Ecstasy

Eli

I see her before she sees me.

I’m on the couch in the living room, my arm around Kaitlyn, a beer in my other hand. Dwight, Alex’s friend, is sitting on the opposite end of the couch with his girl, Nadia, and at the table a few of my teammates and some girls are playing Jenga. It all goes to shit when I hear the blocks scatter and everyone laughs, one lone voice calling out, “Jenga!”

The lights are low, the music on, Kamaara, Techno Thot!, and I see her come up the stairs opposite the couch, arm in arm with Alex.

Who, as usual, looks pissed.

“Alex!” Dwight calls out, shrugging his arm off Nadia, who takes a drink from her cup. “You made it!”

Alex doesn’t bother putting on a party face. He just flicks his brows up in acknowledgement of Dwight, then, arm still threaded through Zara’s, he steers them both down a little hall to the left of the stairs, toward the kitchen.

They disappear beyond it, and Dwight rolls his eyes, turns to me. “What’s buggin’ him?”

Nadia shifts on the couch, curling into Dwight. She tucks a strand of long black hair behind her ear. “Alex is always buggin’.”

Kaitlyn laughs into her cup.

I keep staring down the hall toward the kitchen, waiting for them to come out.

Kaitlyn shifts a little toward me, putting her hand on my thigh. I didn’t invite her, but then again, I don’t usually invite most people that come here. It’s my dad’s place, but more than out of respect for him, I just don’t like most people. This shit is always Alex’s idea.

“You got a light, E?” Dwight asks me, and I force myself to look away from the kitchen. I move my arm from around Kaitlyn, pull my black lighter out of my jean pocket and hand it to Dwight.

“Thanks, man.”

I know he’s not about to smoke a cigarette, and when he offers me a joint, I don’t hesitate to take it. I don’t drink that much, and I don’t smoke that much, but some nights just call for it.

Like tonight.

With Zara being so close but so fucking far.

Finally, after I’ve already smoked half of Dwight’s joint, Alex and Zara come walking back into the living room, and they take a seat on the couch across from mine.

Zara is wearing black, ripped shorts and a tight, white tank. Her sunglasses are pushed up on her head, and I imagine she left the rest of her shit in the room Alex usually stays in downstairs.

Her white hair is wavy and loose, kind of wild around her pale face. She’s got a cup in her hand and she’s done with her drink before Alex even takes a single pull of his beer.

While Alex and Dwight bullshit about next week’s upcoming game, and Kaitlyn runs her fingers up and down my arm while Nadia plays on her phone, Zara just stares at the floor.

And I stare at her, but she refuses to meet my gaze. Even though she knows I’m looking at her. She has to know.

Abruptly, she stands to her feet, sets her empty cup on the table.

“Where’s the bathroom?” she asks the room, raising her voice so she can be heard over the music. The guys and their girls at the table are playing another riveting round of Jenga, and Alex glances up at her but keeps talking to Dwight.

“Downstairs. To the right,” I tell her.

She doesn’t look up. She just tucks her hands into her pockets and nods, then walks away, practically scurrying for the stairs.

“Chick is weird,” Kaitlyn mutters beside me, so quiet only I can hear her. “I don’t know how Alex can stand to be in the same room with her after the shit she did.”

I glance at Kaitlyn, my head feeling a little less heavy from the marijuana.

Kaitlyn is pretty, she’s got long, dark blonde hair. Bright blue eyes. A fake tan. Her eyes are kind of freakishly big and her cheeks are kind of sunk in—nothing like Zara’s round face—but she’s got a fat ass and she gives good head.

She also happens to be a shallow bitch.

I stand to my feet, clear my throat. And I don’t say anything as I step between Dwight and Alex’s conversation, and head down the stairs into the darkness of the first level of Dad’s beach house.

Mom and I used to come here a lot. Dad rarely did, he worked. And working was for men and entertaining me was for her.

Didn’t work out so well for him when I turned thirteen, but I guess by then, she’d already done all the hard work.

The stairs creak with every step as I head downstairs, so it’s not like I’m a ghost drifting through the house, but even so, Zara fucking runs right into me as I step down onto the main floor.

I reach my hands out to steady her, and she’s clutching my shirt, just above my biceps.

“Oh my God,” she says, breathless. “Sorry, I…” She falters, maybe realizing it’s me.

I can smell her. Flowers and fucking coffee, like she’s a barista at a nursery. And her skin beneath my fingers…

Fuck, she feels good.

“What were you doing?” I ask her in the darkness. Light drifts down from the first floor, along with the music and the sounds of people talking, but it still feels like we’re alone right here.

It’s how we always meet.

Alone.

“I uh, I was just…” she chokes on her words, her fingers gripping my shirt so tight I can feel her knuckles brushing my skin.

“You were just what?” My hands are around her forearms, and there’s less than a foot between us. Less than a foot and when I take a step, I’m so close I can hear her breathing.

I can hear her swallow.

“I should go upstairs.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

Silence.

Silence, save for everyone upstairs. Everyone I don’t want to see. I wonder if she wants to see them. I wonder who she is, when she isn’t playing this role.

“Alex is—”

I tighten my hold on her. “Fuck Alex.”

“Eli, you don’t—you don’t even know me. This isn’t a good idea. Not tonight.”

I pull her closer to me, and her hands rise to my chest as she looks up at me, the breath startled from her pretty little mouth. “Does he know?” I wrap one arm around her back, using my other hand to brush a lock of hair behind her ear, trailing my fingers down to her neck, where I rest my hand against her collarbone. “Does he know about those scars, baby girl?”

In the dim light pouring in from upstairs, I see pink blooming on her cheeks. “Why are you so obsessed with—”

“With the ways you hurt?” I ask her, leaning down close, pressing my brow to hers.

She doesn’t answer me, but I can feel her pulse beneath my hand on her collarbone, and it picks up speed.

Knowing that it’s because of me…that I’m doing that to her…

“You saw me,” she says, her voice rough, interrupting my thought. “You watched me that night. You watched me. But you didn’t stop me—”

“Would you have wanted me to?” I tilt my head, angling my mouth over hers. I can smell her breath. It smells like alcohol and hard candy and I wonder what she did in that bathroom. I want to press my lips to hers. I want to feel her mouth crashing against mine.

“Eli, I don’t think we should—”

I brush my hands down her side, skimming her waist, beneath her shirt. “Tell me to stop.”

She doesn’t say anything.

She doesn’t move away, instead, she leans closer. It’s such a subtle movement, if we were further from one another, I wouldn’t have noticed it. But we’re not, and her lips brush mine.

“We shouldn’t—”

“Tell me to stop,” I tell her again. “Tell me to stop and I will. I’m not like him.”

“That night, you weren’t going to stop.” Her lips move against mine, and fuck, I want her.