Ecstasy

Either that, or something else must really be eating at him.

“You see her parents today?” I ask him, breaking the silence.

He’d told me he was stopping by Riha

He doesn’t look at me. He’s got his elbows on his knees, and he takes a drink from his beer and then shrugs. “Yeah.” He doesn’t offer anything else.

I nod, looking back at the water. I’ve got one arm around the back of the couch, my feet flat on the deck. I don’t look at him when I ask, “Anything you wa

Silence rings out, and I wonder if he’s going to answer me. I don’t usually ask questions like that, but he’s just seemed even more quiet than usual. I wonder if he’s shook about the whole Zara thing.

I know it wasn’t his fault. She’s just…like that.

“Not really,” he finally answers me. “You?”

I curl my fingers around the fabric of the couch, squeezing. There’s a lot I want to talk about. I want to talk about my mom. I want to talk about Zara. I want to talk about what happened last weekend, at the party. Both with Riha

Instead I just say, “Nah. I’ve got an exam tomorrow I should probably study for.” But I don’t get up.

“What class?” he asks, but his voice is just so detached. I know he doesn’t really care. I don’t know if Eli cares about anything.

I glance at him, see his side profile as he stares at the pool. See the clock and skull on his hand, the roses and filigree that trail up his arm, underneath his wrestling hoodie. I think about the controlled way he wrestles, no emotion or outbursts or slipups. When he circles his opponent, he waits until the right time to make a move, and when he strikes, it’s always for a takedown. Our schedules conflict sometimes, with wrestling and football, but I’ve seen a couple of his matches, and I’ve seen videos of the others.

He’s good.

He wrestles like he lives, quietly, with control. I wonder what it would be like for that control to slip.

It almost did last fall.

And then last weekend, I stopped him.

“Just a sociology course, it’ll be easy enough.”

He turns to look at me and arches a brow. “Sociology, huh?”

I nod, flex my fingers and rest them on my thigh.

“You applied to law schools yet?” he asks me.

I bite the inside of my cheek, turn to stare at the pool. “No.”

“Deadline is probably soon for some of them?”

I nod once, scrub a hand over my jaw. “Yep.”

“Having second thoughts?” he presses with a hint of amusement.

I still don’t look at him when I shrug, bouncing my fist on my thigh. “I don’t know. Not really, because what else would I do?” I’m good at sports, but I’m not professional football-level good. I can admit that. Besides that, I don’t really want to play for a league. I’ve thought about opening up a gym, but that seems like a waste of a business, pre-law major. And if I go to law school, my parents will be proud, Dad won’t ride my ass about going into fucking ministry, and hell, maybe I can do some good in the world.

Probably not. But maybe.

I see Eli shake his head out of the corner of my eye. Tip his beer up, then bring it back down, resting it on his knee. “There’s a lot you can do.”

“Why are you even here, anyway?” I ask him, suddenly angry as I turn to glare at him. His father owns the biggest law firm in the state. He’s got family money. What the fuck he’s doing at Caven when he doesn’t want to do shit but work on cars is beyond me. During the summer, he helps his uncle out at his auto body shop, and the only thing I’ve ever seen him act the slightest bit excited about is when he swaps out his car for a new one, which happens like every six months. “Why not just start working?”

He doesn’t look at all affronted by my questions. He cocks his head, as if he’s thinking. “Why not be here?” he finally counters.

I roll my eyes, but I grudgingly see his point, I guess. He likes to wrestle; he did it in high school. He got a free ride here, so it’s not touching any of his family money. The first night we spent in a dorm together, after we were assigned to be roommates, we got high and he told me he wanted the whole college experience so that when he got older, he wouldn’t feel like he missed out on anything.

He wanted to be as bad as he could be, he told me. He wanted to fuck everything up. And when he graduated, he’d put everything back together again.

He also told me, that same night, that his mom was a bitch and he never wanted to have kids. If you didn’t have any, he said, you couldn’t hurt them.

I figured out his mother left him and his father when he was younger. We’ve never discussed it since.

Catching me off guard, he asks, “What’s up with you and Zara?”

My limbs feel heavy with his words because I don’t know the answer to his question. And I wish I did. I know I should let her go. I know she fucked me over. I know she cheated on me, and humiliated me, and I know I should hate her for it.

But I don’t.

I just don’t.

Just like as much as I want my mother to be free of my dad, I also know it’s probably best if she doesn’t leave. Because if she does, who will be there for her? Who will make sure she doesn’t OD? Who will take care of her?

I can’t stop picturing Zara’s blue-green eyes. Her arms around me when I picked her up at Jax’s. You are so beautiful. How her hair feels in my hands. That coffee-and-flower scent that she wafts around her wherever she goes. How my sheets still smell like her, and I kind of hope they never stop.

I know she hurt me.

I know I need to cut her off.

I can’t.

“I don’t know,” I finally answer Eli, looking down at my hands. “Honestly, I just don’t know.”

He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, “You need to stay away from her, man.”

I tense, clenching my fists, but I don’t look up. I know he’s just being my friend. He’s just saying what’s best for me.

“Girls fucking line up to suck your dick. Forget Zara.”

I can’t help but laugh, even though I’m definitely not in a playful mood. “I don’t know, after Riha

I look up and meet his dark gaze. He furrows his brow. “You think she had something to do with Riha

I shake my head, stare up at the stars above us. “Nah, I’m just fucking around. Guess it’s not fu

He laughs. “Not yet. Maybe a few more days.” Then he asks, “I’m not trying to start anything, but why are you still fucking with her? After what she did?” And it’s amazing, because he really doesn’t sound like he’s trying to start anything. He’s just asking. Clinically. Curiously. He wants to know.

I keep looking up at the stars. “You really wa

“That’s why I’m asking.”

“She’s addicting,” I tell him. I dip my head down and he turns to look at me, his dark green eyes locked on mine. “All of her fuck ups, and even the way she gets a little out of control, she’s just addicting.”

“Do you love her?” It’s a fast question, straightforward. It surprises me, coming from Eli. He doesn’t really talk about girls, and we definitely don’t talk about love.