Free Lila and Ethan: Forever and Always: A Short Story by Jessica Sorensen

with.” I cringe as I try to put the pieces together, but I can’t even seem to find one full piece.
    “Lila…” he starts, but then decides against it, probably because he sleeps around just as much as I do. “Where are you exactly?”
    I breathe a sigh of relief, grateful he’s not giving me anymore crap for my sexual mishap. I’m hung-over and having withdraws and I can feel myself verging on a meltdown, something that can never happen, let alone in the open. “I’m on the corner of Vegas Drive and Rainbow.”
    “Where exactly? In like a store or a house or something?”
    “No, I’m sitting on the curb.”
    He’s quiet for a moment. This isn’t the first time he’s had to pick me up under these kinds of circumstances and it probably won’t be the last. It’s kind of our thing; we share our stories and never judge each other, despite how bad and ugly the stories are. He knows things about me that no one does, like how my father treats me, and I know things about him, too, like how his dad used to beat his mother and how he despises him for it. “I’ll be there in, like, fifteen to twenty minutes. Don’t go wandering off anywhere.”
    “Where would I go?” I pull my knees up and lower my forehead onto them. “It’s too damn hot outside to even breathe.”
    “And try not to get into any trouble,” he adds, disregarding my comment.
    “Fine.” I roll my eyes and then squeeze them shut, inhaling the sweltering air. “And, Ethan…”
    He pauses. “Yeah.”
    “Thank you again,” I say softly because I really do feel bad for making him do these things for me. He’s always so nice about it, too.
    Another pause and then he gives an overexaggerated sigh. “Whatever. You’re welcome.”
    We hang up and I feel the slightest bit better. He’s always there for me, even when he doesn’t want to be. He’s the only person I really talk to anymore and I worry what will happen if he decides to leave me.
    I lie down on the sidewalk and twist my platinum ring around on my finger as I stare up at the melting blue sky and the blinding sunlight. For a moment I don’t care about how filthy the ground is or the fact that my dress is undone and my eyes are starting to sting. In fact, for a split second I know I belong there and nowhere better. But as I press my cheek against the scalding concrete, I remember that I was taught not to lie on a filthy ground. I sit up straight and trace the ugly circular scars on each ankle, the mark of my biggest imperfection both inside and out.
    The sun bears down on me as I attempt to remember some details of the previous night. But as usual, I’m drawing a blank. If I keep it up, then I wonder if one day my head will just be as empty as my heart. But on the bright side—my mother’s bright side—at least I’ll still have my beauty and that’s all that really matters.

Ethan
    You know that point where you’re about to wake up, but you can’t quite seem to get your fucking eyelids to open so you get kind of stuck between being awake and asleep? Well, that’s pretty much where I’ve been for the last four years. I feel stuck. Trapped in the same place, unable to move. In a life I’m not sure I want, yet I can’t seem to figure out how to change it. I’ve felt differently only once and the person who brought the sunnier side out of me is no longer in my life. Although, sometimes Lila gets me close to breaking out of the daze, but in a different way, one based more on anger and sexual frustration than an actual deep emotion.
    I even tried to escape the trapped feeling of my life once. I packed my shit and hit the road with no real destination other than to escape the trapped feelings that had been festering inside me for years. It wasn’t bad being alone on the road with no worries about where I was going, but what I learned quickly was that you can’t escape life, no matter how much you want to.
    I wake up to “Hey Ho” by the Lumineers. It’s the ringtone Lila