Ecstasy

Zara

“I spoke to his father. He said he…he said Eli always had problems. Since his mom…you know, tried to hurt him.” Alex swallows, laces his fingers through mine. “He was seeing a psychiatrist, but I guess he just stopped going.”

I close my eyes, feeling the tears pricking behind them. I hear Eli’s voice in my head: Your scars are beautiful, baby girl.

But other words spring to mind, too. Words that cut soul-deep. His confession. A girl’s life stolen too soon.

“Zara.”

I look up into Alex’s dark eyes, those faint glimmers of amber that mesmerized me before I even liked him at all.

Fu

The people with the biggest hearts always have the thickest armor.

His head is leaned against the black seat of his Jeep, and I see his throat move as he swallows. “Zara. I’m sorry I let him get to you. I’m sorry I left. But we’re free now, you know? We’re free and I want to put this behind us. I want to make you the happiest fucking girl in the world—”

“That’s not your job.”

“Let it be my job.”

“Alex.” I swallow down the lump in my throat. It’s been three days. It’s been three days, and I can’t believe it. I can’t fucking believe it. Three days, and none of us were charged. We told them what happened. About the needle and the heroin and the pool and the…

We told them about Riha

About Eli’s confession, that he pushed her in. Eli’s father didn’t bother trying to push a case against us because Eli is a fucking psychopath and turns out, more people knew it than we thought. Turns out too, that Cari, the girl he assaulted, remembers much more than she originally let on, not wanting to turn everything into a scene. I kind of hated her, imagining her let Alex take the fall for something she knew wasn’t his fault.

But she was terrified of Eli.

And I can understand that now.

“Yeah, baby?” Alex asks me.

“What’re you doing today?”

He smiles, but it’s sad.

He came over to the apartment, and I agreed to talk in his Jeep, not wanting to be in that place for another minute. Kylie came home Sunday, the day after Eli died. I’ve cried in her arms, but we haven’t spoken about it. And Mom… Mom is overbearing. I needed space from her. I need space from everyone.

Except Alex. Because he was there. He knows. He did it. He saved us both.

“Whatever you want,” Alex answers me.

I turn to stare out my window. “Let’s go to the beach?”

He squeezes my hand. “One condition.”

I let my eyes flutter closed, basking in the feel of his calloused fingers looped through mine. “Anything.”

He laughs. God, I love that laugh. Full of so much fucking life.

“In that case, maybe more than one condition.”

I turn my head and open my eyes, taking in his sharp jawline. Those beautiful lips. The line down the center of his bottom one.

So fucking attractive. Full of love. Like his soul.

I arch a brow. “Don’t test your luck, handsome.”

He smiles, his dimples flashing as he scrubs a hand over his tan face. “Shit,” he says softly.

“Hmm?”

“I love it when you call me that.” He laughs again. “Handsome.”

“Don’t dodge the question.”

He runs his thumb over the back of my hand. “Spend the weekend with me there.”

My eyes widen. “At your parent—”

“Hotel.”

I hold his gaze. Tell him what I’ve been thinking for nearly two weeks now. “I’m not very fun without the drugs, Alex.” It’s hard to get those words out. To get my mouth to acknowledge my heart’s fear. To confess to him what I’ve thought for some time. Why I almost chose Eli over him, even in the end.

Because Eli would’ve never expected me to get clean. Eli would’ve let me kill myself. It wasn’t his job to fix me, of course. But he would’ve left me when he graduated. He would’ve left me when my addiction spiraled out of control. And with that heroin, it would’ve been quick.

I can still feel it.

Alex presses his lips together, a crease between his brow. For a moment, we just stare at one another but then he finally says, “I much prefer you without them, Zara.”

I blow out a breath, trying to loosen that knot in my throat. “Makes one of us.”

I can still feel it, if I close my eyes and think back to that night. I can feel the ecstasy. The dream. The way the world hugged me tight like a warm blanket. And Eli was there in my perfect bubble, watching over me.

It made me so happy, so warm, I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything but that moment.

It lasted for hours.

It didn’t last nearly long enough.

“Zara.” Alex’s tone is serious, his fingers flexing around mine. I turn to stare at him, still holding back the tears. I don’t want to cry anymore.

“Let’s go to the beach, yeah?” he asks me, ru

I rub my thumb against my sternum, the pain in my chest nearly unbearable. And I don’t know what it’s for. I don’t know what it’s for and I don’t know if I want to know. I don’t know if I’ll ever know.

Eli is being buried this weekend.

I want to tell Alex that. I want to tell Alex we should go to the funeral, but then I think back to Riha

Eli Addison, the fucking murderer.

I don’t think he was born insane. Maybe his mother broke something in him. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe it was the brother he’s never met. The pictures she sent that felt to him like she was poking at him. Telling him how he would never be Adonis. His middle name. His father told us that.

He never told anyone. Not even Alex.

Was she crazy, too? Did she know how much she hurt him? Did she only want to reach out?

I don’t know.

I’ll never know.

“Do you regret it?” I ask Alex, unable to hold it in. We haven’t discussed what he did. He held me that night in his arms, in my bed. And we didn’t talk about it.

He looks out the driver’s side window, and I see him swallow. “He was my friend, but I never really knew him.” He laughs without humor. “He was my friend, and my roommate, going on four years. But I never fucking knew him.”

I close my eyes, resting the side of my head against the seat, still facing Alex. “I don’t think he knew himself.”

Silence echoes in the confines of the Jeep.

It’s so heavy.

It’s so fucking heavy, but Alex doesn’t let go of my hand.

“I don’t know if things could’ve been different. If he had gotten help. And I’m not a murderer, Zara.” He turns to look at me and I pry my eyes open even though they’re so fucking heavy, too.

Everything is just too much.

“I’m not a murderer,” he says again, his voice cracking. “I’m not,” he pleads with me, even though I didn’t say anything. His dark eyes are shining with unshed tears. His voice breaks: “I’m not, but I couldn’t let him do that to you. I couldn’t risk him doing that to you again because I love you, Zara. I love you, princess.”

He chokes on those last words and I climb across the console, sitting in his lap, my legs stretched out over the passenger seat. I let him bury his head in my neck. I wrap my arms around his shoulders, feel him sob against me.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, his fingers digging into every inch of my body he can find as he sobs harder. “I’m so sorry, but I couldn’t let him… I couldn’t let him hurt you.”