Ecstasy

Zara

Things get less tense that night.

We play Uno. I win. Three times in a row. Alex gets pissed, but he laughs too, and it just—shit, I don’t know.

It feels good to see him laugh. To not be fighting with him.

And as it gets later and the exhaustion wears on me, I invite him into my room. My bed.

And he comes.

“Why did you start?” he asks me after he’s curled up around me, my back to his chest in the dark. There’s an empty glass of orange juice on my nightstand, and I’m still feeling edgy and tired all at once, but I’m sober.

And Alex is here.

For the first time since he’s been here, I’m kind of happy about it. My favorite times with him were when we weren’t fighting. When we could just be together without the drama and the bullshit. That’s what this feels like. Peaceful. I don’t think I realized how much I craved that until now.

But at his question, I just close my eyes, tucking my hands under my pillow. I know what he’s asking. “Because I was weird.” That is, truly, the simplest explanation. The more in-depth one? I don’t have the energy for that.

But his lips find my neck, just above the t-shirt of his that I’m wearing, and it sends chills down my spine, the good kind. And yeah, it makes my thighs clench together, and yeah, I want to turn around and kiss him, too, but more than that…more than that, that gentle touch makes me feel safe.

Just like he’s always made me feel. Safe. Loved.

“You’re not weird, princess,” Alex says against my skin.

There’s a pain in my chest, and I feel almost paralyzed. By guilt, maybe. Or grief for things that haven’t even happened yet. All of this all might end. Because I’m not coming out of this clean.

“I am,” I tell him, even though I know this kind of argument never works out well, so I quickly add, “It doesn’t matter, anyway. Why I started.”

His arms are locked around my torso and he squeezes me tightly. It feels so damn good, and I don’t deserve it.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” he tells me, his breath on my skin. “But if you want to, I’m here.”

God, I don’t deserve you.

“It’s just…” I trail off, trying to think about the reason for the first time. I mean, it’s simple enough, really, but it’s also so complicated. I snorted a hydrocodone through a dollar bill one night at my best friend’s house, when I was fifteen. I’d only ever drank before that moment. I’d never even smoked pot.

My friend was older than me. Seventeen, but she was nice, and her mom was always gone, and boys loved her, and I wanted that.

So, when we had a sleepover, and she invited some guys over and they were all snorting shit and smoking pot and drinking, I did too.

Everything just kind of spiraled after that. My home life wasn’t bad. Mom was a huge flirt and not very faithful, and I didn’t talk to my dad, but I was taken care of. No one beat me. No one molested me. No one raped me. Even the older guys my friend had over, they were nice and respectful for the most part. I slept with one, eventually, when I was high, and it was good, and he treated me well.

“It’s just I’ve always thought something was wrong with my brain. I was always awkward and shy, and people always said how quiet I was. Pretty, but quiet. I heard that so many times and it was a

I know that probably doesn’t make sense. I know Alex was probably waiting for some huge traumatic moment, but it wasn’t like that.

“I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin. I tried downers first.” The hydrocodone became a little bit of a habit. “But then I discovered uppers.” Adderall, specifically, which didn’t seem so bad because it was legal, even if it wasn’t legal for me. “And I was an entirely new person. I was shiny and loud and giddy and happy, and I wasn’t anxious, and I could party and socialize like a normal fucking person, and boys liked me better for it.”

And I wanted boys to like me. I wanted them to like me for the attention, because while Mom wasn’t neglectful, she was gone a lot and my dad…well, he ended up leaving. Obviously, I have daddy issues, but I didn’t recognize that then, and even if I had, I was a teenage girl. I was left alone a lot and I wanted attention. My stepfathers were decent human beings, but they were enamored with my mother and not so into the idea of being fathers at all.

“I went to the doctor, trying to get my own prescription for Adderall, but I didn’t prepare for that visit well enough because they didn’t diagnose me with ADHD. They diagnosed me with anxiety.” I laugh a little, and Alex squeezes me tighter. I open my eyes, staring into the darkness of my room. “They prescribed me Xanax, which I found to be a great comedown for the Addie.”

“Anyway, it all kind of got fucked up in spring.” My throat tightens as I realize I never really talked about this with him. I made a joke about rehab, and that was all I ever said about it. I clear my throat, swallow down my nerves. “I overdosed at a party on fucking Vicodin. I wanted something different and the end of the semester, working toward my stupid philosophy degree had become stressful because I wasn’t going to class and shit.”

Alex kisses my neck again and I keep talking. “I probably didn’t need the Narcan but one of my friends called 911 anyway, and they administered it and my friend called my mom and…well, here I am.”

Alex’s lips are warm and soft against my skin and I let my eyes flutter closed, falling into his warmth. Into his goodness.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he finally says. “It sucks it happened that way, but I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too.” The words come out without thought. I don’t think about them at all. They’re just true.

“You mean that?” Alex asks, hope in his words.

“Yeah. I mean it.”

“What comes after this?” he asks next, and there’s hope there, too, but something else in the way his words are so quiet. Lower than a whisper. Almost as if he’s asking himself and not me, which might be the smarter thing to do because fuck if I know what comes next.

I turn in his arms so I’m facing him. From the moon shining through my curtains, I can make out his dark eyes, his beautiful mouth. The worry on his brow.

I trail one hand over his bicep, and his hand finds my waist, clamping down on it as if he can keep me forever. As if this week isn’t just a fantasy. As if it’s something real.

Is it real?

I don’t know.

I don’t have any idea what this shit is between us anymore.

“What do you think?” I ask him instead of saying any of those things.

He slides his hand under my shirt and it’s so warm against my skin. I keep trailing my finger up the veins of his arm, the hard muscle beneath his soft skin.

“I think I want to keep you,” he says with a faint trace of a smile. “I think I want to keep you and I think I don’t ever want to let you go, Zara Rose.”

There are so many things I could say. What about this? What about that? What about everything?

But I don’t say any of them, because then he’d ask me questions, too, and I don’t want to think about the answers. For one of the first times in my life, I just want this moment.

He moves his hand from under my shirt and cups my cheek instead. His hands are so big, it nearly covers my entire face which makes me smile. He brushes his thumb over my bottom lip.

“What do you think about that?” he asks me, and I stop skimming his arm with my fingers and instead rest my hand on his back, scooting closer to him in my bed.