ECSTASY Read online

  Yeah, well, Eli almost fucked my girl last night. And last year, we almost did the same shit with a different girl. I’m pretty sure Eli isn’t as good as everyone thinks he is.

  But I wouldn’t actually know.

  He’s been my roommate for the past three years but some days, I don’t think I really know the guy at all.

  “My name is cleared, too,” I tell my dad. “You know how Rihanna is.” I swallow hard, sitting up straighter in my seat as I stare at the grey police building in front of me. “Was,” I amend, my voice low.

  My dad is quiet on the line and for a second I wonder if we got disconnected. I pull my phone away from my ear, glance at the screen. Nope. He’s still there.

  “Dad?” I hate the way it comes out. Like I want him to be here or some shit. I don’t want that. I haven’t wanted my dad to be there for me since I was fifteen and everything went to shit.

  Before that, I dealt with the fighting. My mother flinging accusations his way of cheating and being an asshole. Calling him a hypocrite, a liar.

  He might’ve worked for “the Lord”, but he was God to me. Throwing the football with me every single day at the beach. Taking me to practice, signing me up for camps. Watching the game with me every Sunday during the season.

  I took his side every time she started screaming at him.

  But then he fucked everything up.

  “Yeah, son?” he asks in answer to my plea, his voice heavy. Full of exhaustion. As if he feels the past six years weighing on his shoulders, too.

  I close my eyes, swallowing hard.

  Rihanna is dead.

  I say it out loud for the first time. “Rihanna is dead.”

  He sighs. “I know. I’ll need to reach out to her parents later today, after they’ve had time to…” He just trails off. Time to what? Process it? That their twenty-year-old daughter was found dead in a pool after a back-to-school party, right after she started her senior year?

  Yeah. Being a pastor sounds like it would blow. Dad’s church is on the coast, a two-hour drive from here, but he knows Rihanna’s family because I’m on the team and Rihanna was the cheerleading captain.

  I mean, I’m just barely on the team, since I’ve got to sit the next few games out for breaking Nate’s nose—he deserved it.

  I blow out a breath, thinking of Rihanna.

  I didn’t know her well. Like most everyone else, she preferred Eli to me. Girls always thinking they can get him to open up, or some shit.

  Eli doesn’t even play fucking football.

  “Is Eli okay?” my dad asks me.

  I don’t fucking know. Eli doesn’t talk about shit like his feelings. Before the cops had me follow them down here, he was sitting in the wreck of a living room, silent, drinking a glass of my orange juice, as if girls who sucked his dick were found dead in a pool every morning.

  My stomach flips, a lump forming in my throat.

  “Son…” My dad’s voice sounds strained. “Was Zara there?”

  I tense in my seat. Dad doesn’t like Zara. He thinks she’s a bad influence. He’s not wrong, but it’s not really his fucking business. I don’t know why it matters, anyway, except… I do know.

  The thing about having a dad overly involved in your sport is that he hears shit he shouldn’t. Things that would be better off kept from your parents.

  And he knows I caught Zara sucking Jamal’s dick last week.

  I clear my throat. “Yeah, but we weren’t… Not for me,” I lie to him, not wanting to deal with this shit. I don’t know what’s going on with me and Zara anyway. “I don’t want to talk about her.” I start the Jeep, put my seatbelt on with one hand. “How’s Mom?” I ask, changing the subject to one my dad doesn’t want to talk about.

  There’s a pause and I realize I’m holding my breath, waiting.

  Finally, he just says, “She’s fine.” Which means she’s probably not fine at all. Probably pissed as hell at me, or in a fucking Xanax-induced sleep, which is why she isn’t on the call. I can’t even blame her.

  I think my dad and I have just been one big ass disappointment after another to her.

  “Great, well, I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Wish you were going to be at service this morning,” my dad says quietly.

  Anger blooms in my chest, and I clench my jaw for a second. “Right. Well. I’ll be down fall weekend for the beach party, if we still decide to throw it. I’ll stop by then.” I press my foot on the brake and put the car in reverse to pull out of my parking spot. “Talk to you later, Dad.”

