Ecstasy

“Who was she?”

He shrugs again. “Weren’t you listening? I said I’d never seen her before in my life. Some girl that went to Caven.” He laughs, but it’s bitter. “She doesn’t anymore though,” he adds quietly.

“Why?” I ask, my throat so dry, my question comes out rough.

“She transferred after that.”

“You really don’t know?” I ask him again, whispering in the car.

He’s quiet a long moment and then he just says, “No. Eli was there, too. You should know that. Eli was there.”

My skin crawls. “And he doesn’t know anything?”

Alex doesn’t answer me. At all. He just stares at the road, silent.

I don’t press, and I don’t know why. I think about Eli holding me under the water. About his fingers curling inside of me the night of the bad party. How he lied to Alex about me flashing him. But Eli isn’t bad, is he?

I don’t say anything, and we drive in silence for a long, long time, until Alex says, “I have to stop by my dad’s before we get to the beach house.”

I turn to glare at him, indicating I’m not fucking going inside his house, when he beats me to it. “You can wait in the car.”

I’m not sure if I should be offended by that or relieved since I definitely wasn’t going in anyway. Still, the way he says it, like he’s dismissing me, hiding me. Whatever. I’m not his anyway.