His arms snake around my waist and I let out a spastic wail as his fingers come down over my hands. He tries to pry them off the bottle, but I wrestle my arms away, slipping out of his hold. I bend my knees to jump over the bed, but he catches me midleap and hauls me down onto the mattress.

“Ethan, stop it!” I cry as he holds me down with his body. I writhe my hips and jerk my shoulders, attempting to escape. “You’re hurting me!” It’s a lie, but I’m desperate, needy, obsessed with what’s in that bottle.

“Stop being a baby,” he says, kneeling up so my waist is trapped between his knees. “I’m barely putting any weight on you.’ ”

I hug the bottle to my chest. “Yes, you are!”

“No, I’m not.” He grabs my hands and then pins them down above my head, pressing his forehead against mine. With his free hand he pries the bottle out of my frantic grasp.

“No, please, Ethan. Please, stop it. Please… please… please…” I start to cry and hyperventilate and I despise it because I already look ridiculous as it is.

He doesn’t say anything as he climbs off me and then off the bed. I leap up from the bed, begging and pleading with him to give me the pills back.

“I’ll give you whatever you want,” I say, with my hands overlapped in front of me as I stand vulnerably before him. “Anything, you want. Anything.” I know it’s low to offer myself in exchange for a bottle that’s mine, but that bottle is worth more to me than any part of my used body, worthless mind, and empty heart.

“I don’t want anything from you, Lila,” he says, staring undecidedly at the bottle in his hand. “Except for you to get better.”

I lunge for him, but he rotates to the side, so I slam into his back. He thrusts out his arm and holds me back as he grips the bottle in his hand. The longer they’re out of my reach, the more I feel like I want to claw out of my own skin. I start to tremble as my blood pressure rises. “Please, please just give them to me,” I mutter as I start to sweat. “Help me, please… I don’t want to feel like this.

He suddenly lets go of me and for a second I think he’s giving in. Then he pushes down on the lid with his hand and twists it off.

“What are you doing?” I ask, my mouth salivating as he dumps one tiny pill into his hand.

I notice his finger tremble a little as he breaks the pill in half with his fingers and hands one of the pieces to me. “Take this.”

I shake my head at the tiny piece that’s not going to do shit for me at the moment. “I need more than that.”

He shakes his head. “That’s all I’m going to give you and I’m only giving it to you so you’re body won’t freak out from withdrawals.”

“They’re not yours to hand out!” I shout and lunge for him again, but he catches me in his arms and holds my weight as my legs give out on me. “They’re mine! Not yours.” I’m shaking from head to toe as my mind screams at me to take the half and then do whatever it takes to get more from him. “Ethan, please just give me the bottle. I’ll do whatever you want…” I shut my eyes and take a deep breath before I offer him something I’ve offered other guys before in exchange for pills. “I’ll let you fuck me. And I mean fuck me, without any of the relationship, needy crap afterward that I know you hate.

His arms tighten around me as he presses me closer to his chest. “Lila, stop. I already said I don’t want anything from you except for you to get better.” Then he moves the insignificant-sized pill into my line of vision.

I hate him so much right now I can’t stand it. I can’t stand myself. I can’t stand a lot of things, but I still take the pill, and once it touches my tongue, the bitter taste spreads through my body and for a brief second I feel slightly better. But then I remember he has the rest in his hand and I can’t get another bottle until Monday, which is two whole days. Two very, very long, tiring, emotional days.

A switch I never knew existed flips inside me and unwanted emotions spring loose. “I hate you!” I shout. Fear and rage pound through me so badly and all I want to do is hit him. I start hitting him in the chest, over and over again as tears slip down my cheeks. He doesn’t do anything, which makes me angrier. At least if he hit me or something it’d distract me from the aching pain growing inside me. “I fucking hate you!’ I yell it over and over again until my arms and legs are so sore I sink to the ground, clutching on to his shirt. Every emotion I’m feeling cuts at me like a knife.

Ethan silently scoops me up and carries me to my bed, even though I protest. I turn on my back with my head on my pillow and stare up at him through a veil of tears.

“I hate you so much,” I say, even though I don’t. “I really do.”

“No, you don’t,” he replies imperviously as he stands at the edge of the bed, staring down at me.