  “Love you, Alex.”

  I end the call, toss the phone in the passenger seat and pull out of my spot, turning up the music playing through my speakers.

  FEEL NOTHING by The Plot In You.

  Rihanna probably fell in that pool all on her own. She probably didn’t need any help drowning herself, as drunk as she was. Her friends saw her downing shots back-to-back after she saw Eli and me with Zara. She’s always been a little fucking dramatic. She should’ve known Eli doesn’t date. He was into her pussy. Not her.

  But the last person to see her alive was me, and Eli himself.

  Zara, though.

  She didn’t see shit.

  4

  Zara

  When the alarm on my phone goes off, my first instinct is to throw it across the fucking room.

  So, I do.

  Unfortunately, it keeps going off, some techno beat that usually gets me pepped up, but this morning just makes me want to scream.

  I groan, flinging my covers off and stumbling over to the wall I threw the phone against, picking it up and silencing it as I rub my eyes with my fist. I’ve got one hour until class starts and the last thing I want to do is set foot out of this room.

  The past three days have gone by in a haze of cops, questions, accusations, and fending off frantic messages from my mother. Not to mention the other texts from concerned citizens sending me links to the short video clip that’s spread around campus like wildfire. The one of my fucking ex flashing my tits in his house.

  In light of a dead girl at the bottom of his pool, it would seem my tits would be the least of anyone’s concern. However, I’ve seen them on my phone screen more times than I’d like to count in the past three days, so apparently, people are as equally fascinated with nudity as they are death.

  There’s a knock on my bedroom door and I tense, opening my mouth to tell Kylie that I’m fine, but the door bursts open anyway because I didn’t have the sense to lock it after I got back from my dealer, Jax’s, house last night.

  Kylie stares at me, looking a little dumbfounded, one hand still on the knob.

  I arch a brow. “Yes?”

  She opens her mouth. Closes it. Clears her throat and looks at the floor. She’s in loose linen pants and a white T-shirt. Her pajamas. Her silky black hair is in a topknot, and she tucks a stray lock of it behind her ear before she looks up and meets my gaze again. Kylie Jones is like five feet tall and about as wide as my pinky finger.

  She’s as quiet as she looks like she’d be, which is why I’m surprised she’s at my door right now. I know her even less than I know Rihanna Martinson, the dead cheerleader, as she’s come to be known by now, despite the fact we’ve lived together since spring, when Mom agreed to let me get an apartment at Caven after the ECU-Narcan-rehab incident.

  Kylie and I interact daily, but we don’t connect.

  Which is entirely my fault. I’m usually too high to do things like connect.

  “I didn’t think you’d be up,” Kylie admits.

  I would take it personally, but since I’ve been doped up on benzos for approximately seventy-two hours, she’s got a point. I figured skipping two days of classes was okay, since I was the one that found Rihanna’s body in the pool.

  My stomach churns. I don’t want to think about it.

  “Surprise.” I throw up my hands, phone in one. I’ve got more messages from numbers I don’t know, which is not very surprising at this point.
It seems my phone number spread around campus as fast as my tit video. I deleted all of my social media accounts and the apps on my phone, but people are still really into those tits.

  I know it’ll die down. At least, that’s what I tell myself. Nudes get leaked every other week in college. It’s not a big deal. But then again, I found the fucking body, and Alex Cardi was the one that flashed my boobs. Also, I’m still considered a source of fascination around Caven because I was dating their quarterback. And probably also because I was transferred straight from rehab, and people love a good overdose/rehab story.

  I finished half a semester in the spring, and fall classes have been in session for three weeks now, but it seems still the only thing people really know about me is my love of drugs and Alex.

  I’m not so sure about the last one anymore though.

  Now I’m at the center of the death of the cheerleading captain.

  Super.

  But at least I’m not the only one. There were dozens of people at that party, and as fascinated as people might be with me, Alex and Eli are much more interesting. People know them. Respect them. Wanna fuck them.

