Wrath: A Sinful Secrets Romance, page 42
If that makes me weak, I don’t care.
I’m not weak. I just need someone to hold me. So I- pretend.
I see the new therapist in a few days.
The man from AT&T said he’s going to call me back himself- also in a few days.
I strained my throwing arm just a little. Send it kisses. I’ll kiss all your freckles in my dreams.
Maybe I am actually crazy.
Don’t think I don’t know that.
Do you play cello, Miller? Have you ever played? The last two nights, I dreamed of a cello in the room where you were holding me so fucking snug.
When I checked our old school’s website, it said you play drums.
* * *
Ezra
September 9, 2019
Hi, My Miller.
I played college football this past weekend!! NCAA, baby-
I passed for 197 yards, ran for 66, and I split starting time with Hollis even though he’s got seniority and he’s been playing well lately.
I’m not gonna lie- it was everything I wanted. I got a little freaked out right before we ran out on the field, but after that, it was like riding a bike.
The coaches are happy. I feel like I’m living in a dream. When I walk around now, everybody knows me. It’s weird.
You watched football this weekend at a sports bar. I saw it on your Snapchat.
Did you watch me?
I like to think you did. That maybe we were friends, at least, and you were happy for me.
I’d like to think you thought about me.
I feel weird that I’m writing these fake letters to you.
For a while, I felt happy. Like at least I have this good thing, even if it is weird. Now I feel more weird, though. You have your own life, and I guess I do too.
My mom left a message with the floor monitor at my dorm saying she’s coming to visit me Wednesday and Thursday this week.
I know this is devious as fuck but I’m going to take a bus up to Richmond at that same time, break into my bedroom window, and steal back my Jeep. It’s a black Wrangler, and I miss it. I lost it when I bounced from Sheppard Pratt. But I paid for almost all of it myself. I waited tables at a restaurant starting when I was 15, and I didn’t stop until I went to Alton.
I’m thinking of deleting Snapchat. If I’m going to feel this way about you, I kind of want it to be more organic…not because I watch you on snap all day and have this feeling we’re connected- when maybe we’re not.
* * *
Ezra
October 16, 2019
Miller.
I’m eating all this protein. To help me recover from the games.
Fuck, Miller. The first day of October, I think I remembered you. I was getting in my Jeep to go get more eggs. I looked over at the passenger’s seat, and it’s like…I could see you in it. Not even “see” you- I could feel you sitting there. And feel the way I felt about it. How I would feel if I had you in my car. Like the whole world is limitless. Like anything might happen- but not any bad thing. Good things. It was a Christmas morning feeling, and it seemed so real.
I hadn’t looked at Snapchat in a while, but after that, I downloaded it again.
Yesterday at practice, someone hit me too hard. Knocked the air out of my lungs and sort of rattled my head for a second. Someone mentioned pulling me into the clinic room inside the locker room. Scared the fuck out of me. You know what?
I whimpered, “Mills.”
Mills.
Not Miller.
Mills.
I’m in Auburn right now. Sitting under a tree near the stadium. I walked by your apartment building, or the one I think might be yours.
Maybe we had something.
Maybe.
I guess it’s over now.
I found some papers in my hiding spot in my old room at Mom’s, when I went up there to steal my Jeep back. I’m getting my old phone restored as soon as I can drop by the AT&T store.
Auburn-Alabama’s coming up fast.
It’s here on your campus this year.
I’m seeing a therapist. A nonbinary one that I like.
After the season is over, we’re going to start doing trauma therapy. I think the person likes me okay. I’m trying to be honest.
They say it’s okay to watch your snaps, but I don’t know if it is. I don’t want to be that weirdo.
Soon, I’ll have to read the letters I found in my bedroom.
Soon, I have to go and get the phone and turn it on and see what’s in it.
Soon, I’ll know if none of this is real.
I still don’t want to.
