Addicted (Ethan Frost #2)(11)

Tori thinks about that truth for a second, then sniffs haughtily, in a manner only she can carry off. “Yes, well, that was back when I thought he was going to treat you right. Now that he obviously isn’t, I don’t like him. And I never will.”

I don’t have the energy to argue with her, not when it’s taking every ounce of strength I have to just sit at this table and pretend like I’m not falling apart. It’s hard though, now that the shock and the anger have worn off. Now that all I’m left with is the grief.

Besides, she’s not wrong. Ethan didn’t treat me right. Not when he ignored me the last few days, not when he chose to freeze me out instead of breaking up with me properly, and not when he decided to make love to me last night when he knew about Brandon. Knew how I’d react.

“You are so totally quitting,” she announces again, like it’s a foregone conclusion.

“So that I can do what? Wait tables at some bar? That will look great on my law school applications.”

“So will losing your shit on some other non-combative piece of machinery and getting carted off to jail or some mental hospital somewhere.”

“The blender was a one-shot deal.”

“So you say. But do you really want to take the risk? Besides, what’s the alternative? Going back there and seeing him every day? I’m not claiming to be the most mentally healthy person around, but even I know that’s a bad idea. I saw you this whole weekend, saw how upset just being ignored by him made you. How are you going to handle that at work? Especially after whatever went down between the two of you last night?”

I know she’s right, know that seeing Ethan again will only make things worse. And not just between us. It’ll make things worse for me. I’ve worked so hard to get past the rape, to put it behind me and build a decent life for myself. But how can I keep the past where it belongs if I’m confronted with it every day?

Frost Industries is Ethan Frost and after this morning, I can’t imagine looking at him—looking into his blue eyes that are identical to Brandon’s—and thinking about anything but the rape. Anything but what happened in that deserted parking lot five years ago, and what came after.
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It’s not a good idea.

I’ve survived this long because I just don’t think about Brandon or my parents or what happened to me. At all. I put it out of my mind when I moved here and I refuse to be dragged into it. Refuse to be the girl I was when I moved here three years ago. The girl Brandon and his friends made me.

At the same time, I can’t imagine giving up my dream so easily. I mean, sure, getting into law school isn’t all about where you intern. A million other factors go into it, factors that I’m hoping to have locked up. But at the same time, the kind of law school I want to go to almost always requires connections to get in. I don’t have those connections, so I need to make sure my application is better than anyone else’s.

An internship with Frost Industries’ legal department does that for me. Or at least, it did. Now, I’m not so sure. About anything.

Tori seems to sense my indecision, so she spends the rest of dinner giving me the hard sell for quitting. I have to admit, what she says makes sense—if I don’t look too closely at my future. Once I do … all the arguments seem to fall away.

Well, all the ones that have nothing to do with my mental health, at least.

Hours later, I’m still thinking about it. To be honest, for the rest of the day and most of the night, I do nothing but think about it. God knows, just the idea of going into work tomorrow and having to see Ethan makes me physically ill. I can’t imagine how awful it will be to sit in a meeting with him about the Trifecta merger we’ve been working on. Or how much I’ll hate running into him in the halls or the cafeteria. Or, God forbid, what it will feel like if he seeks me out. Or worse, calls me into his office.

I won’t be able to handle it. I know I won’t be able to. Not when everything inside me is scraped raw and I can’t so much as breathe without bleeding.

But at the same time, I can’t just skulk away with my tail between my legs. This isn’t my fault. None of this—bar falling for my employer—is my fault, and I refuse to act like it is.

I ran away and hid once, because my parents forced me to and I swore then that I’d never do it again. While this situation is different than that one, it feels eerily similar. Considering how well it worked out the first time, I can’t believe I’m seriously considering running away—hiding—ever again.

No. I’ve worked too long and too hard to get where I am to just throw it all away because of a past that I buried a long time ago. A past I have no control over.

Which is why, after a sleepless night—when I finally watch the beginnings of dawn wind its tendrils of lavender and gold above the endless Pacific—I am shaky but resolved. I am going in to work today and I am going to do my job. If Ethan seeks me out or tries to talk to me, I’ll find a way to deal with him. And if he fires me … well, then, he fires me. But at least I won’t be the one giving up on all my hard work, giving up on the future, and the security, I want so badly I can taste it. Besides, it will just give me another reason to hate him …

“You know you don’t have to do this,” Tori tells me as I walk out of my bedroom dressed in my one and only designer suit. In the grand scheme of things, it isn’t much, but it’s the only armor I’ve got and at this point, I’ll take whatever I can get.