Page 54 of Ecstasy
But…What if she doesn’t want me? What if she pushes me away? What if she’s like you? What if she leavesmefor something new? Something…shinier?
“I know you’ve made some mistakes, Alex, and I know you’ve got to sit the next three games out, son, but don’t you dare let those things make you bitter. Don’t you dare allow the world’s hurt to make you into someone that hurts other people.”
I think about that bottle of tequila. Forcing it down Zara’s throat. I think about the videos going around about her. I think about pulling her into the pool. I was drunk, and stupid, and angry, but I had no right. I had no fucking right.
I think about last fall. Another party. Another girl. Another mistake.
The police. The accusations.
The girl left Caven. She left. Why didn’t Eli and I have to leave?
Because Eli’s dad is a lawyer. Because my family has money. Because that girl was no one.
That girl was just like Zara.
“Okay, Mom. I won’t. I’m so sorry, Mom, I—”
“It’s not your fault. It’s your father’s.”
Are you going to leave him?“I’m sorry, Mom.”
She sighs on the other line, and I can imagine her glancing at the orange tinted prescription bottle. I can imagine her fighting it. I can imagine when it all started. When the rumors of Dad cheating on her were in full force and I didn’t believe it. I didn’t fucking believe it, because Dad is a pastor and he wouldn’t.
And then I went into the pool shed while Mom was away with some friends. I’d come home early from school, wanting to spend the weekend with my dad before he was engulfed with church on Sunday. I’d come home one hour early on a Friday, and he was fucking some girl in that shed.
“I’ve got to go,” she tells me abruptly. I don’t know where Dad is, or what she’s doing, what room she’s in. I know why she hasn’t left though. She gave up everything for him. Her career, her home state, her family. Her life. She moved and gave up everything and now they have money and they have prestige and where would she go?And if she leaves, a divorced man can’t lead the church.
More than that, she doesn’t want to adjust her lifestyle. Even if it’s just getting manicures and popping pills and being talked about around town. It’s her life now.
“I’ve got to go, but I’ll talk to you soon, okay? Come see us when you can.” I can hear that faint hint of excitement in her words that don’t mesh with what she’s saying. And I know she’s given in again. I know as soon as she ends this call, she’ll be tossing back a handful of pills.
I know it, but there’s nothing I can do.
Dad can’t lead a megachurch if his wife is in rehab either, so they give each other their vices and no one says shit about it, until it comes to a head and they fight. They fight and they scream and in the end, they stay together because no one else would want them.
I look up at Zara’s window again.
“Okay, Mom.”
“I love you, Alex.”
I swallow down the lump in my throat. “I love you too, Mom.”
* * *
Sunday night,after spending most of Saturday in bed, I’m outside on the back deck when Eli walks outside with a beer in his hand.
He slides the door closed behind him, sits down on the couch across from me. The sun is set, the tiki torches lit, the underwater lights glowing in the calm surface of the pool.
I turn to glance at him. He’s watching the water, a Caven U wrestling hoodie on over his gym shorts. The circles under his eyes are pretty bad, and I wonder if he’s actually more freaked out about Rihanna’s death than he’s let on.
Either that, or something else must really be eating at him.
“You see her parents today?” I ask him, breaking the silence.
He’d told me he was stopping by Rihanna’s parents’ house to offer more condolences, see if they needed anything. I’m sure he didn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart, but then again, maybe it’s finally sinking in that yesterday, he helped bury a girl who sucked his dick. They never dated, but they fucked around on and off the past few months. I’m not sure if they were actually friends or anything, but I guess you get used to someone’s lips being around your cock.
He doesn’t look at me. He’s got his elbows on his knees, and he takes a drink from his beer and then shrugs. “Yeah.” He doesn’t offer anything else.
