ECSTASY

by KV Rose

  Maybe I just won’t feel fucking alone.

  “Really?” she asks me, startled. Like she expected me to say no.

  Fair, I guess. I smile at her, trying to make myself feel it. Trying to make it real. “Really.”

  I shovel the peas from the can around on my plate, listening to Kylie talk about her mom. I don’t have much of an appetite for conversation or for dinner, and I keep looking down the hall to my right, to my closed bedroom door. I found a new bottle of cough syrup in a shoebox. I must’ve hidden it from myself because post-rehab Zara is smart.

  And as soon as I make it through this dinner, I’m going to chug it.

  Fuck Kylie and fuck Alex. It somehow feels better, spiting her right under her nose instead of yelling at her.

  I smile and nod at Kylie as she keeps talking, but she furrows her dark brows and I quickly realize this isn’t a part of the conversation I should be smiling and nodding at.

  I look down at my plate, frowning at the porkchop she cooked. It looks good enough, but my mouth is dry, and I know chewing it will be like trying to force down ash. I need to lay off the fucking Adderall.

  “Anyway,” Kylie continues after she wipes her mouth with a napkin and then sets it back in her lap—yep, perfect, that girl—“they’re going to have to sell their house.” She picks up her fork and knife, slices off another bite of meat but of course she doesn’t put it in her mouth yet because she’s still talking, and Kylie Jones doesn’t talk with a mouthful of food.

  “She’s having trouble getting around without a cane. The pain is getting a little much, too, so her doctor prescribed her some…” She trails off and I look up at her, wondering why.

  She looks kind of apologetic, lowering her eyes and shaking her head. “Sorry,” she says a little awkwardly.

  “For what?” I ask, confused, scraping my fork against my plate, jostling some peas around.

  Kylie blows out a breath, looking past my shoulder. “About the, you know, my mom’s pain medication, I didn’t mean to…” She can’t get a full sentence out and I have no idea what she’s fucking talking about.

  Until I do.

  My face flushes red, but I think its second-hand embarrassment for her. I’m glad in that moment that I don’t have food in my mouth because if I did, I might’ve choked on it.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” I say, shaking my head, a bite to my tone. “You think that talking about your mom’s prescription pain pills will, what exactly? Make me salivate and I’ll lose my shit?” I laugh, sitting back in the rickety chair that’s half in the kitchen and half in the living room. I drop my fork with a clatter. “It doesn’t work that way, Kylie.”

  I see her squirm in her chair, taking the porkchop into her mouth and chewing furiously. Her olive skin is flushed pink.

  Good. I hope she is fucking embarrassed.

  I swallow, take a sip of water from my glass and set it back on the table, trying to keep my hands from shaking, from anger or too much Adderall, I’m not sure.

  Meanwhile, I could hear a fucking marijuana leaf drop in here, it’s grown so quiet.

  “Look Kylie, your parents’ house is safe and shit.” I shrug. “I promise not to go up inside and rob the place, all right? Downers aren’t really my thing anyway.”

  I watch her finish chewing her food, then she sets down her fork, hands in her lap, over her napkin. She arches a brow. “Really?” She seems very surprised by that statement. I take in her pigtails, smooth skin, and the pink cardigan she’s wearing—even though it’s technically still summer for another day, and definitely still hot outside—and realize that as much as she might know about the technical aspect of drugs from her pre-pharm work, she probably doesn’t know shit about drug abuse. The heart of it, anyway.

  Alex picked the wrong girl to spy on me because fuck the science.

  Addicts are not fucking thinking about the science when they snort their first line or inject their first bag.

  “I thought your mom said naloxone saved your life—”

  “It was a precaution,” I interrupt, waving her concern away. “I wouldn’t have died.” I clench my fists on the table and look down at my full plate. “At least, I don’t think I would have,” I mutter to my peas. “Anyway, that was an exception, which is probably why the Oxy hit me so hard anyway. I did Xanax sometimes, but that’s about it when it comes to downers.”