Two
Josh
November 18, 2019
I watch the drumline over in the marching band section—beside the stadium’s student section, where I’m sitting. There are six of them, three guys and three girls, if their appearances sync with their genders. They seem happy, like they enjoy playing drums in Auburn’s Marching Tiger Band. One of them is eating popcorn.
It was a bad thing, coming to the game tonight. Jenna tried her best to talk me out of it, but in the end she stayed home with some kind of flu thing. I think she’s too sick to worry over me. I’ve been texting Shawna, her roomie, to keep tabs on her.
At every other moment, my eyes are locked on Ezra. University of Alabama—Auburn’s archrival—number 14. He’s run for two touchdowns and passed for some obscene number of yards I can’t keep track of.
I watch now as the jumbotron camera zooms in on him. He’s on the away team’s bench, guzzling something from a water bottle, and I wonder if it’s grape Propel. There’s someone behind him, someone dressed in a crimson University of Alabama Polo shirt, doing something to his back. Almost looks like the guy’s rubbing him.
Ezra tilts his head back, and I reach into my bag to get my little plastic bottle of bourbon—one of those travel-sized ones everybody sneaks into the stadium.
“I don’t know what you’ve got against that dude, man. Fucking hot,” Daniel says over the murmurs of the crowd. “Look when they zoom in…those dick-sucking lips.”
I finish off the bourbon bottle. There’s two more where that one came from.
Pretty shortly, Bama’s offense swaps with defense, and he’s jogging back out onto the field.
It’s so weird…he moves just the same. I look down at him and try to see through his clothes and his pads, his helmet. I try to see the Ezra under all that, across the probably eighty yards and maybe a hundred feet of elevation between him and me. How much bigger is he? I know he’s bulked up even more than the last time I saw him; I can tell that much from the mug shot they show of him on the jumbotron. I bet he’s thicc as fuck and has a dark tan right now. If that mug shot is current, he’s still got his hair buzzed on the sides and longer up top, hanging almost into his eyes. But it’s not blond now. I think it was never really blond. Under the longer part up top, it looked kind of a dark cinnamon brown.
It makes my throat knot up to think of how I don’t even know his real hair color. What it looks like in the sun. Do the little hairs glint blond or reddish? Why can’t I remember?
I start on the next mini bourbon bottle. Burns my throat and makes my chest and shoulders go all warm and heavy. I love that. The Bama offense takes the field again, and I finish the second little plastic bottle. I’ve cut back some lately, trying not to fuck my grades up too much, and so this hits just right. I feel better as I track him across the field. He stays in the pocket more now, running it less. The offensive line does a good job of protecting him.
I realize that all I want right now is to see him through every play. Be sure he doesn't get hurt. See him finish out the game and jog off the field. See him with my eyes, here in the flesh, for as long as I can. It's like a desert...and these are little drops of water. Condensation rolling off a plant and hitting cracked dirt. But I'll take it.
I'll take it. I'll hold it in my heart like a thorn and let it poison me. Even though the poison pain hurts so much, I'm becoming a drunk just to be able to breathe.
"Bama's gonna win this shit. For sure," Daniel is saying.
I look at the scoreboard—remembering there is a scoreboard—and I realize with a gut-punch feeling that the game is almost over. Bama's running down the clock now. Ez gets hit again with 3:57 left on the clock. He flies sideways a few feet and lands on his shoulder. The left shoulder. But he gets right back up. He got hit earlier, back in the second quarter. That hit looked hard, and I wonder if it hurt his back because the trainers started standing behind him after that, one of them rubbing on him like he's theirs to touch.
It's okay, I tell myself. He is theirs.
I open the third bottle. Got a nice buzz going. Almost good to see him out there. Fucking Ezra. He runs like a cheetah. When the jumbotron shows his face, I can smile without it hurting too bad.
"Dude, how much did you drink?" Daniel's hand claps my back, jolting me out of my headspace.
"I dunno man. Football's boring."
"I think Jenna's right. We gotta dry you out, bruh."
I snort at that and take a sip of my Coke Icee. "Okay, Mr. Amphetamine."
"At least that shit won't hurt your liver."
