“He dropped off an eviction notice,” I explain and her face crumbles. “Your power’s off, too. Did you know that?”

She shakes her head and rests her chin on top of the pillow. “It was on last night.”

“Well, they must have turned it off this morning,” I say. She smashes her quivering lips together and I scoot closer to her and hand her the glass of water and the pill. At first she just stares at it with a disgusted face, but then reluctantly she takes it, popping the pill in her hand and then taking a gulp of water. For a second she looks relieved, but it quickly erases and she starts glaring at me again. But that’s okay. The half doses of pills aren’t supposed to numb her pain, just keep her body from freaking out on her.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” I say, setting the glass of water down on the nightstand when she hands it back to me. “You’re going to get cleaned up and then you’re going to come with me to find some boxes. Then were going to pack up your stuff and get you out of this apartment.”

Her lip pops out as she frowns even more. “Where am I supposed to go, Ethan? I barely have any money left and even if I pawned off my ring”—she raises her hand in front of her and wiggles her finger—“it still wouldn’t cover a new deposit and rent for another place.”

“Yeah, but you’re not going to get another place,” I say, giving her leg a gentle squeeze before rising to my feet. “You’re going to come stay with me for a while.”

“What!” she exclaims, throwing the pillow aside. “Why?”

“So that you don’t have to go home or go live on the streets,” I say, bringing my hand away from her leg. She clamps her jaw shut and starts to pick at her fingernails. “I don’t want to live with you.”

I bite down on my tongue, getting pissed off. “Why the hell not?”

“Because I don’t.” She looks away at the wall with aggravation burning in her blue eyes. “I’d rather live on the streets.”

“You wouldn’t last a God damn day on the streets and you know it.” I lean in front of her line of vision. “You don’t want to because you think I’m going to make you stop taking those stupid pills.”

“No, I know you’re going to make me,” she snaps back, her head whipping in my direction. “Because apparently you’re an asshole who will give me only half a dose, when clearly it’s not helping me at all.”

“Damn fucking straight I’m an asshole,” I retaliate. “And those half doses are going to help you freak out while you quit.” I grab her arms and pull her to her feet. Steering her by the shoulders, I move her in front of the mirror. “Look at yourself, Lila. In the last month you’ve completely fallen apart. You’re not the girl I met a year ago.”

“Yes, I am! I’ve been falling apart for years, and just hid it better than I have lately,” she says and then her eyes enlarge as she bites down on her lip so hard it instantly starts to swell. “I didn’t mean that. I’m fine, so stop telling me things to try to get me to see clearly.” She steps forward to move away, but I pull her back.

“Look at yourself,” I repeat, because it’s important for her to see what she really is at this moment, when everything the drugs have done to her is showing. “When I was doing drugs I never really saw what I’d become until I was pretty far into it. I’d lost a lot of weight and my skin looked like shit. Plus my personal hygiene was nonexistent. This”—I gesture at her filthy clothes and matted hair—“is what you look like because of those pills. Can you handle that?”

“This is an exception,” she argues, glancing in the mirror. Her hair is all over the place, her makeup smeared, and her lips are chapped. “I usually don’t look like this. Last night was an exception… a minor slipup.”

“No, you look like this every morning that I’ve had to pick you up. I always thought it was a morning-after sort of thing, since every other time I saw you, you always look so put together, but now I’m kind of realizing that you just hide it well and that the mornings I had to pick you up were just slipups.” I take a deep breath. “And last night wasn’t a fucking slipup. You could have died if I didn’t find you. Do you realize that? How close you were to dying?”

Her eyes enlarge for a split second, but then narrow on my reflection in the mirror. “I hate you,” she says, her shoulder shaking under my hands.

“No, you don’t.” And I know she really doesn’t. She’s just furious, not even at me, but at the fact that whatever she was masking with the drugs is probably surfacing. “And FYI, that’s getting a little old.”

She glares at me, fire scorching in her eyes. “Then leave.”

I shake my head. “As your friend, it’s my duty to not leave you alone for a while, at least until we can get you down from the half doses to no doses.”