  The gossip around them should eclipse me.

  Plus, a girl died for fuck’s sake. They should hold pep rallies and memorial services for her and leave me the fuck alone.

  Or take their concerns about my tits and the pool up with Alex.

  The last I saw of him, I was in the passenger seat of Kylie’s car after she, very kindly, came to pick me up when I was done talking to the cops. Alex was getting into his Jeep to follow an officer to the police station.

  Eli had already left. He’s the one that called the cops after he came up behind me in the kitchen.

  I haven’t spoken to either of them since then. Maybe I should reach out to Eli, considering Rihanna was all over his ass at the party and maybe he’s upset about it or something, but I can’t do it.

  We weren’t friends, and despite what went down with us Saturday night—the fuzzy memory thankfully, or not, having come back—he wouldn’t expect me to reach out.

  Not to mention Eli wasn’t dating her. They were just fucking around, I guess. I don’t know. Eli never talks about women. Or anything. Not to me.

  Besides, it’s a little late to reach out now. Three days, and no arrests have been made. Toxicology results aren’t in yet, but it seems the consensus is that Rihanna Martinson fell into that pool alone, and drowned because she was drunk off her ass.

  Eli was asleep in his bed, his alibi vouched for by another girl that was at the party, because his dick was in her mouth most of the early morning hours so I’ve heard.

  Lovely.

  Alex, of course, was in the guest bed with me. My statement wasn’t great, and I had to admit that I’d drank the night before even though I’m only twenty. They let that shit go since I wasn’t drunk when they were talking to me, although if they’d given me a breathalyzer, I’m pretty sure they’d have found that I actually was, and of course, I didn’t tell them about the drugs. Mine or Alex’s.

  I didn’t need my mom breathing down my neck more than she has been since the Narcan incident. I didn’t even tell her I was at the party. She’s too spooked as it is that a girl died there.

  No need for her to get all bent out of shape about my presence there too. She threatens to bring a drug test to my apartment every other week as it is. Thankfully, as long as I visit her often enough and behave myself, she never shows up. Thank fuck for that. It’s probably because she’s a little busy with her soon-to-be fourth husband.

  But when I moved into this apartment, she made sure to tell little Kylie Jones that I was in recovery and Kylie should keep an eye out for me.

  Kylie wants to be a pharmacist, and she’s an overeager kiss ass, so she was more than happy to agree to be my babysitter.

  “How was your weekend?” I clear my throat. “Week?” I amend my statement, trying to avoid any awkward conversation about my tit video or the rumors going around about me, Alex, and Eli, like how we were the last people to see Rihanna.

  That last rumor isn’t true.

  I didn’t see shit after Alex pulled me into his arms and kicked Eli out. I mean, no offense to fucking Rihanna, rest in peace, but I had nothing to do with what happened to her.

  But I do remember her screaming at me, presumably because she was fucking around with Eli and I was fucking around with him.

  And I remember Alex’s words to her. “If you touch her, I swear to God Rihanna, I’ll fucking drown you in my pool.”

  I start to make my bed after tossing my phone on my nightstand, pushing Alex’s words from my mind as a chill slides down my spine. Yeah, no. Not gonna think about that.

  I yank up the white sheet, then my pale green comforter. Kylie is still in my doorway, shifting from foot to foot, awkward as hell. I don’t know who she hangs out with or what exactly she knows about last weekend, but she doesn’t party. She at least knows about Rihanna though. Caven isn’t a huge university, and despite her appearance, Kylie does not live under a rock. Besides, she dropped me off and picked me up from the crime scene.

  Not to mention I’ve been skipping classes.

  I guess that’s why she’s standing there.

  “It was okay,” Kylie finally answers me as I throw the pillows on the bed and open my curtains, looking down at the woods that edge our apartment complex. It’s a nice, sunny day outside already.

  I hate it.

  I turn back to Kylie and nod. I’m in black booty shorts and a white tank and really should shower but I guess braids will do for today. My bleached white hair probably needs as little time as possible under a blow dryer anyway. More dry shampoo will do the trick.