"I think some of it can."
Daniel leans in closer. "Are you ready for the party tonight at your frat?"
"I guess."
Which means no. I don't know why I even pledged. I don't like going out and doing shit, and there's a bunch of shit we have to do all the time.
Daniel keeps yammering about this guy Ben Nelson who's a friend of his, who wants to meet me. When that doesn’t work, he brings up Zane—this wrestler in my frat who told Daniel that he wants to roofie me. I try to ignore that bullshit and focus on Ez. He's on the bench again. He's sitting between two guys. I'm straining my eyes to see him. My eyes start to water.
"Yo, is that your mom?"
I frown, looking around, but he holds up my phone. "Dude I think your mom is calling."
I ignore it.
Mom and Carl are here, even though I found out recently that Ezra still hasn't spoken with them since a few weeks after leaving the house. Wonder if they'll try to track him down after the game.
Maybe I should answer. But I'm too drunk. Mom will notice.
Thinking of my mom brings up a deep groundswell of guilt and regret. I push it back down and finish the third bottle. Good and shit-faced. It's like armor.
I need armor as the game wraps. It’s over. Ezra wins. All the Bama guys lift him up on their backs, carrying him along the sidelines like a sultan. I watch how his body moves. He seems loose and relaxed. Probably tired.
TV interviewers swarm him. And Daniel's elbowing me.
"Hey daydream believer. We gotta go, see?" Everyone is up and moving. Filing out of the student section. I swallow as we shuffle single-file off of our row, realizing only as we reach the cement stars that I forgot my Icee.
It's okay. Seems fitting.
Daniel's kind of shallow in some ways, but the guy's perceptive. He knows something's off with me. Somehow he ends up behind me on the cement stairs, his hand at my back like he knows I'm so wasted I can barely get my shoe soles to hit flat on the stairs.
When we're down, he says bye to his friends who were sitting on the other side of him and says, "Where to, Millsy?"
"Don't call me that. Please."
"Sorry." He looks sorry. "Josh. Where you wanna walk to this fine evening?"
People are everywhere. The stadium holds something like 80,000 people, and it seemed like every seat was taken tonight.
"I don't know," I tell him.
"Frat house it is, then. You need to stop at your place?"
"No," I manage. I look around—the cement walls, the cement floors, the fucking masses. Ezra's here. He's here tonight!
Ezra won a game for Bama tonight.
I tell myself I'm happy for him. I am kind of happy. I want him to do well.
"Josh?" Daniel is squeezing my shoulder. "You with me, man?"
"Too many people," I say.
"Fuck yeah, there are. Let's get going."
Three
Ezra
I look at the passenger's seat in my Jeep—checking. There's no reason to check, though. I can still see him. Feel him. Feel how I feel with Miller right beside me. Like I swallowed sunlight and it's leaking into every single cell, turning them all soft and bright. It's like...exuberance. A bigger version of the way I feel—felt—when I would watch him on Snapchat or Insta. I close my eyes and let the feeling have me for a second.
When I open them, I look at the passenger seat again. Empty and dark. Cold in here.
We won the game, yet I can’t make that feel as real as my obsession with Josh Miller.
After the game, I took an ice bath to chill my muscles, speed recovery along. I stuck around the locker room to talk to everybody, check on the few guys who got hurt or messed up big plays. Then when everybody else got back on the bus, I went to my Jeep. I brought it down here last week, peeked in on Josh as he left the math building, and took the bus back up to T-town. Cleared it with the coaches, and I'm staying here tonight.
This is the night. I got my phone restored by AT&T. Been carrying it around like a bomb in my pocket for a week now. I got the letters that I found in my room when I went to get my Jeep. Just two. I’ve been afraid to read them. Worried it would throw my play off.
But now the game has been won. I did interviews for half an hour after. Un-fucking-defeated, baby.
