by KV Rose
He left me once. He left me after that night with Eli.
But he came back for me.
And he stayed with me.
This week, he stayed.
That’s when it was all real for me.
“Fucking answer me!” he screams at me, planting his hands flat on the concrete to haul himself up.
But Eli moves fast, and he jerks him back, his arm wrapped around Alex’s neck. “She’s not yours anymore, Alex. Let her go.”
I get to my hands and knees, crawling forward. My body is so cold and I’m shaky and my nose is still running, and I can’t fight either of them. I can’t pull them apart. I can’t stop them with my hands, but my words… Maybe I can stop this. Maybe I can fix this.
Alex doesn’t even fight Eli, and Eli must sense it because he loosens the hold around his throat without letting him go as they float back in the water, Alex’s gaze still on me.
“Fucking say something, Zara!” he screams at me, the tendons in his neck under Eli’s arm stark against his skin. “Say something!” he pleads with me.
The concrete is rough against my hands, against my knees, but I crawl to the edge of the pool, darting my eyes back and forth between Eli and Alex and back again. Eli is staring at Alex and Alex is staring at me.
What’s real?
Which one is real?
The psychopath? The asshole? Neither of them?
Am I fucking real?
Eli’s words echo in my head: Does it feel good now?
No. No. No.
“Eli.” My voice is hoarse, and I’m still staring at Alex. He’s waiting for me to heal him. Waiting for me not to break his heart.
“What did he do to you?” he demands, and Eli pushes his forearm tighter against Alex’s throat, cutting off the last word.
I shake my head, my hands trembling beneath me. “He…he…” I can’t get the words out.
Alex grabs at Eli’s arm, trying to yank him off. He succeeds, long enough to say, “I fucking know he did! What did he do to you? I saw it.” His voice cracks and Eli is still glaring at him, holding Alex’s back to his chest with the force of his forearm. “I fucking saw it in the trash, Zara, I know that he did something to you!”
Eli slams his forearm back against Alex’s throat and I see Alex gag from the force.
I stand to my feet, my knees trembling.
Eli glances up at me, his eyes narrowed as he chokes Alex. Alex tries to force his arm off his windpipe, but Eli is the wrestler. Eli is the one with the power here.
And not just in his strength.
Alex is strong, too.
But Eli knows things, he told me. He has secrets.
“You think you hurt Cari that night?” Eli says, his voice low, a smirk pulling on the corners of his mouth.
Alex freezes, no longer fighting, his eyes wide. His face turns an alarming shade of red as Eli cuts off his air supply.
Cari. This must be the girl. Eli told me he knew the truth.
My fingers are trembling as I hold my hand to my mouth, unable to breathe. To think. To speak.
“You think it was you, huh? You fucking idiot.” Eli laughs, his mouth against Alex’s ear, but he speaks loud enough for me to hear him. “It was me.”
My hand falls from my mouth.
“She wanted it, but she was too fucked up to remember she did. And then you, being the fucking hero, rip me out of her bed before I was able to get inside of her. You fucking prick.” Eli’s arm slams harder against Alex’s throat, his other hand gripping his own wrist to keep the pressure tight.
Alex’s mouth falls open, but I know he isn’t getting air. He isn’t getting air.
“Eli, no.” My voice is little more than a whisper and I don’t even know if he’s heard me. He doesn’t look up, he just keeps talking, making my heart cave in on itself with his every word.
“You fucking idiot, you slept against her door, keeping me out. But jokes on you because then you both woke up from your fucking drunk coma and she thought it was you all along.”
No. No. No.
Eli seems to remember I’m here, listening. He glances up at me. “Don’t worry, baby girl,” he says softly, his voice strained with the effort of choking Alex. “That was before I met you.”
He must misread the look on my face because he frowns and says, “Trust me. She wanted it. She was just too fucking drunk to remember it in the morning.”
“Eli, you’re going to kill him.” The words come out in a rush and Alex is staring at me, his hand limp on Eli’s forearm, barely hanging on at all.
His face is turning purple.
His beautiful, beautiful face.
“I know,” Eli says with a smile. “And you’re going to help me bury his body.”
“Eli, no. No. No!” The last word comes out as a scream.
Eli looks furious. “This is our way out, Zara. This is it.”
I glance around the backyard for something to use as a weapon because he’s going to kill him.
He’s going to kill him.
I see the net to clean the pool, hanging off the little shed where they keep their lawnmower. As fast as I can—which isn’t fast at all, considering I’m still in the midst of the comedown from what Eli did to me—I run to it. My sore feet skim over the bare grass and I grab the net, running back.
Eli is laughing.
Alex is trying to shake his head.
I dart around the stairs for the pool.
“Don’t do something stupid, baby girl, or I’ll kill you too.”
And then I jump, aiming the metal pole, horizontal, onto Eli’s head.
The water is fucking freezing. It’s all I can do to hold my breath as I sink under, but I feel it. I feel the pole connect with Eli’s head, jarring my grip. I let go, because I don’t have a choice. If I want to push back up to the surface under this freezing water, it’s the only thing I can do.
