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footsteps, the safe choice. “Were you calling about anything else?”
    “I heard from Eric today.” Eric—my lowlife meth-cooking older brother. The one who sent my parents into a tailspin of helicopter parenting a few years back. “Did you know it’ll be five years this Sunday? He’s come a long way.”
    La de freakin’ da. He didn’t have to deal with Mom and Dad’s total meltdown when he went to jail. The raid happened on my fifteenth birthday. Mom got the call, ordered all my friends to leave the most epic pool party of the summer, and we drove to the precinct to bail him out. My dad held my mom as she sobbed, my brother still strung out of his mind, yelling profanities at anyone who passed by. I sat on the bench, hugging my knees to my chest, my hair still dripping wet from the pool, caught between hoping he was okay and wishing he’d disappear. After Mom and Dad bailed him out, he continued to use drugs up until the trial that sentenced him to ten years for distribution. Seeing what that did to my parents, I never wanted them to go through that again. But the harder I tried, the less impressed they seemed.
    I picked at my nails, biting back my irritation. She brought up Eric for one reason only— her passive-aggressive way of telling me to keep it together or I’d end up like him. She thought I was well on my way. “That’s nice.”
    “Hopefully he’ll be able to hold a job when he gets out. Hasn’t held one since he was eighteen. Drugs do that to you, make you weak.”
    I sighed into the phone. This conversation was a goner. We’d just run in circles until she sufficiently made me feel like dog poop on the bottom of her shoe. I heard Caesar, my mom’s hellion Pomeranian, yip in the background, agreeing with her. Stupid mangy rodent dog. I pulled a Payton and glared at her through the phone. My roommate had the most epic glare I’d ever seen, one that brought her six-foot hunkalicious boyfriend to his knees. “Yep. Good thing I don’t do drugs.”
    I could see her now, pursing her lips, like she always did when I defended myself. My breath rushed out as I gripped the phone until it cut into my fingers, fighting to keep calm. She just wouldn’t drop me going into rehab, even months later.
    It happened so quickly. It started with a few pills to help me stay awake to study for the MCAT, my boss working me too many hours that cut into my study time and, before I knew it, I was willing to shell over my wages from GNC for any pill I could get my hands on just to stay on top of everything. I wanted to tell my mom this, so that she’d understand I wasn’t like Eric but, whenever I tried, she got this glazed-over look like she didn’t care so eventually I stopped.
    “Good thing. Have a good night, sweetie. I love you.”
    “Love you too, Mom.”
    I didn’t know if I would ever get my relationship back, the one where they trusted me, were proud of me, and talked to patients about their daughter who got accepted to med school. Even after six months of being clean, I still hadn’t earned their trust. Maybe I never would.

Chapter Six
    Ryan
    Dad called me in for the evening shift on Wednesday, one of the busiest nights of the week. Jules flitted around, helping a customer with printers when I strolled through the front entrance. My stomach shot straight toward the ground when she smiled at a customer, her pretty pink lips parting to reveal toothpaste-ad-worthy teeth that lit up her face. Fuck me. I shouldn’t want this girl, but something deep inside me, some primal need shouted Me Ryan, me want hot blonde in green Office Jax shirt.
    After Lex, I sure as hell didn’t want anything serious, but she might be a great distraction for the ache in my chest. Hard to have a hookup when the girl hated my guts, though. The feeling was probably amplified when she apparently heard my conversation with Lex. Peach’s click-clacking heels came to a halt outside the break room and I knew I’d been busted. But she