  I click my jaw, thinking about the upper I did today to make it through this dinner. Double my usual dose because my usual dose isn’t fucking working. I know what that means. I know I need to taper off, take something else in the meantime, let my tolerance die down. But Kylie wanted this dinner and I didn’t want to drown myself in cough syrup yet—shit, guess that’s a downer, too.

  I don’t mention it.

  “So, what did you like to do?” Kylie asks me, her hands still in her lap. Surprising me, she doesn’t sound the least bit judgmental.

  I wonder if she’s asking for Alex’s sake. I wonder if they’ve been texting behind my back. I wonder when I’m going to confront him about that shit. I wonder if I have a right to, considering what I’m doing.

  Whatever. Hopefully she will report back. Hopefully it’ll keep him up all night, thinking about me still doing all of this shit.

  “Uppers. Adderall, Vyvanse. Ecstasy. Cocaine, every now and then, but that was seriously addicting.” I laugh, because it sounds funny, coming from an addict. It’s true though. Coke just hits different. “Shit that made me more social.”

  There’s silence that stretches between us for a moment, and I hope she feels awkward, but to be honest, it doesn’t seem like she does.

  It kind of seems like my roommate is just absorbing this admission I gave her, and I’m waiting to see what she’s going to do with it as I stare down at my ripped jeans, my hands twisted together.

  “So, you don’t really like going to parties, then?” Her tone is light, curious.

  I shrug, swallow down a sudden lump in my throat that makes me want to get up, put my dishes away, and run to my room. “I do, but just not the way I usually am.” I realize that doesn’t make much sense, so I clear my throat and add, “I’m lame without drugs.” I look up and meet her gaze. “I’m awkward and shit so I take—took—things to get pumped up. To want to be around people. Otherwise, I’d just sit in my room all day and stare at the ceiling.” Like I’ve basically been doing for the past three days.

  Otherwise, I wouldn’t have ever met a guy like Alex Cardi, star football player and hot jock. Otherwise, I would’ve never had the balls to let Eli fuck with me. I would’ve never had anyone in my life.

  I wouldn’t have done anything like that if I was just…me.

  I would have even fewer friends than I do now.

  I’d be a fucking hermit.

  Kylie is regarding me with an interesting mix of detachment and sympathy. It’s like she’s trying to figure me out through a clinical context, but she also feels something for me because unlike myself, she’s not a shell of a human being.

  “I don’t think you’re awkward,” she finally settles on, picking up her fork and knife again, glancing at the small piece of porkchop left on her plate.

  That’s because I’m still on drugs. But I’m not trying to be taken out of school again or have my funds cut off from Mom or have Alex beat down our door, so I just manage a half-smile and say, “Thanks.”

  She sighs, a lock of her shiny black hair fluttering as she does, and then she drops her utensils on the table and pierces me with her big brown eyes.

  I feel my stomach jump into my throat. Does she know? Is this dinner just a big trick for her to drop a bomb? To tell me any second my mom is going to walk through that door and drag me out of here? Or maybe Alex? Maybe this is what it all comes down to.

  Fuck.

  I force myself to sit still. But if Mom comes in here, I will run the fuck out and I will live on the streets before I go back to rehab and become a freak again.

  No fucking way.

&n
bsp; “I’m kind of weird too,” Kylie finally says, and I just stare at her, my mouth falling open. Her face flushes pink again, and she shrugs, hands flat on the table as she sits up a little straighter. She’s like eight inches shorter than me but she looks pretty damn regal like that, as if she’s just owning who she is. “I actually take an antidepressant,” she admits. “Have for years.”

  I get the sense she doesn’t tell everyone this and for some reason—maybe because I just assumed she didn’t have any secrets worth hiding—I’m hanging onto her every word.

