ECSTASY
Page 24
Just like when Eli was holding me under, just like when he almost killed me that night, I’m dying for air, but I can’t stop it. My body can’t stop it. I clench around both of them, everything so tight and so full.
They keep their hands on my throat but loosen their grip and I’m moaning, my forehead against Eli’s chest, slick with sweat, and his hand still between us.
And then Alex is tense against my back, grabbing at my neck, his teeth against my shoulder and I know he’s coming, too. The both of us, together, all over Eli.
But Eli isn’t done.
He brings his hand up, the reverberations of my orgasm still throbbing between my legs so that I don’t even need anyone to touch me there. It’s like I can still feel it. And I’m still gasping for air when Eli puts his fingers in his mouth, licking me off him.
I pick my head up, watching him, and behind me, Alex slowly slides out of me. My hands are on Eli’s chest as I stare down at him still tasting me.
The bed dips and I don’t know if Alex gets up, and I don’t care either.
I can’t stop staring at Eli. I’m still breathing hard, still caught up in the feeling of coming around both of them, I can’t really think. I don’t know what Eli wants now. I don’t know how he wants to finish this but, he moves quickly.
One second I’m on top of him, gasping, and the next, he’s flipped us both over and he’s on top of me. For a crazy moment, I imagine him wrestling. I think about how fast he must be. How strong he is.
How hot he probably looks on the mat.
And then he’s kissing me again, the taste of me on his lips, and all of those thoughts are gone. The only thing I can think of is now is the taste of him, the feel of him as he reaches between us and guides himself back into me.
I’m sore, and it hurts, and he doesn’t go slow. He’s hard and fast and rough and I whimper, and it isn’t a good sound.
“Hey,” Alex calls sharply from somewhere beyond the bed, somewhere I can’t see. “Be fucking careful with her.” I hear the restraint in his words. I know he doesn’t want Eli to finish at all. I know Alex doesn’t care about that, but Eli doesn’t slow.
He’s fast and rough and tears are pricking behind my eyes.
“Eli, slow down,” I manage to say, my words shaky.
His hand comes to my throat. The sound of his hips connecting with mine is so loud and I wince with his every thrust.
I dig my nails into his chest, trying to push him off of me at the same time.
This hurts.
But I can’t say anything. I can’t say anything, because in the darkness, Eli is choking me. He’s actually choking me.
What the fuck?
Panic, more than anger, engulfs me. What is he doing? Why is he doing it?
His thrusts shake the entire bed and everything is burning. It’s burning and I’m still digging at his skin, trying to him hurt enough to slow down. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t slow.
“Fuck this,” I hear Alex say quietly, and then he’s there, his hands on Eli’s shoulders, pulling him off of me. Out of me.
I sit up, pushing back against the headboard, bringing my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around my legs.
Alex throws Eli toward the door. “The fuck is wrong with you?” His voice is a growl. I see he’s got his pants on, but nothing else. “You were fucking hurting her!”
I take deep breaths, squeezing my thighs together, the pain between them like fire.
I hear Eli laugh in the dark. “Was I? I think she likes it rough.”
Alex steps back from Eli, as if he struck him. He edges against the bed, obscuring my view of Eli by the door. “Get the fuck out,” he says. “Get out of here.”
Eli laughs again. “This is my dad’s house. You get out.”
I hear Alex breathing, deep inhales and exhales. I see his shoulders rise and fall.
My mind is spinning. My head hurts. Why did Eli do that? Why did he…
“Fine.” Alex turns to me, offers me his hand. “Let’s go, baby.”
I shake my head. “Y-you can’t drive,” I whisper in the dark, but I take his hand anyway. He threads his fingers through mine. “You can’t drive.”
And I can’t drive because I’m not just drunk, I’m tripping, and…
“I don’t care. We’ll walk. I’ll carry you.” Alex starts to pull me up off the bed.
But Eli laughs one more time and I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
Alex hears something in that wicked laughter, too.
He stops trying to pull me to my feet, and turns to face Eli.
I hold my breath, knowing what he’s going to say. Knowing it and hating it. Hating him.
“You said you wanted to experience everything, Zara,” Eli says softly in the dark as Alex and I stare at him, Alex’s fingers tightening around mine. “Isn’t that right?”
No one says a word.
Even with the music and the people upstairs, no one says a thing.
I hear shuffling, and I imagine Eli getting dressed, even though I can’t see him. I can’t see him, and still no one speaks.
My heart is beating too fast in my chest. Too fast, and I can’t breathe. I still can’t breathe.
“Oh, now you’ve got nothing to say, baby girl?”
Alex’s fingers tighten painfully around mine. His grip is so tight, his hands clammy. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he asks Eli in the dark.
I can almost hear Eli smiling.
No.
He wouldn’t do this.
He wouldn’t fucking do this.
“Ah, well, since she seems to be so shy now, I guess she won’t mind if I say it for her.” He blows out a breath. I screw up my eyes tight. “Just before I had my fingers inside of her at our house, she was just telling me how she wants to experience everything.”
