Page 119 of Ecstasy
I lift my head up, startled and glancing around to make sure no one saw me. The campus is dead. It’s four in the afternoon, which means most people are probably on their way to their parties or games—there’s a home game tonight, based on all the Caven blue I saw around campus—and no one gives a shit about a girl almost walking into a pole anyway. I wonder if Alex is happy to be playing again.
I push him from my mind as I stare at the light pole, really seeing it for the first time.
There’s a sheet of paper taped to it and I stare at it for far longer than I should.
It’s Rihanna.
The photograph is black and white, but I know that long, shiny hair of hers is brown. I think her eyes were blue or maybe they were green, or maybe I really don’t know at all. She’s smiling, dressed in her blue and orange cheerleading uniform, kneeling on one knee with her pom poms in her hand.
There’s some loopy type that just says, “Live life to the fullest!”
I want to rip the paper down, but that seems mean-spirited. I guess it is. I guess I am, but staring at her, alive, makes me think of her, dead, and that makes me feel uncomfortable.
Makes me think of Alex’s words, too. “If you touch her, I swear to God, Rihanna, I’ll fucking drown you in my pool.”
Why didn’t I tell the cops that? I don’t know. I’m sure it doesn’t matter. I’m sure he wouldn’t hurt anyone.
He stopped Eli. That night, and the one at the beach. He stopped him.
And as far as I know, he and Eli still live together. They were able to push me aside and become bros again. Yeah.
Alex Christian Cardi is not the murdering type.
But sometimes I still get sent that video of him yanking down my bikini top, the gloating smile on his face, the way he bent his head down to my neck. My wide-eyed stare, like I didn’t know what the hell was going on.
Mainly because I didn’t.
I remember his words to me, too, before he pushed me in that pool, when I told him I was too drunk to swim. “Yeah, here’s the thing, princess. You should’ve thought about that before you put Jamal’s dick in your pretty little mouth.”
Eli did way worse, but I don’t think of him.
He was a distraction too.
I scuff my shoe against the brick walkway, still staring at that piece of paper. A girl died in a pool and I found her, and I feel nothing.
Maybe I think she got lucky, really.
Death is the easy way out.
If that Narcan hadn’t been administered because a sober girl at the party I went to in the spring was paying attention, I would’ve gotten to taste it too. To drift off into a beautiful oblivion.
It would’ve been all over then. I’d have never met Alex or Eli. Never fucked up their worlds. Hell, maybe Rihanna might even still be alive.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I tear my eyes away from the picture.
I pull my phone out, glance at my text. There’s an earlier message from Mom. I’m meeting her for dinner next week because I really want someone to buy me a dinner out and I really don’t want to ask her for any more money lest she suspect I’m spending everything she sends me on drugs, which I am. And a text from Jax.
Him:Wanna come over?
I haven’t partied with him in a while. I’ve been by, of course. Walked over. Had Kylie drive me over, telling her I had to pick up some notes for school, even though he doesn’t fucking go to school.
All lies to get what I need, but I haven’t spent any time with him.
Kylie is already gone for the weekend though, home to have dinner with her parents and Ian. I wonder if she still spies on me for Alex, but I have a feeling he doesn’t care. I almost want to ask her, but it doesn’t matter now.
None of it fucking matters.
I look back down at my phone.