There's a break in play now—time off before the championships. I feel like I'm ready. Even my new therapist, Greeley, knows I'm gonna try to find Josh tonight. Or tomorrow. But...I'm doing it tonight. With all my obligations fulfilled, it's okay to fuck my head up. It's okay to fuck my world up. That's what's gonna happen if there's nothing from him in my phone. Or in these folded papers from my bedroom at Mom’s.
If how I feel about this guy is all made up...
Don't think about it. Not yet.
Greeley said that I could call them. Any time this weekend. Pastor Luke hooked me up with a good one.
I look around the Auburn student parking lot. Cars coming and going. I hear car horns through my rolled-up windows. Hoards of cars leaving the campus area. Tailgaters. Drunk Auburn fans. They're pissed off that we won. Bama fans are gloating. Two walk through the lot a little ways ahead of me, jumping like those little barky dogs that can go airborne.
I breathe deeply. Turn the phone on. While it powers up, I shut my eyes and try to do what Greeley told me to do. Feel my feet on the floor. Feel my back against the car’s seat. Feel the seat under my aching, slightly shaky quads.
I am me, and I feel fucking terrified. And I'm right there.
It's this little meditative chant thing. Greeley says it helps anxiety.
My eyes are aching when I open them, already stinging with the threat of tears as I look at my phone's screen.
I have 117 notifications.
And Josh Miller is my background photo.
"Oh my God!”
Tears start down my face as I put in the new password the store set. That clears all the notifications off his picture.
In the shot, he's on a bed I don't remember. He’s smiling softly. Beautiful. Maybe half asleep. He doesn't have his fucking shirt on.
Oh, fuck. Fuuuuck.
A tear drops onto the screen—onto Josh Miller's face—and then my shaking fingers navigate to missed calls.
Millsy.
Oh God. He's listed in my contacts that way!
I move to voicemail…try to breathe. I shut my eyes for half a second.
I'm so scared. And I'm right here.
Tears keep coming. My throat fucking aches. There's a column of voice messages from Millsy. They’re from last November…and December.
Fuck, oh fuck… I should have done this sooner!
I turn up the volume, choose the oldest one I see, and feel the blood drain from my cheeks as the first note of his voice hits my ears.
“Ez? Hey. Call me. Don’t know where you went, and I’m worried.”
I don't move at all. Can’t even breathe as I click on the next one.
"Ezra? Love you. Where’d you go, man?”
Tears are dripping down my face as I select another. Now his voice is high and choked up. "Ezra? What’s the matter, man? I’m really worried. Please call. I don’t believe you would just go. Without some kind of…I don’t know." His voice cracks, and warmth flushes through my chest. "Did your mom find out?”
I can barely see for my tears, and I’m pretty sure I might throw up, but I have to keep listening.
“Ez? Are you okay? Can I come see you? Can you call me?”
I click on the next one.
"Ezra, please." My throat stings as I hear him trying not to cry. "Please call me, angel. I don’t know what I did wrong, but call me. Please.” It’s half sobbed. "I want to know you’re okay.” His voice thins and breaks. “I need to…”
I punch the next one with a shaking finger.
“Ezra. Hi. I’m sorry for calling you crying.” He sniffles, his voice thickening. “Can you call me? Please? I love you, angel. Hope you’re okay. Infinity…remember? I’ll be here till then, okay?”
I can’t listen for a minute. My hand clutches my chest as what’s under the ink feels like it’s breaking apart.
Through the blur of my tears, I select another “Millsy” voicemail.
"Hey. It's Mills. I haven't called you in a little while. Giving you space and...some shit. I hope you're okay." There's a pause. Tears are falling off my jaw even as I wipe them. "I love you, Ezzie. I'm not gonna stop. Take care of yourself, okay? Promise. Remember how valuable you are. How much I need you to stay safe. Take good care of you for me." His voice goes hoarse there. For a second, it's just silence. "I don’t think I’ll ever be the same without you," he whispers. "I love you for infinity," he chokes.
He's breathing hard, like he's trying to keep from losing it more. "I miss you in physics. Everybody misses you. I want to hold you. I hope you’re sleeping," he says, sounding muffled now. "I hope you don’t hate me. Bye, Ez," he whispers.
