Two could play at this game. Smirking back, I unhooked the front clasp of my red lacy bra through my top, then slid the straps down my shoulders, managing to get it off without flashing him. Then I threw it at his face. “Merry Christmas.”

Most guys would have grinned or said some dirty comment, but Ethan just flicked the little red bow on my bra, then shrugged and set it down on the armrest of the chair. “I’ve seen sexier,” he said, his grin shining through his eyes.

With my mouth hanging open, I tossed a candy cane at him and it hit him in the head. He laughed, picked it up and unwrapped it, and then popped it into his mouth. “Damn, these are good,” he said, smiling as he rolled the candy along his tongue.

I think that’s when I realized how much I liked him. Not because he was being an ass or because he gave me candy canes, but because he’d stopped kissing my thigh. He knew enough about me—how easy I was—to know that he could have pretty much gotten me to do whatever he wanted, yet he didn’t. Even if it was because he didn’t like me, I still kind of liked that he stopped, even if it left me sexually frustrated. I’d had sex with guys before who later made it clear they didn’t even like me, yet they still had sex with me because I was an “easy lay.” And I was left with self-hatred stirring inside me because deep down I knew they were right. I’m good for only one thing. A one-night stand, a good lay, a moment of distraction, and I’ll pretty much do whatever they ask, even when I don’t want to.

But now the good thing I had with Ethan is gone, thanks to my fucked-up head. It makes me loathe myself even more, knowing just how good of a guy Ethan is. He’d stopped it, refusing to have sex with the numb version of me. I’m still baffled over it.

Sighing, I force myself out of the memory and return my attention to what’s under the pile of candy canes and pick up the orange bottle. I take a couple, then lay down on the bed, on my back with my legs and arms out to my side, just like they were that day my life changed for the worst six years ago, when he used me and then abandoned me. I’ve been on a downhill decline ever since, but the good thing is I’ve barely been able to feel it. I feel the soaring rush from the pills and then the crash from the wine as the two substances mix and collide inside me. They’re diluting each other, so I turn on my side and take a few more pills and somewhere between the sixth or the seventh my thoughts start to melt together. Until I feel empty.

Alone.

And I desperately want to find someone to fill the void.


I’m way too out of it to be out here, but I can’t find my way back to my apartment. So I keep wandering aimlessly around the parking lot with no real destination, and I can’t even remember why I came outside in the first place. I think it might have been the fear of being compressed between the shrinking walls in my house that made me go outside, but I’m not sure.