dragged away from my problems and life. For a moment, I’m alone in the apartment, in the world, and all the worries that surround me cease to exist. Then the song ends and I open my eyes and nearly fall off the stool.

Lila is sitting on the edge of my bed, watching me with what looks like a disinterested look, but I think it’s a mask to hide the fact that she’s curious.

“Jesus, Lila.” I try to catch my breath, sweeping my fingers through my sweaty hair. “You scared the shit out of me.”

She crosses her legs and stares at me impassively. For a second I think she’s going to ask me for another pill, maybe even try to bargain with me, something she’s done a lot over the last few days. But instead she says, “How do you think I feel? One minute I’m sitting in a quiet room and then suddenly the whole place is shaking?”

I clutch on to the drumsticks, rotating them in my palms, gripping them so forcefully the wood rubs coarsely at the skin. “Sorry, but I had to do it, otherwise I would have done something really stupid.”

She elevates her eyebrows. “Like what?”

“Like leave the house.”

“Good, I wish you would have.” She pauses contemplatively. “Wait, why would you leave the house if you didn’t play?”

“Because I needed to let off some steam.” I wipe some sweat off my forehead with my arm. “And it was either this or go get laid.”

I catch the faintest flicked of annoyance in her neutral expression. “You should have gone with the getting laid. It works a lot better.” Her tone is clipped and she’s breathing stridently, working hard to keep the oxygen flowing.

I study her, really missing the smiling Lila I first met a year and a half ago, the one who I thought was my complete opposite, but now I’m reconsidering this idea. In fact, the more I get to know her, the more she does kind of remind me of London, erratic and full of secrets. I thought I knew Lila but I guess I was wrong and I’m not really sure what to do with it or how I feel about it yet. “How do you know? Have you ever played before?”

“You know I haven’t.”

“How do I know anything that you can’t and can do? Because I’m learning pretty quickly that those little heart-to-hearts we had for the last year weren’t real.”