Page 84 of Ecstasy
I shake my head, crossing my arms over my chest. I need to get back to Alex’s room. I need to let this shit go.
I take another step, but then Eli says, so softly I almost don’t hear it over the creak of the floor and the pounding of my own heart, “Wait.”
I turn to face him. I watch him grab a glass of water from his nightstand, beside a model car, a flash of white in the dark room.
He closes the space between us and hands me the water. I just stare at it for a moment, and he says, “MDMA is dehydrating. It also disturbs sleep, if you do too much of it.” He sounds like he’s memorized a PSA pamphlet or something. “It can make you sleepwalk.”
I glare up at him, still not taking the water. Dread tightens my stomach again like a closed fist squeezing my guts. “Are you suggesting that I have a problem?”
From the light of his laptop screen, I see the corner of his mouth curve up into a lopsided smile. “We both know you have a problem. I’m just giving you information.”
I glare up at him a moment longer then turn on my heel, leaving him and his stupid fucking water.
25
Alex
I pickup the bottle by the neck, slam it against the sliding glass door. It shatters into a thousand pieces, the sound soothing my rage, splintering the quiet of the morning.
There are people passed out in my living room, some idiot naked and drunk on a pool chair. Zara is still in bed and I want all these people out of my fucking house. All of them except her.
Fuck.
I run my hands through my hair and hear someone padding down the hall from the living room. I whirl around, glaring at a guy I vaguely recognize as someone on the fucking wrestling team.
His eyes go wide as he stares at the shattered vodka bottle on the floor.
He scrubs his hand over his face, blinking, as if he thinks he might still be fucking drunk or still asleep.
Slowly, his eyes slide to my face.
“You okay, man?” he asks me cautiously, taking a small step back.
I glare at him in answer.
I see him swallow. He doesn’t have a shirt on, his jeans unbuttoned. All I can think about is my fucking father. His jeans shoved down to his ankles while he plowed into that woman in the pool house.
I was fucking fifteen.
I’m twenty-one now and he still hasn’t fucking stopped.
I close my eyes, hands still fisted in my hair, willing it to stop. The memory. The anger. The hatred. The distance between us now.
What he did to my mother.
“Hey, Alex, you need anything—”
My eyes snap open. “Get out of my fucking house.”
The guy nods. Backs away slowly. “Are you sure you don’t need—”
“Get. Out!”I point to the door at his back, in case he doesn’t fucking know where it is.
“Shit,” I hear someone whisper from the living room. “Alex is fucking trippin’.”
And then it isn’t just the kid without the shirt leaving. It’s a fucking mass exodus from mine and Eli’s house. I turn my back to everyone getting their shit together and leaving, and I pick up a bottle of tequila, ready to fling it at the door, too, when someone grabs my elbow.
“Alex.”
