The Temptation of Lila and Ethan by Jessica Sorensen Page A

We’re just two shells of people with body heat that have absolutely no substance to them at the moment other than what we’re searching for—peace and calm. I never find it, though. But that might be because I never allow myself to.
    Somewhere I lose track of what she looks like and picture her with short black hair, like London, and the more it continues the more she starts to look like Lila. It’s completely messed up and defeats the purpose of having sex and trying to forget my problems. I don’t want to be thinking of Lila—I don’t want to be thinking of anything. I just want a clear head, and when it’s over I go back to being alone, following my rules so I don’t have to get close to anyone and move on. Let go. Accept the reality that London’s never coming back to me and that she isn’t because I chose to let her walk away.
    Once we’re done fucking, she gets up and tells me thanks while getting dressed and thoughts of London drift away as exhaustion overtakes me, yet Lila remains in my head as I wonder what she’s doing right at this moment. I mutter a “you’re welcome” and then she leaves, without giving me her number. I roll over in my bed, feeling alone, yet quietly content on the inside, exactly how I want to be. I glance at the clock and realize it’s only nine o’clock, though. Fuck. What the hell am I supposed to do for the rest of the night?
    Shaking my head, I turn over and take my journal out, doing the only thing I can do to pass the time and try not to think about London and the last time I saw her. I can never forget it, how I just walked away from her. I end up writing about the morning when I found out she was gone, even though I promised myself a long time ago to forget about it. But it can’t seem to forget me.
    The phone rings. It’s like a song. A very annoying song that has a sullen tune and lyrics full of angst and remorse. I’m not even sure how I know it’s bad news. I just do, and when I answer the phone and hear the sob, I know she’s gone, but not in the way I expected.
    She’s gone.
    But she’s not.
    She’s in between death and life. Lost. Maybe forever. Maybe not. Who knows? No one really seemed to know much, and in the end the real London was gone, her mind always dying, veering closer and closer to death, but right at the last second it fleetingly starts to thrive again before starting the whole process over. She was always half starved, famished, unhealed, yet healed at the same time. It never made sense. None of it did with her.
    None of it ever does.

Chapter Three
    Lila
    I love shopping, probably way too much. Spending money and buying clothes, for whatever reason, fills the void inside my heart. My mom used to drag me along with her all the time while she shopped. She’d go on these outrageous spending sprees every time my father would upset her. Instead of confronting him, she’d buy stuff and then put it all on and make herself look pretty. I remember watching her put new dresses on, shoes, and jewelry, and then she’d stand in front of the mirror and admire herself with a smile on her face.
    “Don’t I look pretty?” she’d ask me and I’d always nod because she always did look gorgeous and glamorous to me. She’d turn toward me and look me over, like I was a doll, sometimes even letting me try some of her stuff on. “One day, when you’re older, you’ll be as beautiful as me, Lila.”
    “But what if I’m not?” I’d asked, because some of the older people around the neighborhood that I’d seen weren’t pretty like my mother. “What if I don’t turn out as pretty as you?”
    She clipped on a pair of diamond earrings that shimmered in the light flowing from the chandelier. “You’ll have to make sure you do, Lila. No man wants an ugly woman.”
    Even at the young age that I was, I can remember thinking how strange her response was, especially since my teacher was always telling us that beauty lay more on the inside than the