“Look, I don’t know what the problem is, but I really need to get you home,” I said, stopping in front of her, working to keep my cool. It was getting late, the sky already gray and I wanted to have time to go back to the party. “So could you please do me a favor and get in the truck?”

She shook her head, hugging her knees closer to her. “Just leave me here.”

“Oh, trust me, I’m seriously considering it.”

“Good.” She buried her face against her knees. “I don’t want to…” She trailed off, wiping her eyes.

I stood there in the middle of the dry grass, trying to figure out what the hell to do—if I should ask questions or keep my mouth shut. I was about to leave her when she started to sob, like these gasping, hyperventilating sobs. I suddenly had a flashback to when I was around eight and my dad went through this phase where he would beat the shit out of me every time he was coming down from his pain medications and I used to curl up in a ball and sob. It really wasn’t a big deal or anything and it only lasted, like, a year, but still, it sucked at the time.

Even though I had no idea why London was crying, I felt a little sympathy for her because there was obviously something going on. “Look, are you okay?” I crouched down in front of her. “Do you want me to take you somewhere else besides home?”

Her tears silenced and when she peeked up at me, she had a cynical look on her face, which surprised the shit out of me. “Like where? Your place? So you can fuck me?”

“No.” I stood up and took a step back because the girl was seriously intense. “I was just trying to help. That’s all. But if you’re going to be a bitch about it then I’ll let you sit here and cry.”

Her eyes stayed on me as she rose to her feet and her sadness gradually shifted to inquisitiveness as her gaze strayed up and down my body. “You’re an asshole.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, not giving a shit. It wasn’t the first time I’d been called this. In fact, I’d been called a lot worse.

“If you really want to help me,” she said, grabbing ahold of my hand, “then stop talking.”

Before I could respond, she dragged me back to my truck on the side of the road. I thought she was going to pour her heart and soul out to me or something, but instead we climbed into the truck and she took a joint out of her bra. We smoked it and when we were done, she asked me if I wanted to fuck her. As much as I loved sex, there was something about her—sadness in here eyes maybe—that made me hesitate for the first time since I’d started having sex. Sure, London had a rebellious, skanky kind of look to her, in her tight leather skirt and cleavage-baring top, but she also looked like she was hurting inside. It felt like she was searching for a way to get rid of the sadness and at the moment it seemed to be sex.

“Maybe I should just take you home,” I’d said, putting the joint out in the ashtray of my truck.

“Why?” she questioned in a feisty tone, raising her eyebrows. “Are you afraid of me or something?”

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. “Don’t be fucking ridiculous.”

She eyed me up and down. “Are you a virgin or something?”

I snorted a laugh. “I haven’t been a virgin for two years, sweetheart.”

She smiled condescendingly. “Then what’s the problem?”

“I have no idea,” I lied.

She kept biting her lip and her eyes were all swollen from crying and there was mascara running down her cheeks. I hardly knew her, but I wanted to take that sad look off her face, which is something I didn’t want to be thinking. No strings attached. No relationship. Those were my rules.

“Then have sex with me.” She’d scooted across the bench seat and pressed her lips against mine roughly, biting my bottom lip. I thought about pulling away, but I was too turned on and ended up thinking with my cock and kissing her back.

We had sex in the backseat of my truck. Rough, sweaty, passion-filled sex that blew my mind at the time. I mean, I’d had sex before, but this was different and all that overthinking and wanting to be alone momentarily dissolved into desire for something more in life, not that I could figure out what.

After that I kind of became addicted to her and her erratic, impulsive, wild behavior. She introduced me to a world of weed and we’d spend hours having sex, never really talking, making our relationship easy and perfect, never complicated.

And now, six months later, I’m sitting in a heroin addict’s house because she asked me to be here. It’s not my scene. I mean, I get high and everything with weed and I’ve tried cocaine a few times, but heroin is a whole other ballgame, one I’m not sure I want to play.

London extends her arm across the table. She’s got short black hair, streaked with purple, and her eyebrow is pierced, along with the spot just above her lip, next to a gnarly scar that runs from the side of her nose to her lip. I’ve asked her a ton of times how she got it, but she refuses to tell me. She refuses to tell me a lot of things.