I’m not weak. I just need someone to hold me. So I- pretend.
I see the new therapist in a few days.
The man from AT&T said he’s going to call me back himself- also in a few days.
I strained my throwing arm just a little. Send it kisses. I’ll kiss all your freckles in my dreams.
Maybe I am actually crazy.
Don’t think I don’t know that.
Do you play cello, Miller? Have you ever played? The last two nights, I dreamed of a cello in the room where you were holding me so fucking snug.
When I checked our old school’s website, it said you play drums.
* * *
Ezra
September 9, 2019
Hi, My Miller.
I played college football this past weekend!! NCAA, baby-
I passed for 197 yards, ran for 66, and I split starting time with Hollis even though he’s got seniority and he’s been playing well lately.
I’m not gonna lie- it was everything I wanted. I got a little freaked out right before we ran out on the field, but after that, it was like riding a bike.
The coaches are happy. I feel like I’m living in a dream. When I walk around now, everybody knows me. It’s weird.
You watched football this weekend at a sports bar. I saw it on your Snapchat.
Did you watch me?
I like to think you did. That maybe we were friends, at least, and you were happy for me.
I’d like to think you thought about me.
I feel weird that I’m writing these fake letters to you.
For a while, I felt happy. Like at least I have this good thing, even if it is weird. Now I feel more weird, though. You have your own life, and I guess I do too.
My mom left a message with the floor monitor at my dorm saying she’s coming to visit me Wednesday and Thursday this week.
I know this is devious as fuck but I’m going to take a bus up to Richmond at that same time, break into my bedroom window, and steal back my Jeep. It’s a black Wrangler, and I miss it. I lost it when I bounced from Sheppard Pratt. But I paid for almost all of it myself. I waited tables at a restaurant starting when I was 15, and I didn’t stop until I went to Alton.
I’m thinking of deleting Snapchat. If I’m going to feel this way about you, I kind of want it to be more organic…not because I watch you on snap all day and have this feeling we’re connected- when maybe we’re not.
* * *
Ezra
October 16, 2019
Miller.
I’m eating all this protein. To help me recover from the games.
Fuck, Miller. The first day of October, I think I remembered you. I was getting in my Jeep to go get more eggs. I looked over at the passenger’s seat, and it’s like…I could see you in it. Not even “see” you- I could feel you sitting there. And feel the way I felt about it. How I would feel if I had you in my car. Like the whole world is limitless. Like anything might happen- but not any bad thing. Good things. It was a Christmas morning feeling, and it seemed so real.
I hadn’t looked at Snapchat in a while, but after that, I downloaded it again.
Yesterday at practice, someone hit me too hard. Knocked the air out of my lungs and sort of rattled my head for a second. Someone mentioned pulling me into the clinic room inside the locker room. Scared the fuck out of me. You know what?
I whimpered, “Mills.”
Mills.
Not Miller.
Mills.
I’m in Auburn right now. Sitting under a tree near the stadium. I walked by your apartment building, or the one I think might be yours.
Maybe we had something.
Maybe.
I guess it’s over now.
I found some papers in my hiding spot in my old room at Mom’s, when I went up there to steal my Jeep back. I’m getting my old phone restored as soon as I can drop by the AT&T store.
Auburn-Alabama’s coming up fast.
It’s here on your campus this year.
I’m seeing a therapist. A nonbinary one that I like.
After the season is over, we’re going to start doing trauma therapy. I think the person likes me okay. I’m trying to be honest.
They say it’s okay to watch your snaps, but I don’t know if it is. I don’t want to be that weirdo.
Soon, I’ll have to read the letters I found in my bedroom.
Soon, I have to go and get the phone and turn it on and see what’s in it.
Soon, I’ll know if none of this is real.
I still don’t want to.
Two
Josh
November 18, 2019
I watch the drumline over in the marching band section—beside the stadium’s student section, where I’m sitting. There are six of them, three guys and three girls, if their appearances sync with their genders. They seem happy, like they enjoy playing drums in Auburn’s Marching Tiger Band. One of them is eating popcorn.
