Addicted (Ethan Frost #2)(20)

“Oh, good. That’s just the look I was going for.” She flips me off before picking up a black and white hat and plopping it down on my head.

“How does it look?” I ask, resigned.

She just shakes her head and laughs. Of course. Tori has a gift for carrying off hats, no matter how beautiful or bizarre they are. She even looks good in the ridiculous cardboard hats you find at party stores. I once talked her into trying on a jester’s hat and I swear if she’d worn it out of the store, she would have started a new fashion trend.

I, on the other hand, am headwear challenged, to put it politely. I look absolutely ridiculous in everything from snapbacks to fedoras to the beautiful feathered and floral Easter hats that fill the stores up once a year. Which is why Tori insists on trying hats on everywhere we go. It’s a quest of hers. One of these days, she swears, we’re going to find a hat that looks good on me. I’m not nearly as optimistic, but with Tori, the path of least resistance is often the only one available.

Despite the laughter that signals this isn’t the hat that will change my life, I turn toward the nearest mirror. And then wish I hadn’t. The hat is elegant, gorgeous, really, and yet, somehow, I manage to make it look like a clown hat. And not even a very nice clown hat.

“Here, try this one instead,” she says, switching the black and white one out for a wide-brimmed red one.

I do and, of course, it looks even worse than the first one did. The fact that Tori is now wearing the first hat I tried on—and looking like she belongs on the cover of British Vogue while she’s at it—doesn’t make me bitter at all. The bitch.

We spend the next hour trying on one ridiculous hat after the other, all to no avail. Tori has a pile of about twenty that look great on her, while I decide a scarf just might be the way to go, after all. Tori only laughs at my pouting, then pulls me toward the makeup counters on the other side of the store.

“What you need is a new lipstick,” she tells me with all the authority of a woman who has spent her life believing in the veracity of retail therapy. “Something bright and fun and gorgeous.”

“I don’t need another lipstick,” I tell her. “I’ve got like ten.” Besides, I feel about as far from bright and fun and gorgeous as I can get.

Gasping, she puts a hand to her heart in her best Scarlett O’Hara impersonation. “Blasphemy,” she all but shouts. “No one ever has enough lipsticks. Besides, no one can be sad at the MAC counter. It’s against the rules.”

“What rules?”

“All the rules. Everywhere. I think it might even be an amendment to the Constitution,” she tells me with a totally straight face. Then she reaches over and pokes at the corners of my mouth. “Smile. It’s good for you.”

“I’m smiling. See?” I give her the best I’ve got.

She looks vaguely nauseated. “If, by smiling, you mean looking like you’re about to be eaten alive by the lions in ancient Rome, then yes, you’re smiling.”

“I’m fine,” I tell her for what has to be the millionth time. I keep hoping if I say it often enough, she’ll actually believe me. Then again, if I could put even a little conviction behind the words, we’d probably both be better off. “I’m really not sad. Just tired.”

Tori doesn’t bother to answer my blatant lie. Instead she says, “Come on, slowpoke,” as she wraps a hand around my wrist and pulls me along. “Maybe we’ll get you a whole makeover. My treat.”

“I don’t need a makeover,” I tell her even as I allow her to drag me up to the MAC counter.

She snorts. “Sweetie, you need something. Might as well be this.”

She’s right. I know she’s right. I’m an absolute, total mess and I don’t have a clue what to do about it.

It’s been two weeks since I last saw Ethan. Two weeks since my heart broke wide open for the second time. He hasn’t called, hasn’t texted, hasn’t emailed. He hasn’t even sent any of the care packages I’d gotten so used to in the time we were dating—little boxes filled with seashells and tea and other myriad things that made him think of me or that he thought I’d like.

No, there’s been no contact from Ethan whatsoever. I know it’s a good thing, know he’s only respecting my wishes. I’m not one of those women who says one thing and means another. I told Ethan I couldn’t be with him and I can’t.

But that doesn’t stop me from missing him, all day, every day.

It’s only the nights that I don’t want him around, when my dreams are filled with nightmares of Brandon and the rape and the terrible months and years that came after it. Even worse are the dreams where I think it’s Brandon holding me down in the front of his car, think it’s Brandon raping me, only to find myself staring into Ethan’s face when he finally lifts his head.

I know it’s not true, but each time I have that nightmare I end up a little farther away from Ethan and a little closer to crazy.

To combat it, I’ve pretty much given up sleeping. It’s been days since I’ve gotten more than an hour or two of rest. I’m exhausted and miserable and jumping at nonexistent threats around every corner. Every noise behind me is an attacker conjured up by my paranoid mind, every shadow is someone just waiting to hurt me.

Add to that the fact that Ethan’s absence is a gaping wound inside of me that hasn’t even begun to scab over, and no wonder Tori thinks I need therapy of some kind. I really am only one small step away from being a total basket case.