“Yes, I do,” I lie and flip to my side so I don’t have to look at him anymore. I turn the ring around on my finger, over and over again as I stare at the wall.

I think he’s going to leave me there in my bedroom alone, which I don’t think I can handle—at the same time, I’m fuming with so much rage that I don’t want him to be there. There is no good solution to the situation. No matter whether he leaves or stays, the pills are with him and I can’t get a refill for two days because they guy who writes them for me is gone for the weekend.

Ethan doesn’t make a sound as he stands beside my bed, like he’s waiting for me to say or do something. I shut my eyes and pretend he’s not there. Finally he shifts and I think he’s leaving, but then the mattress sinks down and a second later he’s lying beside me. He drapes his arm over my side, his muscles tensing, and then he inches closer so our bodies are perfectly aligned.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers against the back of my neck, brushing my hair to the side so he can trail his fingers across the base of my neck.

I’m not sure exactly what he’s sorry for, but nonetheless I start to sob as I roll over and bury my face into his chest. He smoothes my hair down as I cry my heart out, and even though every single part of my body and mind wants to wither and die, for the first time in my life, I don’t feel utterly alone in the world. And the strange thing is I can feel the emotion behind it—I can feel everything.

Ethan

I’m completely out of my element. I’ve never been one for affection, even with London, but London wasn’t affectionate either. She liked to kiss and have sex, but other than that, the touchy-feely thing was nonexistent in our relationship. She’d cried a few times in front of me, but she always pushed me away or diverted to sex when I tried to comfort her. And she never ever told me anything about the cause of her problems and sometimes I wonder if she didn’t trust me enough.

As Lila clings on to me, crying her heart out, trusting me completely, I feel more awkward than I ever have. But a few things make the awkwardness bearable. Like knowing that I’m making the aching need inside her the slightest bit less painful, and that’s what keeps me in the bed with her.

She cries for half the night and then sleeps until midafternoon. I get up around ten when a text message goes off on my phone. Sighing, I delete the message from Rae and then tuck my phone and the bottle of pills into my pocket. Then I wander out to the refrigerator to get a snack, trying to shake the rising emotions inside me. All that she has is some expired milk and a rotten sandwich and the fridge isn’t even on. I shut the door and check the light switches and sure enough the power is out.

I knew she was having money trouble, but this is way worse than I thought. I start to question why she didn’t tell me just how bad things were getting, but then I realize that I’d probably do the same thing. In fact, at this point, I’d probably have packed my shit up and hit the road, living in my car or something, which actually doesn’t seem so bad at the moment.

As I slam the cupboard shut, there’s a knock on the door. I debate whether to answer it, but then they knock again so I open the door. There’s an old dude wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off and a pair of cargo shorts, and he has a piece of paper in his hand.

“Is Lila…” He glances down at the paper. “Summers here?”

“No,” I lie breezily, leaning against the doorway. “You just missed her.”

“Can you give her this?” He shoves the paper at me.

“I guess.” I take it from him and he walks down the steps as I shut the door, reading the paper over. It’s an eviction notice. “Shit.”

I remember when I was coming down, after I’d decided to make the decision to stop doing drugs, I was very touchy about everything. I even remember yelling at my mom because I couldn’t find any socks. Everything pissed me off and upset me, and an eviction notice… I can’t even imagine what that would have done.

As much as I’d just like to pay her past-due amount for her—because that’s the easiest solution—I don’t have the funds. I could ask her to ask her parents, but from the stories I’ve heard about them, I don’t think they’d help her. They might make her come home, but I don’t think she’ll go and I kind of don’t want her to. There’s only one more solution, one I’m not very fond of, because of the many things that can go wrong. Still, I ball up the eviction notice and toss it into the trash.

When I go back to her room with a glass of water and half a pill in my hand, she’s awake, curled up in a ball, hugging a pillow. I linger near the doorway for a while, trying to figure out what to say to her. “So,” I start, realizing it’s probably the stupidest thing to say at the moment, but honestly anything that comes out of my mouth is going to annoy her.

She frowns and scowls at me. “Who was at the door?”

I step into the room and sit down on the foot of the bed. “Your landlord, I think.”

She gradually sits up, blinking her eyes and clutching on to the pillow. “What did he want?”