After he leaves me high and dry, the two pills I popped before I took a shower quickly and fortunately kick in and everything—even being alone in my empty apartment after Ethan blew me off—feels okay. The pills keep away the memories and feelings of what happened last night, along with many other nights in my past. And not remembering them is important. Pain equals unwanted emotions, meltdowns, embarrassment. As much as I hate the blackouts the pills give me, I also hate temporary blackouts where bits and pieces come back to me in sharp, disgraceful images. All that does is remind me of what I’ve become and how empty and insignificant I feel inside. Sometimes it feels like my body doesn’t belong to me, like I lost it a long time ago and I’ll never get it back. I wonder if this is how everyone feels after sex. If they feel so dirty and unclean.

It does seem like I’ve been getting worse lately, but life seems to be getting harder. In the last year and a half my roommate and best friend moved out to go live her life and now I’m alone. I tried to stand up for myself to my parents, telling them I wouldn’t come home and live the life they want me to live, and in return my dad took away my car. A few months ago he also canceled all my credit cards and now I’m running out of money and can’t even come up with enough to pay my tuition. Being poor isn’t something I think I can live with. So to escape the painful, shameful reality of how pathetic my life has become, I’ve started sleeping around more and downing more and more pills.

I first started taking the pills when I was fourteen because my mother encouraged me to, saying they would help erase the shame and dirtiness I’d been feeling. I’d just had sex for the first time with a guy who pretty much used me and it turned out the pill worked brilliantly, numbing almost all of my emotions. So I’ve been taking them ever since.

Sighing, I get dressed in a light-blue sundress, twist my hair up with some clips, and head to the kitchen to clean up the floor. Last night I spilled a bunch of wine on it, but I was too drunk to clean it up and now it’s stuck to the tile and is stinking up the house. I grab a barely touched sponge and some cleaner out from under the sink, then try not to gag as I put a pair of rubber gloves on and get down on my hands and knees.

I hate cleaning up the house and try to avoid doing any sort of cleaning at all cost. I’d been having someone come clean the house since Ella left, but I’m running low on cash and can’t afford her anymore. I get down on my hands and knees with a bucket of water and a sponge. As I’m scrubbing the floors, my mother calls me and I almost laugh to myself, wondering what she would do if she saw me on my hands and knees scrubbing dirt off the floor with a sponge.

I turn around and sit down before answering my phone, noticing that I’ve missed a call from Ella, like Ethan suspected. “Yes, mother,” I answer.

“Have you changed your mind about coming home?” She’s been saying the same thing to me ever since I announced my sudden decision to move to Vegas and attend UNLV over a year and a half ago. I’d just graduated from boarding school and had returned home for the summer. My family thought I was going to Yale in the fall, only because I’d lied to everyone and told them I was. I felt ashamed and I was angry at myself for feeling that way, like I couldn’t just admit that I wasn’t smart enough to go to a fancy school. I’d felt ashamed for the last four years and I didn’t want to feel that way anymore. I knew eventually I’d have to tell everyone that I didn’t get accepted to Yale or any other Ivy League school, so instead of facing it, I left. I packed my shit, opened a map, and pointed to a random place, which ended up being Vegas. I said good-bye to my mother and she fought me the entire way, yelling and screaming and saying that I’d never make it on my own. But I had money and decent grades and UNLV accepted me in a heartbeat.

“No,” I respond with the same answer I always give her. “And I already told you I wasn’t going to change my mind.”

“Well, I was hoping that your mind decided to be smart,” she counters. “But then again, I guess I should know better. You’ve proved over the last many, many years, just how stupid your decisions can be.” She sounds more and more like my father the more time goes on. She’s almost like clay, easily pliable and shapeable.

I pick at my nail polish, debating whether to go to my room and take another pill. She’s taking a jab at me for the huge mistake she’ll never be able to forgive me for, not only because of what it made me look like but because it made her and my father look like they raised a slut.

“Did you call for a reason?” I ask calmly “Or to just complain about me?”

“Your father wants you to come home,” she states in a subdued voice. “He says if you do he’ll give you back your car and credit cards.”

“As always, I’m going to have to decline his offer.”

“Well, as always you’re going to make dumb choices that make this entire family look bad. Between your sister being a waitress and having an illegitimate child and your living in Vegas in an apartment, we look like the low-lives of the community.”

“Well, maybe you should just tell everyone we’re dead, then.” I feel numb as I say it and I’m thankful for the medication in my system. “I mean, we both know how great you are about making up cover stories when one of us screws up.”

She laughs cynically into the phone. “Well, I’ve had good practice. I have one daughter who’s an ex-junkie, and another daughter who’s been a little slut since she was fourteen.”

“I was confused and didn’t completely understand what I was getting into.” I swallow hard, trying not to think about where my journey of being a slut started. “And you did nothing to help me. Nothing beneficial anyway.”

“You made a choice, Lila,” she retorts derisively. “No one made you do anything. You chose to do it.”

“I was fourteen,” I mumble, the detached feeling in my body starting to lift as the walls close in on me, shrinking me into a ball, just like they did to me when I was a child. My mother has that effect on me, even with a simple phone call. I cradle my knees against my chest and rest my chin on my knees.

“Excuses are for the weak. And if you’d just admit that you made a mistake, and that you continue to make them, then maybe you’d finally be able to clean up your act.” She sighs. “You’re a beautiful girl, Lila, and your looks could carry you really far in life. Imagine what kind of man you could get if you’d try to date one instead of sleeping with them all.”

“Wow, have you ever considered becoming a psychiatrist?” I ask sarcastically. “Because you’d be great at it.”

She hangs up on me.

I’m not surprised and I was hoping she would, otherwise she would have started lashing into me about how much of an utter disappointment I am. I press END, glad that I no longer have to talk to her. At the same time I’m hurt that she views me like she does, that she hates me, wishes I was someone else, someone other than who I am. Although, I don’t even know who that is so I can’t figure out how she does.

I give myself thirty seconds to wallow, and then I call Ella to see what she wants.

“Hello,” she answers cheerfully and I can’t help but smile because she used to be so sad. I’m glad she’s happy, although part of me envies her.

“Hey, did you call earlier?” I ask, lying down on the linoleum floor and staring up at the ceiling. I miss Ella and everything, but it’s nice to live alone, too, because I’d never just lie down on the floor in front of her.

“Yeah, I figured you might need to talk,” she says and I hear Micha shout something in the background.

“We can talk later,” I tell her. “If you’re busy.”

“No, we can talk now,” she insists. “Micha’s just yammering in my ear for no reason.” There’s laughter in her tone and Micha shouts out something else, but it sounds murmured through the phone. “Ethan made it sound like you needed to talk.”