  “I was always withdrawn,” she continues, looking down at her hands. “My teachers thought I was just shy.” She laughs a little, but there’s no humor in it. “And smart.” She shakes her head ruefully. “Shy and smart.” She smiles at me when she lifts her head, but it’s a bitter kind of smile. “My parents, faithful churchgoers and kind of oblivious to life,” she throws up her hand with that last word, “just enrolled me in more after-school programs. Placed me in ‘gifted’ classes.” She says gifted like it’s a disease. “It just made things worse because then I was forced to interact more, and I hated it.”

  Ah. She’s an introvert. The thought is startling, because of the amount of times she’s come into my room without asking. I wonder how much strength that took, even if she was doing it on Alex’s orders. Maybe it wasn’t just Alex.

  Maybe she actually gives a damn.

  Maybe I’m hoping for too much.

  “Anyway, when I was taking so many classes my freshman year that I had to get special permission to have that many credit hours—not to mention I was in the pre-pharm club, leading a remedial biology group and helping out one of my professors with her night class—I just had a breakdown.”

  I blink at her, stunned.

  “I passed out in my chem lab.” She gestures vaguely with her hand, half-laughing, half-wincing. “Right on the floor.”

  My mouth drops open again.

  “Turns out, my blood sugar was low because I hadn’t eaten anything in like, three days. I was too busy.”

  I bite my tongue, cocking my head and honestly intrigued. Little Kylie Jones. I had no fucking idea.

  “Moral of the story, Zara? Everyone’s a little weird.” She picks up her fork again, but this time she just stabs her porkchop, smiling a little as she does.

  Impressive.

  “You just have to own it.”

  I read something like that in a dark romance book once back when I used to read fiction, about owning things before they own you. Corrupt by Penelope Douglas. It was a good fucking book, but I’ve never been good at owning shit.

  Especially when it comes to my own corrupted soul.

  I’d rather hide.

  Still, I’m happy Kylie opened up to me. I’m not so sure I feel the same about reciprocating, because I bullshitted my way through that, and I’m not so sure we’re friends at all considering, according to Eli, she’s hiding a big fucking secret, but still.

  This means something to me, whether it should or not.

  “Thanks, Kylie,” I tell her, and I do mean it. “And thanks for dinner, too. It was great.”

  She stares at me like I’m stupid. “It was packaged pork chops and peas in a can, Zara.” She rolls her eyes, stabbing her porkchop again. “Don’t thank people for things they don’t deserve thanks for.”

  Yeah. One day, when I’m sober, I’ll be sure to be real friends with my roommate.

  One day.

  30

  Eli

  Friday evening, before we’re all leaving to head to the coast for the beach party, Alex is chugging back a protein shake. Tonight is the last game he has to sit out and I know he’s itching to get back on the field.

  I know, because his temper has been worse than usual lately. There was the shattered bottles last weekend. The hole in the wall on the staircase when he got back home because of Grove Beach news covering his Dad’s affair. The raging death metal coming from his room.

  I’ve avoided this place most of the week, even though it’s my house.

  I’ve spent a lot of nights driving, windows down, my own music up. Driving and forgetting. Or trying to.

  I didn’t go to that appointment.

  I don’t need to see the psychiatrist anymore.

  At night, when it’s quiet, when Alex has finally worn himself out, I stay up until I just can’t anymore, scrolling through all the cars for sale in this area. In the mountains, too. I wouldn’t mind moving there after graduation. Opening up a shop.

  “You coming?” Alex asks me, rinsing his protein shaker off in the sink as I fill a glass up with water from the fridge.

  “Yeah.” I flip the tab on the water dispenser, shut the fridge door and lean back against it. Alex shakes out his blender, sets it on the dish rack to dry. Then he turns to face me, hands on the counter behind him.

  “I’m bringing Zara.”

  I assumed he would, but I just take another drink of water, glance beyond him, at the darkness outside, broken up only by the underwater lights of the pool. “You two back together?” I don’t look at him while I ask it.

  He clears his throat. “Not quite.”