Let go.
I let go and then I push on the balls of my aching feet, stinging now with the water, to the surface.
But someone stops me.
Someone holds me down.
And I don’t need to look up to know who it is.
49
Alex
I’m gasping for air, my lungs burning with it as I massage my throat, but there’s no time for that. There’s no time because my roommate is a fucking psychopath and he’s currently holding the girl I love under water.
He’s going to kill her.
He did it. I know he did. Without him telling me, without her confirming it, I fucking know that needle was his doing. And the blood? I bet it was hers.
And I bet he made her bleed.
He made her fucking bleed.
He almost sent me to fucking prison.
He let me think that night was my fault.
He said fucking nothing.
He put a needle in Zara’s veins.
He goaded her into fucking around with him.
He almost killed me.
He’s killing her.
I lunge for him in the water, doing exactly what he did to me, my forearm going around his fucking throat.
I haul him backward, and he stills in my arms, probably trying to conserve his strength. I know he knows how to fight better than I do, but between the two of us, I’m the fucking angriest, and that shit has to count for something.
Zara bursts up, to the surface, panting and rubbing water out of her eyes, shaking her head, trying to clear her vision.
God she’s fucking beautiful.
She sees me, but she sees the net, too, and she grabs it.
Eli is still strangely calm in my arms.
I loosen my hold.
And that’s exactly what he’s fucking waiting for.
He lunges toward Zara, apparently wanting to get to her more than me right now. But Zara is ready, too.
She holds up the net like a shield, horizontally. He laughs because he’s fucking insane, and grabs it, pulling it almost effortlessly from her arms.
And I’m right behind him, to help her.
This time, I don’t go for his throat.
This time, I cross my arms and bring them down over his fucking head, forcing him under.
Zara’s mouth falls open and she steps back, out of his reach.
He struggles against my arms, but underwater, and with me having the advantage of being above the surface, he can’t get up. He can’t break loose.
When he tries to, I just wrap one arm around his body, keep the other on his head, forcing him to stay under.
He’s still struggling, and Zara is staring at me with wide eyes. Those beautiful fucking ocean and emerald eyes.
She’s in a bra and underwear, and she’s shivering, her hands down by her sides, but she doesn’t look away from me.
Time passes.
I don’t know how much, but soon, Eli’s struggles are more sluggish. Less violent. Soon, it’s easier to hold him under.
Soon, he stops moving altogether.
“Alex.” Zara says my name with a hint of desperation, but she doesn’t move toward me. She doesn’t look down at Eli.
I don’t speak. I just swallow down the lump in my throat as Eli stops thrashing beneath my hands.
“Alex,” she whispers again, “you don’t want to—”
“Did he do it?” I ask her quietly as Eli goes still beneath me. “Did he stick that fucking needle in your vein?”
She doesn’t answer me, but she doesn’t need to. I can read the answer on her fucking face.
That motherfucker.
I don’t let go of him.
I don’t let go, and as the sun fully rises and casts the world in a promising shade of orange, I still don’t let go.
I don’t let go until I know Eli is gone.
Until I know I’m safe.
Until I know Zara is safe, and Eli Addison will never fuck with her ever again.
50
Zara
“I spoke to his father. He said he…he said Eli always had problems. Since his mom…you know, tried to hurt him.” Alex swallows, laces his fingers through mine. “He was seeing a psychiatrist, but I guess he just stopped going.”
I close my eyes, feeling the tears pricking behind them. I hear Eli’s voice in my head: Your scars are beautiful, baby girl.
But other words spring to mind, too. Words that cut soul-deep. His confession. A girl’s life stolen too soon.
“Zara.”
I look up into Alex’s dark eyes, those faint glimmers of amber that mesmerized me before I even liked him at all.
Funny I thought he was such an asshole.
The people with the biggest hearts always have the thickest armor.
His head is leaned against the black seat of his Jeep, and I see his throat move as he swallows. “Zara. I’m sorry I let him get to you. I’m sorry I left. But we’re free now, you know? We’re free and I want to put this behind us. I want to make you the happiest fucking girl in the world—”
“That’s not your job.”
“Let it be my job.”
“Alex.” I swallow down the lump in my throat. It’s been three days. It’s been three days, and I can’t believe it. I can’t fucking believe it. Three days, and none of us were charged. We told them what happened. About the needle and the heroin and the pool and the…
We told them about Rihanna too.
About Eli’s confession, that he pushed her in. Eli’s father didn’t bother trying to push a case against us because Eli is a fucking psychopath and turns out, more people knew it than we thought. Turns out too, that Cari, the girl he assaulted, remembers much more than she originally let on, not wanting to turn everything into a scene. I kind of hated her, imagining her let Alex take the fall for something she knew wasn’t his fault.
But she was terrified of Eli.
And I can understand that now.
“Yeah, baby?” Alex asks me.
“What’re you doing today?”
He smiles, but it’s sad.