It was a bad thing, coming to the game tonight. Jenna tried her best to talk me out of it, but in the end she stayed home with some kind of flu thing. I think she’s too sick to worry over me. I’ve been texting Shawna, her roomie, to keep tabs on her.
At every other moment, my eyes are locked on Ezra. University of Alabama—Auburn’s archrival—number 14. He’s run for two touchdowns and passed for some obscene number of yards I can’t keep track of.
I watch now as the jumbotron camera zooms in on him. He’s on the away team’s bench, guzzling something from a water bottle, and I wonder if it’s grape Propel. There’s someone behind him, someone dressed in a crimson University of Alabama Polo shirt, doing something to his back. Almost looks like the guy’s rubbing him.
Ezra tilts his head back, and I reach into my bag to get my little plastic bottle of bourbon—one of those travel-sized ones everybody sneaks into the stadium.
“I don’t know what you’ve got against that dude, man. Fucking hot,” Daniel says over the murmurs of the crowd. “Look when they zoom in…those dick-sucking lips.”
I finish off the bourbon bottle. There’s two more where that one came from.
Pretty shortly, Bama’s offense swaps with defense, and he’s jogging back out onto the field.
It’s so weird…he moves just the same. I look down at him and try to see through his clothes and his pads, his helmet. I try to see the Ezra under all that, across the probably eighty yards and maybe a hundred feet of elevation between him and me. How much bigger is he? I know he’s bulked up even more than the last time I saw him; I can tell that much from the mug shot they show of him on the jumbotron. I bet he’s thicc as fuck and has a dark tan right now. If that mug shot is current, he’s still got his hair buzzed on the sides and longer up top, hanging almost into his eyes. But it’s not blond now. I think it was never really blond. Under the longer part up top, it looked kind of a dark cinnamon brown.
It makes my throat knot up to think of how I don’t even know his real hair color. What it looks like in the sun. Do the little hairs glint blond or reddish? Why can’t I remember?
I start on the next mini bourbon bottle. Burns my throat and makes my chest and shoulders go all warm and heavy. I love that. The Bama offense takes the field again, and I finish the second little plastic bottle. I’ve cut back some lately, trying not to fuck my grades up too much, and so this hits just right. I feel better as I track him across the field. He stays in the pocket more now, running it less. The offensive line does a good job of protecting him.
I realize that all I want right now is to see him through every play. Be sure he doesn't get hurt. See him finish out the game and jog off the field. See him with my eyes, here in the flesh, for as long as I can. It's like a desert...and these are little drops of water. Condensation rolling off a plant and hitting cracked dirt. But I'll take it.
I'll take it. I'll hold it in my heart like a thorn and let it poison me. Even though the poison pain hurts so much, I'm becoming a drunk just to be able to breathe.
"Bama's gonna win this shit. For sure," Daniel is saying.
I look at the scoreboard—remembering there is a scoreboard—and I realize with a gut-punch feeling that the game is almost over. Bama's running down the clock now. Ez gets hit again with 3:57 left on the clock. He flies sideways a few feet and lands on his shoulder. The left shoulder. But he gets right back up. He got hit earlier, back in the second quarter. That hit looked hard, and I wonder if it hurt his back because the trainers started standing behind him after that, one of them rubbing on him like he's theirs to touch.
It's okay, I tell myself. He is theirs.
I open the third bottle. Got a nice buzz going. Almost good to see him out there. Fucking Ezra. He runs like a cheetah. When the jumbotron shows his face, I can smile without it hurting too bad.
"Dude, how much did you drink?" Daniel's hand claps my back, jolting me out of my headspace.
"I dunno man. Football's boring."
"I think Jenna's right. We gotta dry you out, bruh."
I snort at that and take a sip of my Coke Icee. "Okay, Mr. Amphetamine."
"At least that shit won't hurt your liver."
"I think some of it can."
