Page 127 of Ecstasy
I don’t want him.
I don’t want anyone.
I just want to be alone.
I unlock the door and just as I’m about to pull it open, Alex slaps his hand against it. “You’re not leaving, princess.”
“I swear to God, I’ll call the police if you don’t let me—”
“Please do.” He steps toward me, backing me into a corner by the door. “Please fucking do call the police, so they can see how drunk you are right now. So I can show them the shit you kept in a goddamn tampon box—”
I slap him.
I don’t think, I just do it.
“You had no fucking right!” I slap him again. He works his jaw, turns back to face me, teeth clenched. “You had no fucking right to go through my shit! Do you know how much that shit costs—”
“If you start fucking your dealer, too, Za, you should get a pretty good discount, huh? Or is your pussy not that good anymore?”
Again, I raise my hand to slap him, and again, he lets me. My hand hurts, the sound echoes in the apartment and Kylie gasps somewhere behind Alex’s big frame.
“Do it one more time,” he tells me, his voice low. “I dare you.”
“Zara, don’t,” Kylie says, pleading with me.
But I do. Or at least, I try to. The rage is blowing my fucking high. I’m ready to fucking scratch Alex Cardi’s face off.
But he stops me.
He grabs my arm, forces me further against the wall, my head knocking against it, his grip on my arm painful. Kylie is calling his name, but he ignores her, getting in my face, his eyes dark pools of anger in the dim light spooling in from under the apartment door.
“I won’t let you kill yourself. You don’t deserve the fucking rest.”
He pins my other arm up against the wall as I try to shove him away.
“Eli never gave a fuck about you, and goddamn, I wish I could say the same, but Ido, Zara. I fucking do.”
“That’s not—”
“Eli doesn’t love you. He’s sick, just like you. But I fucking love you just as much as I hate you, and I won’t let you get worse. Now,” he leans his body against mine, and I hold my breath, “I’m staying here with you this entire week. You can make it easy, or you can make it hard. But if you try to leave without me, I’ll fucking call your mom and she will cut you off. Do you understand?”
No.
I swallow down my anger, trying to work a different angle. Screaming at Alex won’t get me what I want. It’ll just make him louder. Worse.
He has no right to be mad but telling him that again won’t help me now. And if he doesn’t let me leave this apartment, if he really took all my shit I can’t survive that.
I open my eyes and relax against the hold he has on me.
He relaxes too, but he’s watching me suspiciously. Skeptically. I know he doesn’t trust me any more than I trust him.
He doesn’t step back and he doesn’t let me go, but I didn’t expect him to.
“It’s not what you think,” I finally say, keeping my tone even. I see his brow furrow, I see him ready to argue, so I keep going, my words quick but soft. “I’m not an addict. Not like you think.” There’s a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach because what I’m saying is true and I don’t want to give it to him. I don’t want to feel this vulnerable, but I have to. I need to tell him some truths, so he’ll leave me alone. So he won’t fuck everything up for me. “I’m not addicted. I just…I just feel so weird and alone, and my brain is a fucking mess and the pills help me feel alive.But I know how to live without them.” I swallow down that little lie and hope Alex does too. “I know how, I just thought I’d go out with a bang my senior year and then get my shit together.” I laugh a little, because when I say it out loud, it does sound ridiculously stupid. “I realize that’s not going to work.”
He loosens his grip on me, but still doesn’t let go completely.
“I don’t…I don’t want Eli.”