He came over to the apartment, and I agreed to talk in his Jeep, not wanting to be in that place for another minute. Kylie came home Sunday, the day after Eli died. I’ve cried in her arms, but we haven’t spoken about it. And Mom… Mom is overbearing. I needed space from her. I need space from everyone.
Except Alex. Because he was there. He knows. He did it. He saved us both.
“Whatever you want,” Alex answers me.
I turn to stare out my window. “Let’s go to the beach?”
He squeezes my hand. “One condition.”
I let my eyes flutter closed, basking in the feel of his calloused fingers looped through mine. “Anything.”
He laughs. God, I love that laugh. Full of so much fucking life.
“In that case, maybe more than one condition.”
I turn my head and open my eyes, taking in his sharp jawline. Those beautiful lips. The line down the center of his bottom one.
So fucking attractive. Full of love. Like his soul.
I arch a brow. “Don’t test your luck, handsome.”
He smiles, his dimples flashing as he scrubs a hand over his tan face. “Shit,” he says softly.
“Hmm?”
“I love it when you call me that.” He laughs again. “Handsome.”
“Don’t dodge the question.”
He runs his thumb over the back of my hand. “Spend the weekend with me there.”
My eyes widen. “At your parent—”
“Hotel.”
I hold his gaze. Tell him what I’ve been thinking for nearly two weeks now. “I’m not very fun without the drugs, Alex.” It’s hard to get those words out. To get my mouth to acknowledge my heart’s fear. To confess to him what I’ve thought for some time. Why I almost chose Eli over him, even in the end.
Because Eli would’ve never expected me to get clean. Eli would’ve let me kill myself. It wasn’t his job to fix me, of course. But he would’ve left me when he graduated. He would’ve left me when my addiction spiraled out of control. And with that heroin, it would’ve been quick.
I can still feel it.
Alex presses his lips together, a crease between his brow. For a moment, we just stare at one another but then he finally says, “I much prefer you without them, Zara.”
I blow out a breath, trying to loosen that knot in my throat. “Makes one of us.”
I can still feel it, if I close my eyes and think back to that night. I can feel the ecstasy. The dream. The way the world hugged me tight like a warm blanket. And Eli was there in my perfect bubble, watching over me.
It made me so happy, so warm, I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything but that moment.
It lasted for hours.
It didn’t last nearly long enough.
“Zara.” Alex’s tone is serious, his fingers flexing around mine. I turn to stare at him, still holding back the tears. I don’t want to cry anymore.
“Let’s go to the beach, yeah?” he asks me, running his thumb over the top of my hand. “We’ll stay as long as you want. We can stay until Halloween, if you want to. We can dress up or not and go out and drink orange juice, or not. We can do whatever we want.”
I rub my thumb against my sternum, the pain in my chest nearly unbearable. And I don’t know what it’s for. I don’t know what it’s for and I don’t know if I want to know. I don’t know if I’ll ever know.
Eli is being buried this weekend.
I want to tell Alex that. I want to tell Alex we should go to the funeral, but then I think back to Rihanna Martinson’s funeral. Eli comforting her mother.
Eli Addison, the fucking murderer.
I don’t think he was born insane. Maybe his mother broke something in him. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe it was the brother he’s never met. The pictures she sent that felt to him like she was poking at him. Telling him how he would never be Adonis. His middle name. His father
told us that.
He never told anyone. Not even Alex.
Was she crazy, too? Did she know how much she hurt him? Did she only want to reach out?
I don’t know.
I’ll never know.
“Do you regret it?” I ask Alex, unable to hold it in. We haven’t discussed what he did. He held me that night in his arms, in my bed. And we didn’t talk about it.
He looks out the driver’s side window, and I see him swallow. “He was my friend, but I never really knew him.” He laughs without humor. “He was my friend, and my roommate, going on four years. But I never fucking knew him.”
I close my eyes, resting the side of my head against the seat, still facing Alex. “I don’t think he knew himself.”
Silence echoes in the confines of the Jeep.
It’s so heavy.
It’s so fucking heavy, but Alex doesn’t let go of my hand.
“I don’t know if things could’ve been different. If he had gotten help. And I’m not a murderer, Zara.” He turns to look at me and I pry my eyes open even though they’re so fucking heavy, too.
Everything is just too much.
“I’m not a murderer,” he says again, his voice cracking. “I’m not,” he pleads with me, even though I didn’t say anything. His dark eyes are shining with unshed tears. His voice breaks: “I’m not, but I couldn’t let him do that to you. I couldn’t risk him doing that to you again because I love you, Zara. I love you, princess.”
He chokes on those last words and I climb across the console, sitting in his lap, my legs stretched out over the passenger seat. I let him bury his head in my neck. I wrap my arms around his shoulders, feel him sob against me.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, his fingers digging into every inch of my body he can find as he sobs harder. “I’m so sorry, but I couldn’t let him… I couldn’t let him hurt you.”
And when the tears flood my own eyes, I just let them. I just let that knot loosen in my throat and I let my heart ache and we cry together.
