Aspiring Nobody

Chapter 19 Their secret

ERIN'S POV

I hate having no control over this situation. And I hate knowing that my feelings for him run a lot deeper than anything he could feel for me. I fall back on the sofa. Why did I agree to stay the night? One more night, I tell myself, and tomorrow I'll leave.

Styles enters the room holding a shopping bag. "I have something for you, Erin." He hands me the bag and then walks towards the kitchen.

It's the latest iPhone. I start choking up. No one, other than my mother, has ever spent this sort of money on me. My eyes fill with tears and I wipe them away. I look up at him as he stands at the kitchen bench with his back to me, doing something I can't see. "Thank you, but I can't take it."

He spins around to face me. "Excuse me?"

"The phone. As much as I appreciate the gesture, my other phone was two years old and had a cracked screen. I didn't expect you to replace it." Even so, that was so sweet of him. It hurts my heart to think he keeps this softer side of himself so confined.

"Erin, I'm the reason your old phone is waterlogged right now. Besides, you need a phone."

"A less expensive one would have sufficed," I say. "It would be wrong of me to accept such an expensive phone."

"It's already in your name."

I lean forward and push the box onto the coffee table. "I'm sorry, but I can't. My old phone might still be working." As I dig inside my handbag to retrieve the phone, my bag falls and hits the floor. My personal things scatter around my feet.

"What's that?" Styles pushes off the bench and walks towards me, picking something up from the ground. His face distorts. "Ecstasy!" He holds up a clear bag with two blue pills inside. "You're on ecstasy?"

"No! They're not mine. They belong to Kevin." His nostrils pinch together. "This is what you were high on Friday night, isn't it?"

I toss my scattered items back in my bag. "Yep. And I know the ramifications. I don't need a lecture."

STYLES' POV

I end up going to the balcony and smoking the cigarette Dwayne gave me after finding those tablets. What would Erin think if she knew I once overdosed because my coping skills were shit? It wasn't deliberate. But that's the risk you take. Truth is, I didn't want to die. But I wasn't sure how to make things better. It didn't help that my parents were borderline negligent after their divorce. Bianca was the only one who knew and tried to intervene, but I was too out of control to care.

I toss the smoke over the balcony in a calmer mood. When I enter the living room, Erin is no longer on the sofa. Which has me sticking my head into the hallway and calling out: "Erin? Where are you?"

That's when I hear her soft sobs. "I'm in the bathroom. "I take the couple steps to the bathroom. Shit. The sound of her hushed snivels has me pressing my forehead to the door. "Erin, can we talk?"

Her sniveling stops, and within seconds, the door opens. She stands at the doorway with her head hung. She dabs a scrunched-up tissue across her damp eyes and down her streaked cheek, not making eye contact.

"Why are you crying?"

She looks up at me from under her lashes. "Because I'm hopeless, and now I'm making a mess of my life. I didn't even stop to think about what could happen to me when I took that tablet, and if it wasn't for you... well, you know what happened." She wipes the tissue across her nose. "I should go."