The Temptation of Lila and Ethan

to keep some space between us. “You can’t remember anything at all?”

I shake my head, still looking down, feeling mortified for reasons I can’t explain. Then I notice the hospital band on my wrist. “No… I can remember wandering around the apartment complex… Then this guy took me somewhere…” I pause, daring to peer up. “And then all I can remember are stars and the smell of cleaner.”

He’s wearing a black-and-red T-shirt, his hair is damp, like he just got out of the shower, and there are holes in his jeans. “You pretty much overdosed,” he says, cautiously watching me.

He thrums his fingers on his knees, considering something. “You know, I’ve never been one for pressing people about their problems.” He slides his knee on the bed, turning sideways so he’s facing me. “I’ve never been a big fan of talking about my own shit and so I usually avoid trying to make people talk about theirs unless they’re being stupid and right now every single part of me is screaming at me to make you tell me what happened.” He pauses and I start to speak, but he talks over me. “And don’t try to tell me that you’re taking that prescription because of a doctor’s orders. You told me last night on the way to the hospital that you’ve pretty much been abusing them since you were fourteen, something I probably should have just told the doctors, but I didn’t want to get you into trouble.” He stops and waits for something. A thanks? An explanation? The truth? I honestly don’t know and I don’t want to tell him anything either.

“I don’t know what to say.” I shut my eyes and summon a deep breath, chanting in my head not to cry. But I feel disembodied from my emotions and my stomach feels like I’ve done an infinite amount of sit-ups. All I want to do is lie down, sleep, and forget that all of this happened.

“How about the truth?” Ethan states cautiously, sounding less angry, and I feel him shift closer to me on the bed. “You know I get the whole substance-abuse thing.”

My eyelids snap open at his awful accusation. “I don’t have a substance-abuse problem,” I say, seething and tossing the blankets off me. “It’s a prescription. Doctor’s orders.” I swing my legs over the bed and push to my feet. A rush of blood flees from my head and my knees instantly buckle. I reach for the metal bedpost as I collapse, but Ethan jumps up and catches me in his arms right before I hit the floor.

I blow out a breath, looking at the wall beside me as he holds my weight up. I feel like an idiot. “Let me go. I can walk.”

“You’re supposed to be resting.” He helps me back to the bed and I begrudgingly sit down. “Doctor’s orders.”

I press my lips together, shaking my head. “Ethan, please just don’t. I don’t need this from you right now.”

“Please don’t what? Talk about what I saw last night? Because I’m not going to do that. It fucking scared the shit out of me, Lila… seeing you trashed out of your mind like that.” His eyes are wide and filled with panic as he sits down on the bed again, leaving a little less space between us as he roughly rakes his fingers through his hair. He looks stressed out and exhausted. “And as much as I hate to push you to talk about it, I feel like I have to. I can’t… I don’t want anything…” He’s fumbling over his words and it seems to be frustrating him. He’s acting very out of character and I wonder if something else is wrong.

“You don’t have to do anything,” I mutter, frowning down at my lap. “I’m not your girlfriend or anything—you don’t owe me anything. You should have just told the hospital I tried to kill myself. Then they could be dealing with me and you wouldn’t have to.”

He pauses, contemplating what I said. “You’re my friend and that’s equally as important, if not more important… You’re important…” His forehead creases as he says it, like he’s confused himself as much as he’s confused me. He starts to reach for me, as if he’s going to put his hand on my cheek, but then pulls his hand back.

I cover my mouth and shake my head as tears start to form in the corners of my eyes. “I can’t.”

He raises his eyebrows inquiringly. “Can’t what?”

“I’m not supposed to talk about stuff like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like this.” I wave my hand down in front of my terrible state. “All messed up and not put together.”

His head cocks to the side as he crooks his eyebrow. “Lila, I’ve told you some of my fucked-up stories about drugs and sex and you’ve seen where I live—you know what kind of a home I was raised in and what my parents did to each other. Messed up is nothing new to me.”

“That doesn’t matter,” I say exasperatedly as I gather my hair around the nape of my neck. “I’m not supposed to be this way, or at least no one’s supposed to know that I’m like this.”

“You keep saying like this but I’m still trying to figure out like what?” His eyes scroll over my body carefully, as if he’s searching for visible wounds. And there are a few, on my ankles and waist and even a very faint one on my wrist, but most people never notice them. “As far as I can tell, the only thing you’re acting like is someone who needs to talk about their problems.” He’s being nice and it’s only making me feel worse.

“It’d be easier if you just yelled at me,” I say, releasing my hair and spanning my arms out to the side. “Or left me alone. That’s what you usually do.”

“Easy is overrated,” he replies. “And I can’t leave you alone this time. Not about this. I’ll hate myself if I do.”

“Ethan, please just take me home,” I plead, wrapping my arms around myself. “I just need to go home.”

“No,” he responds stubbornly. “I’m not going to just let you run home and pop a pill. You need help.”

My body and mind are yearning for a pill and only one thing is going to make it better. I keep running my fingers through my hair, trying to subdue the anxiety overcoming me. When I raise my head back up, I force a neutral expression on my face. “Look, Ethan, I appreciate your help and everything last night, but seriously I’m okay. I just need to go home and get something to eat and shower and I’ll be better.”

“Pftt, don’t try to bullshit me,” he says callously, folding his arms and leaning against the footboard. “You can’t bullshit a bullshitter.”

“You’re not a bullshitter,” I argue, slamming my hands down on the mattress, wanting to scream at him. “At all.”

“I was once,” he reminds me. “Over stuff just like this. It’s what people with addictions do. You’ll do whatever you can—say whatever it takes—to get to the next high.”

My mouth plummets to a frown and I clasp my hands out in front of me, desperation coursing through my body more toxically than the pills do. “Ethan, please, pretty please just take me home and forget about this.” My voice is high and pleading. “Then you don’t have to deal with it.”

He considers what I said, then gets to his feet, and I think I’ve won. “No, I’m not going to just forget.” He backs for the door and grabs the doorknob as he steps out of the room. “You know where the shower is when you’re ready to take one.”

“I don’t have any clothes!” I shout and then throw a pillow at him, feeling the angry monster inside of me surfacing. I’m plummeting into a dark hole filled with every negative thing that makes up my life and I don’t have any pills on me to bring me back up to the light. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because I care about you,” he says matter-of-factly and then he shuts the door.

No one’s ever said they care about me, not even my sister, Abby, and his words should make me feel better. But they don’t. If anything, the craving and hunger for another pill amplifies, ripping through my body, leaving abrasions that only a dose will heal. Because I don’t deserve for him to care about me. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done to myself. Everything—where I am and who I am—is all my fault.

I sit on the bed for a while, stewing in my own anger as I stare out the window, rocking my body, trying to still the nervous energy inside me. It’s a sunny day, the sky blue and clear and breathtaking. I should be out suntanning by the pool, but no, I’m stuck in here, feeling like I’m going to rip my hair out. And the longer I sit, the more desperate I become until finally I get up from the bed. Fighting the pain in my stomach, legs, and head, I search his room for my clothes. I find them draped over the stool in back of the drum set.

“Jackpot,” I say and wind around the drums, picking up my white dress, and then I frown. It’s caked in mud and some sort of gross green stuff and it smells like puke. I tap my fingers on the sides of my legs, trying to figure out what to do. Half my instincts are screeching at me not to put the filthy dress on and go out into public looking so disheveled, but the other half of my instincts, the ones connected to the pills, are conflicting with how I was brought up.