“Ethan?” London looks in my direction with a hopeful expression on her face. “I can’t shoot myself up. Will you please, pretty please help me?”

I pull a wary face and shake my head. “Sorry, I don’t know how.”

“I know you don’t, baby, but I can tell you how to do it. It’ll be fine, trust me.” Her eyes plead with me to help her as she runs her free hand through my hair, trying to warm me up. “Please, I really need this.”

She always really needs something and I usually let her, because she’s not mine to own, but this… this might be a little too much.

“Since when are you into this stuff?” I ask her, glancing around at the people lying around on the living room floor. “I’ve been with you for the last six months and I’ve never seen you do anything but weed and coke.”

“Well, I guess you don’t know me that well, then,” she snaps, jerking her hand away from my hair. “And you haven’t been with me. I just let you follow me around.”

I’m getting aggravated. I crack my knuckles against the table and then pop my neck. “Well, I’m not helping you with this.” She pouts out her lip, but I don’t feel bad for her.

“That’s not going to work on me,” I tell her. “Not with this.”

“I’ll help ya, baby.” This guy who’s her age—I think his name Drake or Draven or some weird vampire-sounding name—comes walking into the kitchen. He’s a complete asshole and disregards me, looking at London like she belongs to him or some shit. “You got a needle?”

She shakes her head and tucks her hair behind her ear, brushing it away from her shoulder and I can see her tattoo on her shoulder: broken. I asked her what it meant once and she said it was because she was broken. I asked her why she thought that and she shook her head and told me she didn’t want to talk about it. That she just wanted to fuck. She says that a lot.

“Just the one right here.” London flicks the used needle that’s on the table and my face twists with revulsion.

He plops down in the seat next to her and picks up the used needle that belongs to the guy passed out on the table. Then he picks up a spoon and a lighter.

“You know that’s not sanitary, right?” I ask London, tugging down the sleeves of my plaid shirt. “Or smart?”

“Since when have I ever claimed to be smart?” She arches her eyebrow at me, daring me to tell her otherwise.

“Never, but it doesn’t mean you have to act like an idiot.” I glance at Draven or Drake or whoever he is. “When you’re obviously not.”

“Well, Drake’s going to do it for me,” she states, with a challenge in her eyes because she knows it’s a sensitive subject. I hate looking weak and right now I’m letting some guy take control over my girl.

I glance at the needle in the guy’s hand as he extracts some liquid from the spoon. I want to punch him in the face. I want to yell at him. I want to yell at London, not just for doing it now but because I’m starting to wonder if she’s done this in the past, shot up with dirty needles. Shit, what if she gave something to me. But I don’t yell at her because then I’d be a replica of my father always yelling at my mom. Honestly, what I really want to do is run out of this damn house because I don’t want to be here.

“Can’t we just go?” I say. “There’s gotta be something else you want to do. We can go hang out with Jessabelle and Big D.”

“Those two are amateurs,” she retorts and I can tell by her firm tone that she’s not going to back down because once London makes up her mind, there’s no changing it.

“Who brought the whiner to this place?” the guy interrupts, targeting a glare at me. He nods his chin toward the front door. “If you’re not big enough to handle it then get the fuck out.”

The guy is twice my size—thick neck, tall, hefty—and I’m not one for picking fights anyway. “Just come with me,” I say to London. “I can take you home or I can take you back to my place.”

“To do what? Talk? Make out? Fuck?” She shakes her head. “That’s not what I want right now, Ethan. What I want—what I need—is this.” She directs her attention back to the needle and pumps her fist a few times. “God, I need this so bad.”

Something’s obviously bothering her and it seems like for once I need to get to the bottom of it before she does something drastic even for her. “London, please just come with me and tell me—”

“Shut the fuck up, Ethan!” she cries, slamming her other hand down on the table. Some guy in the living room busts up laughing and the guy high in the chair tips over and falls to the floor, hitting the ground hard. No one seems to care. “I don’t need a fucking hero. Or some pathetic little high schooler trying to save me. What I need is to be with someone who will give me what I want and allow me to live my life how I want.”