Daniel leans in closer. "Are you ready for the party tonight at your frat?"
"I guess."
Which means no. I don't know why I even pledged. I don't like going out and doing shit, and there's a bunch of shit we have to do all the time.
Daniel keeps yammering about this guy Ben Nelson who's a friend of his, who wants to meet me. When that doesn’t work, he brings up Zane—this wrestler in my frat who told Daniel that he wants to roofie me. I try to ignore that bullshit and focus on Ez. He's on the bench again. He's sitting between two guys. I'm straining my eyes to see him. My eyes start to water.
"Yo, is that your mom?"
I frown, looking around, but he holds up my phone. "Dude I think your mom is calling."
I ignore it.
Mom and Carl are here, even though I found out recently that Ezra still hasn't spoken with them since a few weeks after leaving the house. Wonder if they'll try to track him down after the game.
Maybe I should answer. But I'm too drunk. Mom will notice.
Thinking of my mom brings up a deep groundswell of guilt and regret. I push it back down and finish the third bottle. Good and shit-faced. It's like armor.
I need armor as the game wraps. It’s over. Ezra wins. All the Bama guys lift him up on their backs, carrying him along the sidelines like a sultan. I watch how his body moves. He seems loose and relaxed. Probably tired.
TV interviewers swarm him. And Daniel's elbowing me.
"Hey daydream believer. We gotta go, see?" Everyone is up and moving. Filing out of the student section. I swallow as we shuffle single-file off of our row, realizing only as we reach the cement stars that I forgot my Icee.
It's okay. Seems fitting.
Daniel's kind of shallow in some ways, but the guy's perceptive. He knows something's off with me. Somehow he ends up behind me on the cement stairs, his hand at my back like he knows I'm so wasted I can barely get my shoe soles to hit flat on the stairs.
When we're down, he says bye to his friends who were sitting on the other side of him and says, "Where to, Millsy?"
"Don't call me that. Please."
"Sorry." He looks sorry. "Josh. Where you wanna walk to this fine evening?"
People are everywhere. The stadium holds something like 80,000 people, and it seemed like every seat was taken tonight.
"I don't know," I tell him.
"Frat house it is, then. You need to stop at your place?"
"No," I manage. I look around—the cement walls, the cement floors, the fucking masses. Ezra's here. He's here tonight!
Ezra won a game for Bama tonight.
I tell myself I'm happy for him. I am kind of happy. I want him to do well.
"Josh?" Daniel is squeezing my shoulder. "You with me, man?"
"Too many people," I say.
"Fuck yeah, there are. Let's get going."
Three
Ezra
I look at the passenger's seat in my Jeep—checking. There's no reason to check, though. I can still see him. Feel him. Feel how I feel with Miller right beside me. Like I swallowed sunlight and it's leaking into every single cell, turning them all soft and bright. It's like...exuberance. A bigger version of the way I feel—felt—when I would watch him on Snapchat or Insta. I close my eyes and let the feeling have me for a second.
When I open them, I look at the passenger seat again. Empty and dark. Cold in here.
We won the game, yet I can’t make that feel as real as my obsession with Josh Miller.
After the game, I took an ice bath to chill my muscles, speed recovery along. I stuck around the locker room to talk to everybody, check on the few guys who got hurt or messed up big plays. Then when everybody else got back on the bus, I went to my Jeep. I brought it down here last week, peeked in on Josh as he left the math building, and took the bus back up to T-town. Cleared it with the coaches, and I'm staying here tonight.
This is the night. I got my phone restored by AT&T. Been carrying it around like a bomb in my pocket for a week now. I got the letters that I found in my room when I went to get my Jeep. Just two. I’ve been afraid to read them. Worried it would throw my play off.
But now the game has been won. I did interviews for half an hour after. Un-fucking-defeated, baby.
There's a break in play now—time off before the championships. I feel like I'm ready. Even my new therapist, Greeley, knows I'm gonna try to find Josh tonight. Or tomorrow. But...I'm doing it tonight. With all my obligations fulfilled, it's okay to fuck my head up. It's okay to fuck my world up. That's what's gonna happen if there's nothing from him in my phone. Or in these folded papers from my bedroom at Mom’s.
