Chapter Four
In the end, neither of us delivers the decimated blender to Ethan. Instead, I take the trash bag out to the Dumpster in an attempt to get a couple of minutes alone so I can think—which turns out to be a bad idea, because the summer sun is so blinding that it makes my hangover worse and pretty much takes away any small ability to form rational thought that I might have.
When I make it back to the condo, Tori has the food set out on the table and is pouring wine into a couple of long stemmed glasses. Since the last thing I want to do is add any more alcohol to my already shaky mental state, I fill two cups with water and bring them to the table.
Tori rolls her eyes, but she takes the glass I hold out to her. She even takes a couple of sips before trading it out for wine.
“So, are you feeling any better?” she asks as I settle into the chair directly across from her. “Because I’ve got to tell you, that level of rage was pretty fucking impressive to witness.”
“I’m fine,” I tell her while concentrating way harder than necessary on spooning rice onto my plate.
“Where have I heard that before? Oh, right, just before you drank yourself into unconsciousness and then went batshit on a blender.”
“I’ll take full responsibility for the blender, but the excessive tequila drinking was all your fault.”
She ponders this for a second before nodding. “It really was, wasn’t it?”
“Completely.” I take the two Tylenol she has very thoughtfully placed next to my wineglass. I start to thank her, but the fact that she obviously thinks it’s a good idea for me to use pinot grigio to wash down painkillers is a little concerning.
“So, how are you going to quit?” she asks me a couple minutes later over a shared order of kung pao chicken. “By email? Voicemail? Or are you just not going to show up for a few days? The last one is a bit passive-aggressive, but I’m sure it won’t take that asshole Ethan long to get the message.”
“He’s not an asshole.”
“Don’t defend him. That’s pathetic.”
“You don’t even know what he did!”
“Because you won’t tell me. But, really, does it matter? Anything he did that had you showing up looking like your world was ending makes him a total dick in my book. And just so you know, I never liked him.”
I nearly choke on the bite of chicken I’d forced myself to try to eat. “Oh, no. You don’t get to rewrite history now. You’re the one who hounded me to go out with him in the first place.”
Tori thinks about that truth for a second, then sniffs haughtily, in a manner only she can carry off. “Yes, well, that was back when I thought he was going to treat you right. Now that he obviously isn’t, I don’t like him. And I never will.”
I don’t have the energy to argue with her, not when it’s taking every ounce of strength I have to just sit at this table and pretend like I’m not falling apart. It’s hard though, now that the shock and the anger have worn off. Now that all I’m left with is the grief.
Besides, she’s not wrong. Ethan didn’t treat me right. Not when he ignored me the last few days, not when he chose to freeze me out instead of breaking up with me properly, and not when he decided to make love to me last night when he knew about Brandon. Knew how I’d react.
“You are so totally quitting,” she announces again, like it’s a foregone conclusion.
“So that I can do what? Wait tables at some bar? That will look great on my law school applications.”
“So will losing your shit on some other non-combative piece of machinery and getting carted off to jail or some mental hospital somewhere.”
“The blender was a one-shot deal.”
“So you say. But do you really want to take the risk? Besides, what’s the alternative? Going back there and seeing him every day? I’m not claiming to be the most mentally healthy person around, but even I know that’s a bad idea. I saw you this whole weekend, saw how upset just being ignored by him made you. How are you going to handle that at work? Especially after whatever went down between the two of you last night?”
I know she’s right, know that seeing Ethan again will only make things worse. And not just between us. It’ll make things worse for me. I’ve worked so hard to get past the rape, to put it behind me and build a decent life for myself. But how can I keep the past where it belongs if I’m confronted with it every day?
Frost Industries is Ethan Frost and after this morning, I can’t imagine looking at him—looking into his blue eyes that are identical to Brandon’s—and thinking about anything but the rape. Anything but what happened in that deserted parking lot five years ago, and what came after.
It’s not a good idea.
I’ve survived this long because I just don’t think about Brandon or my parents or what happened to me. At all. I put it out of my mind when I moved here and I refuse to be dragged into it. Refuse to be the girl I was when I moved here three years ago. The girl Brandon and his friends made me.
At the same time, I can’t imagine giving up my dream so easily. I mean, sure, getting into law school isn’t all about where you intern. A million other factors go into it, factors that I’m hoping to have locked up. But at the same time, the kind of law school I want to go to almost always requires connections to get in. I don’t have those connections, so I need to make sure my application is better than anyone else’s.
An internship with Frost Industries’ legal department does that for me. Or at least, it did. Now, I’m not so sure. About anything.