No one moves.
It feels like no one breathes.
No one says anything.
Does anything.
My pulse is so fast, the blood pumping so hard in my veins, I can feel it everywhere. Behind my eyes. In my head. In my hand, which, for now, is still in Alex’s.
But that doesn’t last long.
He lets go of me and stumbles away from the bed.
He doesn’t look at me when he says, “What are you talking about?” And the scary part? He doesn’t sound angry. He doesn’t sound jealous either.
He sounds genuinely confused.
Maybe even hurt.
“No,” I manage to say, my voice a croak. “Eli. No.”
Alex still doesn’t look at me.
“Yes, baby girl. Yes.” He sighs again, and I can see him now. He is dressed, and he’s got his hands in his pockets. He stares at me while he speaks to Alex. “She feels good, man. I know why you like her so much, even if she is a fucking slut.”
I flinch, cover my hands over my eyes.
He’s not doing this.
He’s not really doing this.
“Her mouth.” Eli groans. “She gives good head, too. Everything about her is just fucking tight and perfect and damn, when she comes, she’s so wet, she’s just gushing.”
No. No. No.
“What are you fucking talking about?” Alex asks again, and this time, he’s angry. This time, he turns toward me.
I drop my hands from my eyes, wrap my arms tighter around myself, wishing I could disappear. Wishing I could be somewhere else. Far, far away from here.
I shouldn’t have come here.
“I don’t know what—”
“Don’t lie, baby girl,” Eli cuts me off cruelly. “Don’t you dare fucking lie now.”
“What is he talking about?” Alex’s voice grows louder. He steps closer to me, and I can feel it. His anger. It’s like heat radiating off his body. “What the fuck is he talking about, Zara?”
I start rocking, my body in a ball. It’s hard to focus and to think and the alcohol and the molly are making everything so much more difficult. So difficult.
Alex steps closer. “What. The. Fuck. Is he fucking talking about, Zara?” He’s screaming now and I just press tighter against the headboard.
Eli says nothing.
It suddenly dawns on me that he’s enjoying this. That he likes this.
I try to swallow but my mouth is dry. My throat is tight. “Alex.” The word is jagged. “Alex, please don’t leave me. Can we go? Can we just go?”
Don’t leave me here with him.
Alex grabs my face, tilting my chin up so I’m looking at him. “Tell me it isn’t true.”
I take a deep breath in. Out.
“Tell me it isn’t true, princess.” He’s pleading now. He’s begging me. “Tell me he’s lying.”
I want to. God, I want to. Tears stream down my face, hot and wet against my cheeks, running onto Alex’s fingers, still gripping my chin.
“Zara.” Alex sinks to his knees, dropping my face, his hands on my feet under the sheets. “Zara, please tell me it isn’t true.” He’s so quiet, his words little more than a whisper, and he has his head bowed. His head is bowed over my feet.
My heart cracks in my chest.
Eli is still silent, watching all of this unfold.
“Don’t leave me,” I say again, sniffling. “Please don’t leave me, Alex.”
He’s quiet, and then he pushes to his feet again, fisting his hair in his hands as he turns his back to me.
“You stupid, stupid fuck.” The words are barely out of his mouth before he shoves Eli against the door of the room, and I swear I hear the wood splintering. “You stupid motherfucker,” he says again, and he has both hands around Eli’s throat. He slams his head against the door once, twice, the sound so loud, the crack of Eli’s skull making me flinch each time. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Alex,” I say, his name hoarse from my mouth. I wipe the back of my hand over my eyes. “Alex, can we just go please?”
Alex slams Eli’s head against the door again, but Eli just laughs. Like he doesn’t care. Like he’s a fucking psychopath.
But Alex laughs, too.
He steps back from Eli, letting him go, his hands up, letting him know he’s done.
He turns to face me.
“Fuck you, Zara. I am fucking done. I’m fucking done with you. Fuck you. Find your own fucking way home.”
And then he grabs his shirt from the floor and pulls it on. He steps to the door, grabs Eli by the collar, opens the door, and shoves Eli out before he follows, slamming the door so hard a book thuds to the floor from the built-in shelves.
I hold my breath, hoping he’ll come back.
Hoping he’ll at least take me home.
But he doesn’t.
Minutes pass and he doesn’t come back.
36
Eli
She begged him.
She fucking begged him when I gave her an out.
She fucking begged like she really is a fucking whore.
Alex locked the door before he pushed me out, and then left without a word to anyone. I thought about breaking down the door to the room she was in, but she fucking begged him.
I went upstairs. Kaitlyn was in my face, demanding to know what the fuck I was thinking.
I left. Fuck her. Fuck Zara. Fuck Alex.
I left for my dad’s house. A two hour drive I took in silence.
My father lives ten minutes from Caven’s campus, but I never go home. He’s usually traveling anyway for work, or else he’s fucking some bitch he barely knows, and I don’t want to hear that shit.
When I get here, early Saturday morning, he’s gone.
