I quietly opened the box and pulled out a small bottle of whiskey, taking a large swallow before I’d even moved from my knees. It burned all the way down my throat, the bitter taste making my face screw up in what I was sure was a very attractive expression. I set the box on the counter and climbed to my feet, turning my head away so I wouldn’t accidentally see my reflection.

By the time I got situated, curled up on the top of the closed toilet, I was feeling so much better. My hands were tingly, and the rest of my limbs felt loose and relaxed. Thank God. Alcohol was such a soothing thing, so much better than the sleeping pills the doctor had prescribed me after my “accident.” I was enjoying my buzz, trying to decide if I should go back to bed, when I was startled by the bathroom door swinging open.

“Oh, sorry,” Cody mumbled, rubbing his bare chest. “I didn’t realize—” His eyes narrowed as he took in my tank top and shorts, and the nearly empty whiskey bottle resting between my knees.

I froze, my eyes wide as I tried to decide how I was going to explain drinking in the bathroom in the middle of the night. God, I was fucking pathetic.

But before I could say a word, he stepped inside, gently closing the door. “What the fuck are you doing, Farrah?”

“Having a drink!” I replied with a wide smile, toasting him with my bottle before raising it to my lips.

I would just have to brazen it out. Usually I could make a sarcastic or bitchy comment, and as long as I was safe in the apartment while drinking, it would be enough for him to leave me alone. But I’d barely tasted the booze on my tongue before he swiped the bottle out of my hand.

“You don’t need this shit,” he mumbled, twisting the cap back on the bottle. “God, Farrah.”

“How do you know what I need?” I asked belligerently as I stood from the toilet, swaying as I stepped toward him and reached for the bottle he was holding out of my reach.

His entire demeanor pissed me off, with his gelled hair and fucking prep school clothes. What the hell did he know about anything?

“You think you know anything about me?”

“I know plenty,” he told me seriously, reaching up to push my hair out of my face until I ducked away. “I was there too. I think it’s easy for you to forget that, but I was there too.”

I gasped and staggered back in shock. I couldn’t believe he was going there. What a dick. No one dared to mention that day to me.

“Fuck you, Cody,” I said with a sneer, my lower lip trembling. I tried to push around him but he held his ground, and I huffed in frustration.

“Let me out!” I said tightly, smacking him in the chest.

When I looked up to find him staring at me with kind eyes, although red around the edges, I lost it.

I slapped him again. I was sick and tired of him playing his knight-in-shining-armor games. I didn’t need him stepping in all the time, treating me like a child. Fuck him.

I swung my arms, my hands alternately flat or fisted, and beat at his chest and arms. “Don’t look at me like that! I’m fine! What, do you think you need to save me? Ha! Maybe I need to save you from those fucking polos and that ridiculous faux hawk! News flash, dickhead. If it’s not an actual Mohawk, you just look like a douche!”

He took everything I had to give him and never once attempted to stop me. “Get it out, baby,” he murmured, rubbing my back when he could reach it. It was extremely frustrating that he was trying to console me when I wanted him to hit me back. I wanted a goddamn fight.

What was wrong with me?

Eventually I was crying more than I was hitting, and that pissed me off even more. I fucking hated showing emotions. It made me feel like a drama queen, as if I were begging for attention. I dropped my arms to my sides and clenched my jaw, feeling overwhelmingly embarrassed for my freak-out. I pretended that tears weren’t leaking from the corners of my eyes as I stared at his bare chest, now covered in red marks and scratches, and silently willed him to leave.

I was so focused on trying to get my shit together that when he wrapped his arms around me, I didn’t even fight it. He pushed me back gently while I stared at the mole on his breastbone, and before I could snap out of my head, he sat down on the toilet and pulled me down with him so I was straddling his lap.

“I know you’re hurting,” he started, pausing when I scoffed.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re fine? That’s why you’re drinking Jack in the fucking bathroom at five o’clock in the morning?”

I didn’t have a reply to that. It was ridiculous; I knew that. I just didn’t have an explanation for it, at least not one that wouldn’t make me seem even more pathetic. God, had I really told him he needed to be saved from his haircut? I could feel him looking at me, but refused to meet his eyes.

I knew I should get up and get the hell away from him. He was my best friend’s little brother, and we were barely friends. But when my eyes began to grow heavy, and I hiccupped with leftover tears, he gently grasped the back of my neck, and I let him pull my face to his throat.

“It’s okay, baby,” he whispered gently, rubbing my back in slow circles. “Sleep, Farrah.”

Strangely, I felt myself relaxing into his muscular body.

“Tomorrow, you can pretend this never happened,” he told me seriously, his hand sliding down to grip my side, slowly burrowing under my tank top. He rubbed slowly on the side of my lower belly with his thumb, and I refused to acknowledge when he found one of my scars and paused. He turned his head and kissed my forehead gently, his thumb still resting on the small round scar burned into my skin. “Let me take care of you tonight.”