Addicted (Ethan Frost #2)(7)

I want to answer her. I do. If for no other reason than to get her to leave me to lick my wounds in peace. But I can’t. My mouth is dry, too dry to make any coherent noises, and my lips seem to have forgotten how to form words anyway.

I seem to have forgotten everything.

Everything but Ethan and Brandon and the emptiness that stretches between us.

Ethan. His name is a dull blade deep inside of me, a piece of jagged glass that cuts from every edge.

“At least tell me if you’re hurt,” Tori demands, her hands fisting at her sides.

I shake my head before laying my cheek against the cool tile. I’m curled up in a macabre imitation of child’s pose, my knees tucked beneath me, my hips resting on my heels, my face to the floor. Only, there is no peace in this pose for me. No serenity. Only hopelessness and rage and sickness. So much sickness that every breath I take brings a new wave of it.

Brandon. Ethan. Brandon. Ethan.

Their names echo with each beat of my heart.

“Damn it, Chloe! What is going on?” Tori’s face is next to mine now, her green eyes narrow with fear and fury. She looks like an avenging angel—all wrath and vengeance and bright pink hair. At another moment, I might appreciate her determined defense of me. But right now, it just makes me tired. “What did Ethan Frost do to you?” she demands.

Too much. He’s done too much and not enough. He’s ruined me all over again and this time, I can’t even say I didn’t see it coming. Because I did. Oh, God, I did. At the very beginning, when I was fighting this thing between us, I’d known how it would end. I didn’t imagine this—how could I have—but I’d known things wouldn’t end like a Disney fairy tale. Not when my life is so much more Hans Christian Andersen. But even knowing that, I’d let him in, preferring to believe his pretty words and my pathetic heart instead of the hard truths life has taught me again and again and again.

I’m paying for it now. Paying for my foolish optimism and even more foolish emotions. Part of me thinks it’s no more than I deserve. And the rest of me … the rest of me is too destroyed to care.

“I’m fine.” The words are low and gritty as I force them out of my too-tight throat.

Tori snorts. “Yeah. Because that’s totally what I think of when I look at you. Fine.”

She wraps one tattooed arm around my waist, and grabs on to my wrist with her other hand. Before I know it, she’s pulling me off the floor and into a warm, comforting hug.

Comfort isn’t her typical modus operandi—her shell’s a little too hard for that—so I figure I must look as bad as I feel. It’s a frightening thought, since currently death feels like it would be a step up.

Still, I squeeze my eyes shut and bury my face in the curve of her neck as the tears come, hot and inescapable.

“It’s okay, Chloe,” she murmurs softly as she rocks me for long minutes. “You’re okay.”

I’m not. Not even close. I don’t have the energy to tell her that right now, though, not when I know it will have to come with an explanation. An explanation I am in no way up to giving.

Tori’s my best friend and has been for the last three years—ever since we met in our freshman biology lab at UC San Diego. But even she doesn’t know about my past. No one here does—except for Ethan, and look what telling him has gotten me.

I take the comfort she offers for as long as I can get away with it, gathering myself a little more with every breath I draw. Finally, when I feel strong enough—when the tears have slowed to a trickle and my lungs no longer feel like they’re being ripped out through my rib cage—I pull away.

“Sorry,” I tell her, my hands flopping uselessly by my sides. “I—”

“Don’t apologize!” she answers firmly. “It’s not your fault Ethan Frost is a total dick. When you didn’t come home last night, I thought he must have come through, but obviously not.”

She crosses to the small, built-in bar in the corner of the room, pulls out a bottle of tequila and pours a couple of shots. “Here,” she says, holding one out to me. “It’ll be good for you.”

I stare at her incredulously. “It’s barely nine in the morning.”

“You’ve just had your heart ripped out of your chest. A little alcohol is called for, no matter what time it is.”

When I make no move to take the drink, she carries it over to me. All but forces it into my hand. “Come on,” she says. “It’ll make you feel better. Steadier.”

I’m pretty sure she’s wrong. After finding out that the man I love is brother to the man who raped and tormented me in high school, the same man whose parents paid mine off to make my accusations go away, I don’t think anything can make me steadier. But she doesn’t know any of that and I’m not up to telling it to her. Not right now.

Besides, the tequila can’t make things any worse, right? And the pain is still so acute that anything that will dull it for a little while is more than welcome.

Suddenly, drinking seems like salvation. I reach for the shot glass, and under Tori’s approving eyes, down it in one quick gulp.

“Good girl,” she says, holding out the second drink.

I down that one, too, and can’t help noticing the slow burn starting deep inside of me. For the first time since I opened the door to Brandon this morning, I feel something other than cold. It won’t last—of course it won’t—but for now I’ll take it. And if it helps me forget how messed up everything is for a little while, well then, I’ll take that, too.