If how I feel about this guy is all made up...
Don't think about it. Not yet.
Greeley said that I could call them. Any time this weekend. Pastor Luke hooked me up with a good one.
I look around the Auburn student parking lot. Cars coming and going. I hear car horns through my rolled-up windows. Hoards of cars leaving the campus area. Tailgaters. Drunk Auburn fans. They're pissed off that we won. Bama fans are gloating. Two walk through the lot a little ways ahead of me, jumping like those little barky dogs that can go airborne.
I breathe deeply. Turn the phone on. While it powers up, I shut my eyes and try to do what Greeley told me to do. Feel my feet on the floor. Feel my back against the car’s seat. Feel the seat under my aching, slightly shaky quads.
I am me, and I feel fucking terrified. And I'm right there.
It's this little meditative chant thing. Greeley says it helps anxiety.
My eyes are aching when I open them, already stinging with the threat of tears as I look at my phone's screen.
I have 117 notifications.
And Josh Miller is my background photo.
"Oh my God!”
Tears start down my face as I put in the new password the store set. That clears all the notifications off his picture.
In the shot, he's on a bed I don't remember. He’s smiling softly. Beautiful. Maybe half asleep. He doesn't have his fucking shirt on.
Oh, fuck. Fuuuuck.
A tear drops onto the screen—onto Josh Miller's face—and then my shaking fingers navigate to missed calls.
Millsy.
Oh God. He's listed in my contacts that way!
I move to voicemail…try to breathe. I shut my eyes for half a second.
I'm so scared. And I'm right here.
Tears keep coming. My throat fucking aches. There's a column of voice messages from Millsy. They’re from last November…and December.
Fuck, oh fuck… I should have done this sooner!
I turn up the volume, choose the oldest one I see, and feel the blood drain from my cheeks as the first note of his voice hits my ears.
“Ez? Hey. Call me. Don’t know where you went, and I’m worried.”
I don't move at all. Can’t even breathe as I click on the next one.
"Ezra? Love you. Where’d you go, man?”
Tears are dripping down my face as I select another. Now his voice is high and choked up. "Ezra? What’s the matter, man? I’m really worried. Please call. I don’t believe you would just go. Without some kind of…I don’t know." His voice cracks, and warmth flushes through my chest. "Did your mom find out?”
I can barely see for my tears, and I’m pretty sure I might throw up, but I have to keep listening.
“Ez? Are you okay? Can I come see you? Can you call me?”
I click on the next one.
"Ezra, please." My throat stings as I hear him trying not to cry. "Please call me, angel. I don’t know what I did wrong, but call me. Please.” It’s half sobbed. "I want to know you’re okay.” His voice thins and breaks. “I need to…”
I punch the next one with a shaking finger.
“Ezra. Hi. I’m sorry for calling you crying.” He sniffles, his voice thickening. “Can you call me? Please? I love you, angel. Hope you’re okay. Infinity…remember? I’ll be here till then, okay?”
I can’t listen for a minute. My hand clutches my chest as what’s under the ink feels like it’s breaking apart.
Through the blur of my tears, I select another “Millsy” voicemail.
"Hey. It's Mills. I haven't called you in a little while. Giving you space and...some shit. I hope you're okay." There's a pause. Tears are falling off my jaw even as I wipe them. "I love you, Ezzie. I'm not gonna stop. Take care of yourself, okay? Promise. Remember how valuable you are. How much I need you to stay safe. Take good care of you for me." His voice goes hoarse there. For a second, it's just silence. "I don’t think I’ll ever be the same without you," he whispers. "I love you for infinity," he chokes.
He's breathing hard, like he's trying to keep from losing it more. "I miss you in physics. Everybody misses you. I want to hold you. I hope you’re sleeping," he says, sounding muffled now. "I hope you don’t hate me. Bye, Ez," he whispers.
