Page 151 of Ecstasy
“You motherfucker.” That’s Alex’s voice, and he’s trying to push Eli under. He’s trying to push him under the water as they wrestle in the shallow end, a tangle of arms and anger and water spraying on the surface. “You stupid motherfucker.”
He doesn’t even know. He doesn’t even know what he did.
He doesn’t know.
Eli laughs. He just laughs, and it sends a chill down my spine. I pull my knees in closer, resting my chin on one.
Maybe they’ll just kill each other. Maybe they’ll just fucking kill each other and I can sleep again and go home and pretend none of this happened. Maybe their bodies will be at the bottom of this pool.
Eli steps back, shoving Alex off him. He backs up on the stairs, gripping the railing. The same one I was lying beside when he shoved me under water, holding me down.
Alex pulls his shirt over his head, throws it off to the side of the pool, opposite me. My tired eyes take in his tan muscles, his tall, lean frame.
Eli is still laughing, gripping that railing. He has a white t-shirt on, and it’s soaked, sticking to his every muscle.
“You think she actually wants you?” he taunts Alex, his voice cold. “You think that this week actually meant something to her?”
Alex’s gaze narrows, but he turns to look at me, because he’s unsure. And I’m not sure what he sees in my expression, but I see his face fall. His lips part, and the tension seems to leave his body as he turns to face me more fully.
“Zara,” he whispers. The music has stopped, and a strange silence settles over their backyard. The sun is rising, bathing us in orange and yellow.
I glance at Eli, but he is watching Alex with a self-satisfied smirk on his face.
He’s a fucking psychopath.
Maybe I knew that from the very beginning. When he showed up at my apartment for no reason. Maybe that’s part of why I liked him.
That’s why girls like assholes, I think to myself. There’s something appealing about being with a man who does not give a single fuck about anything. Anything but you.
But what about when he ruins you?
What then?
“Tell me it isn’t true,” Alex pleads with me, his voice cracking.
I run my hand over the back of my nose, force myself to meet Alex’s gaze. He’s so beautiful. He’s so damn beautiful.
He doesn’t know the truth.
He doesn’t know what Eli told me. He told me he put Rihanna up to ruining me and Alex. He told me that he was the reason she kissed him after practice. He told me it wasn’t enough, and then she wanted him, and he didn’t want her.
He wanted me.
“Did you kill her?” I asked him. “Did you hold her under?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t need to. When I pushed her, that’s all I had to do. She killed herself, Zara. She drowned herself.”
“It was always going to be him, wasn’t it?” Alex suddenly demands, sending a spray of water toward me. I gasp, shivering.
I can’t get the words out. I can’t speak.
Alex wades through the water toward me. “It was always going to be fucking him. You two…” He turns to glare at Eli, who is glaring right back. “You two are fucking unbelievable. You two are fucking…psychos. You’re fucking insane. Was this always a fucking game?” He turns back to me, his hands gripping the concrete ledge of the pool.
He left me once. He left me after that night with Eli.
But he came back for me.
And he stayed with me.