She laughs sharply and crosses her arms. “What? Are you just going to follow me around all the time then, until you get sick of me? Didn’t you get the hint the other night that I don’t want you?”

It hurts like a knife slashing into my skin, deep, violent thrashes, but I know enough to know that she’s desperate right now and will say anything to get me to leave. “If I have to.” I realize as I say it that I actually mean it and the feeling is bluntly real. “If that’s what it takes, then that’s what it takes.”

She drags her hand down her face and then she notices the small blue-and-purple bruises on her arms. “Where’d these come from?” She touches them lightly with her fingertips.

I shrug, removing my hands from her shoulders. “I have no idea. You had welts there last night when I found you in the bushes. If you ask me, it looks like someone got a little rough with you.”

She winces and then glances at her reflection. “I’m going to take a shower.”

I sit down on the bed and cross my arms. “Okay, I’ll be right here when you get out.”

“What? Aren’t you going to come take a shower with me?” she asks derisively as she yanks open the dresser drawer.

I notice there are candy canes in it and it makes me mentally smile, thinking about when I gave them to her, but I quickly shake the thought away. “Nah, I’ll wait for you here.”

She scowls at me as she snatches a pair of black lacy panties out of the drawer. “Fine, but how do you know I don’t have any pills hidden in the bathroom?”

“I’m guessing you don’t since I’m pretty sure you would have gone after them last night,” I tell her.

Her face reddens with rage. “Whatever.” She storms for the door and I follow her out into the hall, staying at her heels, making sure she doesn’t try to make a run for the front door. She slams the bathroom door in my face and I sit down on the couch to wait for her.

I’m trying not to panic about what the future holds, but I can’t help it. Excluding the fact that I’m taking a big step with another girl besides London, I’m actually going to have to live with her, too, and I could barely stand living with Micha. I like my personal space and if I don’t get enough of it, I start to feel like I’m caged in. I mean, I like Lila and everything, but I’m not even sure if I’ve seen the real her yet, just the drugged-up illusion of her. Drugs are like that. They make someone a different person. With me, I was calmer on the inside, so on the outside I had an easier time talking to people. Lila’s always seemed happy enough, except for the last few weeks. What if she turns into a completely different person and I end up not liking her? I’ve enjoyed all the time we spent together, the bantering, even the sexual tension, the inappropriate touching, and I’ll even admit it, despite the fact of how it ended, that night on her bed made me feel things I never knew existed. But what if that’s all gone after this.

Chapter Eight

Lila

I’m a bitch. I’ve been snapping at Ethan and saying mean things even though he helped me out when he didn’t have to. He let me move in with him, and even went as far as helping me pack up my apartment. But I can’t help it. It’s like there is this foul thing living inside me, this famished monster that wants nothing more than to be fed, and Ethan is getting in the way of the feast, only giving me broken pieces of pills, and he’s giving them to me less frequently each day. I haven’t felt this shitty since my mom and her driver picked me up from boarding school after the incident. She wasn’t there to rescue me, though, like I hoped. She was there to talk some sense into me.

“Well, I have to say that I’m very disappointed in you,” she’d said, staring out the tinted window as we drove through the city, the tall buildings shadowing the streets and the car. “Although, I’m not surprised.” She angled her head to the side to look at me and slipped her sunglasses onto the top of her head. “As much as I hate to admit it, I expected nothing less of you.”

The indignity and mortification of what happened at school still burned inside me and yet I still couldn’t control my tongue. “And why’s that, mother?”

“Watch your tone,” she snapped. “Just because your father isn’t here doesn’t mean you can disrespect me.”

“Why? You let my father.” I was sitting on the opposite side of the backseat, looking at her with such animosity for making me come to the city and the school. If I’d been in California then maybe I would have made better decisions. I wouldn’t have felt so lonely and therefore wouldn’t have gone looking for something to fill the emptiness inside me. I would have never met him and never have done things, disgusting, unimaginable things that I’ll forever regret.

Her eyes snapped wide and before I had time to register what she was doing, she slapped me hard across the cheek. Heat and pain ignited across my face and inside my heart, too. But I didn’t cry. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of crying in front of her.