“Huh… He called you?”

“Yeah, just a little bit ago.”

I bite down on my lip, slightly irked, wondering if he called her to tell her to check up on me because I haven’t been paying the rent. The last thing I want to do is tell Ella my problems when she has so many problems herself. Plus, I don’t like talking about my issues—it’s what I’ve been taught. The only person I’ve told anything to is Ethan and even he doesn’t know everything. “Well, sorry to waste your time, but I don’t really have anything to talk about.”

She hesitates. “That’s okay. I’ve been meaning to call you anyway.”

“About what?” I’m trying to force the irritation out of my tone, but I can’t quite get there. The pills need to kick it up a notch so I can feel artificially happy.

“Maybe I should call later,” she says. “You sound annoyed right now.”

I sigh heavily, stretching my legs out. “I’m sorry. I’m just a little hung-over and taking it out on you. Sorry.”

“That’s okay,” she replies very cheerfully and very unlike the Ella I first met. “You’ve put up with a lot of crap from me over the last couple of years.”

“God, have we known each other for that long?” I manage to keep my voice light and cheery, even though my head is aching.

“Yeah, we’re getting so old, right?” she jokes, but she sounds kind of nervous.

“What are you not telling me?” I say, pushing up on my elbows. “You’ve got that tone… the one you use when you have a secret.”

“I don’t have a tone.” She pretends she has no idea what I’m talking about, but her overly nonchalant attitude suggests otherwise.

I pinch the brim of my nose, trying to alleviate the pain in my head, and luckily my voice comes out sounding as if I’m the cheery Lila, the one everyone needs to see. “All right, spill your guts.”

“Well…” She takes a deep breath. “I kind of moved the ring.”

“What!” I exclaim and suddenly all of my crankiness diminishes. Ella has been wearing a ring Micha gave her on the opposite finger as the engagement one. The deal between the two of them was that when Ella felt ready to get engaged, she’d move the ring to the other finger and it’s finally official. “When?”

She dithers. “Actually it was a while ago… the day Micha and I left Vegas.”

“You bitch,” I say, half joking, but kind of angry at the same time. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“I don’t know… I guess because I was still getting used to it.”

I absentmindedly turn the ring on my own finger, thinking about how sick and twisted I am that I won’t get rid of it. I swear the God damn ring still owns me—he still owns me. “You could have gotten used to it by telling me.”

“I know and I’m really sorry. You know how I get about this kind of stuff though.”

“I do.” I really, really do. Ella shuts down and keeps things hidden. I didn’t know that when I met her so it was a surprise when I got to see this whole other side of her. She went from a quietly, orderly, good girl, to this loud, reckless, badass, and I sometimes wish I could be the same way. Carefree and outgoing and just living life exactly how I want in the moment, without having to be intoxicated.

Micha, her fiancé now I guess, shouts something in the background and then Ella lets out a squeal in the phone. I hear a loud thump and then there’s a lot of giggling. I wait for her to come back on, but the giggling only gets louder as she argues with Micha through her laughter about letting her go.

I roll my eyes, officially hating her for the beautiful relationship that she has and deserves. “All right, I’m going to go. If you can hear me, congrats and I’ll call you later.”

I drop the phone onto the floor and the quiet sets in. The sunlight sneaks through the cracks of the blinds and I can hear my next-door neighbors arguing about something. It’s really loud and annoying and I yell, “Keep it down!” while banging on the wall.

They don’t hear me though and keep shouting. The longer I lie there, the more the loneliness catches up with me, like a wave ready to slam into the shore. I want someone who will love me like Micha loves Ella. I want someone—anyone—just to love me. I’ve been trying the best that I can to find that kind of love, but it never seems to work out and I’m really starting to believe that I’m beneath being loved.

I thought I had love once, very stupidly. I should have known better. He was too old to actually love a fourteen-year-old and after it was all over, after he’d used me, he left me, brokenhearted, feeling dirty inside and confused over what I—we—had just done. Even now, when I look back at it, it doesn’t make sense to me, at least from an emotional aspect. But the pills make it easier to accept.

“I really did think he loved me,” I mumble, feeling the tears sting at my eyes as I rotate the platinum-banded diamond ring around on my finger. “He seemed like he did.”

I get up and walk out of the kitchen, heading for my room, wanting to escape my mistakes and the emptiness. The problem is that every time I do, I only add more mistakes to the list and I always end up alone. But I’ll probably keep doing it over and over again because it’s what I’m good at—screwing up, being a slut, sleeping around, praying I can find someone who will fall in love with the worthless bits and pieces of me and take care of me like my mother is constantly telling me should happen.

I open my nightstand drawer and stare down out the prescription bottle, twisting the ring on my finger, knowing that any more pills will send me into blackout mode. But I want to be in that mode right now because it momentarily makes me feel happy and content. I pick up the bottle and open it. As the pills slide down my throat, numbness slides through my body and I fall back on the bed with my hand placed on the scar along my stomach, my one flaw, both inside and outside.

I’m not sure how boarding school is going, whether I like it or hate it. It seems weird living at a school at fourteen years old. Plus, I’m having a hard time making friends. But I’m trying.

“You see that older guy over there?” Reshella Fairmamst, the girl I’m working on becoming friends with says, pointing at the table across the library, at a man wearing a suit. He’s sitting in a chair, reading an old tattered book.

Reshella Fairmamst isn’t my friend, but I want her to be—need her to be, otherwise I’ll end up lonely and friendless. But becoming friends with her is tricky, because she’s the richest, most entitled and popular girl in school. “You mean that old guy?”

“He’s only twenty-two and he’s part of the Elman family, who are totally wealthy.” She flips her honey-blonde hair off her shoulder and holds her nose in the air as if she’s smelling a bitter aroma. She does this a lot and I’ve often wondered if it’s out of arrogance or the fact that she’s trying to make sure she doesn’t have BO. “He’s totally acceptable.”

“But I’m only fourteen,” I say stupidly as I twirl my hair around my finger. “He’s not going to want me. He’s like eight years older. “

She looks me over from the seat beside mine. She wears a lot of makeup and always has gray eyeliner on because she says it brings out her sharp features. She wears a strand of pearls daily and insists none of the Precious Bells wear them. The Precious Bells are her clique and to get into the clique you have to be the best of the best of the best.

“Maybe you’re not a good fit to be a Precious Bell,” she says snidely. “Because to be one of us you have to be willing to date older men. We never, ever date guys in our school.”

“But you’re sixteen.”

“So.”

“So…” I struggle against her condescending gaze. “It’s easier for you.”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh please. It’ll be easy for you if you just stop thinking so much like a child. It’s time to grow up, Lila, unless you don’t want to.” She turns her head toward the group of girls and guys sitting at the round table in the corner, the ones everyone have deemed nerds and social outcasts, and my mother would never in a million years approve of me hanging out with.