different. You must have seen him. Blond hair, taller than the rest of the guys, dressed really nice. People know him there—he’s got a fancy job with the airline.” I didn’t want to add that he smelled good and his eyes were to die for. “Another girl told me he was really popular, and that she was dying to get together with him. I thought it was safe.”
“Damn… you had a freakier night than I did. We went back to Martin’s place and watched Hot Tub Time Machine.”
“Is Martin that man you were with?”
Lola nodded, sitting back on her heels. “Did you see our scene?”
“What do you mean? You were talking to him. He had his hand on your shoulder.”
My sister glanced away. “Nothing. But I think this proves that I know better than you what I’m doing.”
“So you are doing this S&M stuff with Martin? You’re letting him hit you? Why, Lola? I saw him—he’s practically an old man.”
“He’s thirty- four!”
“And you’re twenty-one.”
“Well, he doesn’t try to scare me like your random hottie did, I can tell you that.”
I had no retort for that, because hopefully it was true. “I want to meet Martin. I want to make sure he’s not a psycho.”
“As if you’re any judge!”
“I made a mistake . But I never would have been there if you hadn’t gone.”
“It’s your own fault for following me around. Fucking hell, Sierra! It’s time for you to let me live my own life.”
With that, Lola packed up her stuff and huffed off to the bathroom. She blasted the radio and sang to it as she fixed her hair and makeup. She didn’t say good-bye when she left.
Which left me feeling even worse. Lola was right. It was my own fault that I got into that mess. Why did I fling away all common sense? Because Victor looked deep into my eyes? Because my guts told me that I could trust him?
Maybe b ecause I was sick of working so hard with nothing to show for it. Because I was ready for more, and was willing to take a short cut to get it.
But t hat was Lola, not me. It had never been me. Lola was used to taking whatever she wanted. As if she had the right. As if nobody else should care.
Maybe I wanted to feel that for just a moment. To feel that a hot, sexy man wanted me so badly that he would stand there and take my blows. And then feel him lose control over me. Because he did lose control. I had seen it in his eyes, the way Victor had blazed into pure aggression and desire. And then at the end, how his fierceness ebbed as he came back to himself, looking at me with concern. He couldn’t have been sweeter as he held me as I cried, comforting me.
I smacked my forehead. I am so messed up! Seriously fucked! Stop thinking about him!
...
I tried to talk to Lola over the next week. My sister wasn’t very sympathetic about what had happened to me. At one point she yelled that it was my own damn fault. Lola said if I was going to be that stupid, I couldn’t blame her for it. Lola kept saying she knew what she was doing.
I seriously doubted it.
Dick was super-pissed that Lola wouldn’t talk to him after that. He kept texting and calling me, trying to find out what was going on with my sister. I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t know because Lola didn’t come home.
But days later, because Lola wouldn’t talk to me, I was finally driven to text Dick back: Do you know where Lola is?
A few moments passed, then Dick replied: Meet me so we can talk.
He was going to pump me about Lola and what she had been doing. But I didn’t know anything. Lola came home a few times really late, after I was already in bed. And then she was still in bed when I got up to go to work.
Lola would hate it if I talked to Dick about her. But what choice did I have? I knew firsthand the danger she was flirting with. I had to do something. I couldn’t sit by and watch my sister flush her life down the drain. Lola had nearly gotten into real trouble last year when she started dating a guy who did hard drugs. She