  I don’t exhale that sigh of relief I want to. “Why’s that?” I ask instead, still staring at the pool. Thinking of Zara’s fingertips against the glass of the door that leads outside, my hand over her mouth.

  Thinking of her coming downstairs after that fight with Alex. How she grabbed a knife from the block, and I thought she was going to destroy the furniture or something. I thought she was going to tear some shit apart.

  I didn’t think it was going to be herself.

  He has no idea.

  He doesn’t know her.

  “She cheated on me,” Alex answers me.

  No shit. I don’t say anything. People are strange about sexuality. It’s not human nature to be monogamous.

  If I had known, I could’ve told Dad that.

  I could’ve told him to let Mom breathe. Could’ve told him she felt alone, staying at home. Not working. Being a dutiful wife. Loving mother. Blah, blah, blah. Some women are born for that. Maybe some men, too.

  But my mother wasn’t.

  It’s why she left. It’s why she almost killed me.

  “I can’t just let that go,” Alex continues.

  I think about him slamming her against the kitchen island, the bottles that scattered around her body. I think about his hand on her chest as he opened the tequila bottle with his teeth.

  My eyes flick to his. “Did you let it go?” I ask him, my tone plain.

  His brows shoot up. “What are you—”

  “You caused a big fucking scene a few weeks ago, Alex.” I shake my head and set down my glass on the counter. “Whatever, man. Do what you want. But don’t expect her to be faithful to you if you aren’t really together.”

  He snorts. “Well she wasn’t when we were together, so what fucking difference does it make?”

  I turn to look at him, his jaw clenched, brown eyes hard on mine. You are a dumb fuck. And this is exactly why I don’t want to be a lawyer. They might be book smart, but when it comes to common sense, they’re terrifyingly short on that shit. My dad is example number one.

  “It doesn’t. Do what you want.” I start to head down the hall, but he calls my name at my back and I stop, waiting.

  “You like her, Eli?”

  Huh. Maybe he’s not that dumb. Either way, I don’t answer him. I just walk out, up the stairs, and to my room. I need a shower after wrestling practice today. I need to get Zara Henderson out of my head.

  This is not going to end well for one of us. Logically, I know that. But the thing about logic is that it has no effect on the heart at all.

  That’s very clear with Alex. He doesn’t understand her.

  She just likes things.

  She just wants to experience the world.

  Like Mom did.

  I could give her that freedom.

  Alex would never be able to.


  Still. This isn’t going to end well for one of us.

  31

  Zara

  I find myself in Alex’s Jeep Friday night, headed to the coast.

  And I’m not entirely sure how to feel about it. I have no idea how this is going to go down with Eli coming too. I don’t know how I should act around him. I don’t know if I’ll open my big drunk mouth and tell Alex something I shouldn’t while we’re there.

  Half of my heart wants to. Half of me wants to tell him everything. Ask him about his parents. Tell him I want to try again. I want to do this right.

  Half of me wonders if this thing with Eli could be something more than a fling.

  “We need to talk.” It’s the first words Alex has said so far since he picked me up outside of my apartment, besides a grunt in place of a greeting. He brushes his thumb over his mouth, drops it back on the ledge of the door. He’s got his other hand on the wheel, muscles flexing in his forearms. “I don’t know what’s going on here, between us.” He blows out a breath and I try my best to resist the urge to open his door and fling myself onto the highway. “But we should probably talk about it, yeah?” He glances at me, as if he expects me to agree.

  I swallow a few times, severely regretting not taking Vyvanse before this shit. I tried to stay strong and downed four shots of espresso from Kylie’s espresso machine instead. I was proud of myself.

  Now I’m just disappointed.

  If we try this again, if we get back together, I’ll have to tell him. I’ll have to tell him because Eli isn’t trustworthy. Eli lied to him already, Eli spilled about him and Kylie and yeah, that benefitted me but what else would Eli lie about? What would he confess to Alex?

  If Alex and I get back together, I’ll have to come clean. And then we might not get back together at all.