I knew he would be. He’s with his girl of the week. It’s a little ironic, the one time I decide to come here, it’s when he’s gone. Maybe that’s why I’m here.
I don’t want to go to my house right now. I don’t want to see Alex. I don’t want to deal with that bullshit.
She fucking begged him.
I drop my bag by the door to Dad’s huge, empty house. The spacious foyer is the size of a goddamn bedroom itself, a winding staircase to my right. His office is to the left, closed and probably locked.
Addisons always like to keep their secrets close.
If you let people in, they can hurt you.
It’s a damn good thing I never let Zara in. She’s obviously not who I thought she was. I guess I thought that night, the one when I watched her take a knife from the block, roll down her shorts and run it across her hip as she cried, I guess that night I saw something that wasn’t really there.
Someone that wasn’t really there.
Maybe all that time we spent together meant nothing to her.
Fucking bitch.
I head up the stairs, turn down the hall toward the double doors that lead to my room. Dad and I have our own suites, as I liked to think of them when I was younger. Mom had one, too, the one she shared with Dad.
But that was eight years ago.
She hasn’t been back since she left, giving me a kiss on the forehead, squeezing my hands in hers.
I wrench open one of the doors to my room, flinging it back. It crashes against the wall, but I don’t fucking care. My bed is before me, and on either side of it are two dark, wooden nightstands.
One is empty.
The other has a framed photograph.
I head straight for it, yank it up and stare at it as I do every single time I come in here.
A boy’s face, with dark hair like mine but brighter eyes like my mother’s, looks back at me.
Adonis.
His first name is my middle name. Almost like Mom was trying to replace her family completely when she went back to Greece.
Adonis is my half-brother that I’ve never met. Living a life that I was meant to live.
He stole her from me.
He fucking stole her from me.
I hurl the frame against the glass door that leads out to my balcony, and it shatters into pieces that fall to the hardwood floor.
It’s not enough.
I run my hands through my hair, looking around this empty room. There’s nothing else to fucking break. I don’t really live here, I never did.
I went through the motions.
I took showers.
Did laundry.
Jerked off.
Fucked girls.
Ate in bed.
Stared at Adonis’s photos that Mom sent every year with a letter wishing me well.
I didn’t live, though.
I haven’t done that for a long time.
So, there’s nothing else to break.
There’s my dresser, but it’s empty. I took all my shit when I moved out.
I kick the dresser anyway, loving the pain that lights up from the tip of my foot to my thigh. I kick it again, the wood splintering.
It feels pretty damn good.
Imagining my father walking in on this makes it feel even better. He did it. He probably held her so tightly. He probably suffocated her. He never wanted to visit her family. Never wanted her out of his sight. It’s why he made such an elaborate home office.
They were always together when he wasn’t in the office.
I thought it was because they were happy.
Really, it was because she was trapped. He didn’t let her live.
But I let Zara live. I let her do whatever she wanted.
And she begged him.
The one who doesn’t let her do shit.
I kick the dresser again. And again. And again. And soon there’s a hole in the bottom of it and my heart is pounding, sweat on the back of my neck.
I tip the whole fucking thing over and it splinters onto the floor, the sound ringing in my ears.
My chest is heaving, and I step back, up against the wall. I knock my head a
gainst it, close my eyes, my hands balled into fists.
Everything swims into focus then.
Everything I’ve done.
Everything I should have done.
The scene with Zara at the pool plays in my head. How I dove in to save her.
Then one with her between me and Alex that night Rihanna died.
I didn’t really want to hurt her.
I just wanted her to learn a lesson. I just wanted her to know that he wasn’t good for her. He’s never been good for her.
He’s never let her take a breath without him. Never let her live without him. Just like my father, with my mother.
It’s why she held me under.
I know it’s his fault.
He was too much for her. He was too controlling. Too demanding.
I would let Zara do anything she wanted, if she’d just choose me.
Instead of someone that wants to change her.
I’ve known Zara was a lost cause since I first met her. But I didn’t care. I don’t want to change her. I didn’t want to change for her, either. We could be as fucked up as we wanted to be, together. I haven’t gone to any of my appointments, for her. Because she would want me just how I am.
I slam my fist against the wall.
My kind of fucked up is the kind I can’t tell anyone I know. But it’s the kind she’d understand.
But she begged him. Even after he treated her like shit.
Maybe that’s what she wants.
Maybe she wants someone to try and save her, after all. Save her with violence and threats and cruel words.
Someone to not accept her for the fucked-up mess that she is.
If that’s what she fucking wants, I can give her that, too.
37
Zara
September fades into October.
I see Alex sometimes around campus, laughing and joking with his friends. I see him at lunch when I meet Kylie. He looks my way sometimes, but he doesn’t speak. Doesn’t wave.
We haven’t spoken since he left the beach house.
Dwight drove me home. Asked me about Alex. I didn’t tell him anything.
I hear about Eli, but I guess our schedules don’t line up because thankfully, I don’t see him. I hear he’s done really well at all of his matches. It’s all I hear of him.