  But what I really care about more than the state of my hair is getting to the tampon box under my bathroom sink. Can’t really do that with Kylie standing in my doorway though.

  “How are you?” she asks, rubbing her hand up her arm as she watches me. I pick my phone up from the nightstand but don’t look at it.

  “Great,” I lie.

  She frowns, her thick, dark brows pulling together. “Zara, you don’t have to keep things from me, you know. If you’re feeling upset about—”

  “I didn’t even know Rihanna.” Which is the truth. And what I did know of her, I didn’t fucking like. She kissed Alex after practice last week in the name of being a “good cheerleader”, or whatever bullshit he mumbled to me when I lost my shit on him.

  Fuck her.

  God, I’m going to hell.

  “Yeah, but even besides that… I’ve heard some things. And uh…seen some things,” Kylie continues.

  I cross my arms, clench my phone tight in one hand. My usually rather eloquent roommate is stumbling over her words and it’s making me uncomfortable. And angry.

  “What are you really asking me, Kylie?”

  Like most people, despite my mother’s warning, I think Kylie believes that rehab is a cure for druggies, and I’m all fine. So, I don’t think she’s asking me about drugs.

  Which is good because I’m not talking about them. But I don’t want to talk about what it is I know she’s about to bring up either.

  She takes a deep breath, wringing her hands together as she leans against my doorway. “Are you still with Alex?” There’s a note of anger in her words, which is unusual coming from her. Kylie doesn’t really get angry, so I kind of feel a little sistership with her in this moment, knowing she probably saw that video and she’s probably pissed on my behalf, but still, it’s not really her business.

  I roll my eyes. “So what if I am?” I counter.

  She looks concerned. “I saw the video, Zara,” she confirms. “Everyone has probably seen the video.” She bites her tongue a second, waiting for me to say something but when I don’t, she adds, “You didn’t look like you were enjoying it.”

  I laugh out loud, dropping my hands by my sides. “Yeah? Well I saw the video too. Good thing there were so many damn people there live and in person, because
it’s kind of hard to make out the details of my nipples, huh?” I’ve seen a few of the videos, but only one really captures the heartwarming moment.

  And it’s blurry, and bodies are in the way, so whatever.

  Kylie’s cheeks flush pink but she doesn’t drop my gaze. “Tell me you aren’t with him. You know he’s a complete jerk anyway.”

  It’s not breaking news to me that she thinks that. She warned me about him when we started dating in the spring, telling me he had a bad temper. Was a loudmouth. Obnoxious. All the things you could expect from a preacher’s kid gone wild.

  He is all of those things.

  But I need someone like that. Not that it matters.

  I blow out a breath and break the news to her, “No, we aren’t together. But not because of the video.”

  Kylie’s mouth hangs open and she shakes her head, about to say something when I beat her to it.

  “It’s because I cheated on him,” I admit, feeling my stomach clench as I do. “Last week.” I shrug, turn away from her and step into my bathroom, setting my phone on the counter and glancing in the mirror.

  God, what a mess.

  I lick my finger and start rubbing away the eyeliner from under my eyes. Then I hear Kylie step into the bedroom, and she comes to stand in the doorway of my bathroom.

  “You, what?” she croaks.

  I glance at her big brown eyes in the mirror. “I cheated on him,” I tell her again, more slowly this time.

  She chews on her lip as I part my hair, going to work on one section, twisting it into braids.

  “Oh. Wow…” she finally says. “I’m uh… Why?” she asks, shaking her head, her brows furrowed together.

  I laugh a little, still braiding my hair and meeting her gaze again in the mirror. “You just pointed out that he’s a jerk, right?”

  She just keeps staring at me blankly. She’s dating a pre-med kid, Ian. A nice, quiet guy that she’s head over heels for. I think the whole concept of cheating is so foreign to Kylie that she probably wants to kick me out of the apartment right now so I don’t contaminate her with my slutty ways.