15
Ezra
Ezra let himself be led to Jude and Al’s master bedroom, which was fitting, as he knew he was about to get well and truly fucked. What the hell had he been thinking, admitting those things out loud? Sure, in the moment it had felt good to get it all off his chest, but the moment was over now, and his chest was heavier than ever.
Heavy with guilt, and shame, and fear of what was coming next.
Would Al be in there when Jude opened the door? Was Jude’s plan to march him directly to his slighted lover and force Ezra to confess? Because, yeah, Al deserved the truth, but man, that was going to suck… and the worst part of it was, Ezra couldn’t tell what Jude was planning. Jude wasn’t the kind of guy who would screw him over like that, but what Ezra had done wasn’t exactly on the same level as any of their other squabbles. An “I can’t believe you used my jar of coconut oil for lube,” this was not. This was the big leagues, and it stood to reason Jude might want to play a little hardball.
But no onewas there when Jude opened the door.
“Where are the kids?” Ezra asked nervously as he stepped inside.
“Napping.” Jude closed the door. “And Al’s out back. He’s made a habit of going out there lately. I think having his brother here is really overwhelming for him.” He said this part pointedly, and Ezra bloomed red with shame.
Jude locked the door while Ezra went to sit on the foot of the bed.
“Okay,” he said with a helpless shrug once Jude turned back around. “Go ahead. Rip me a new asshole. I deserve it.”
Jude regarded him for a long second, arms crossed, then blew out a breath and came to sit next to Ezra on the bed. “What the fuck, man? You and Titan? Help me understand.”
“Help you understand?” Ezra laughed humorlessly. “Man, I don’t understand it myself.”
“There has to be more to it than that,” Jude insisted. “I know you—you once apologized to a door for slamming it too hard. Yeah, you might’ve been a little high at the time, but… my point still stands. You don’t have it in you to be cruel, so the only way you’d hurt Al like this is if you had a good reason.”
Jude’s belief in the goodness of his character only served to make him feel even more like a piece of old gum stuck to the bottom of a tennis shoe. Did he have a good reason? He didn’t think so, but then, if anyone knew what it was like to be inexplicably drawn to a hot alien despite the warning signs, it was Jude.
Maybe this didn’t have to be an argument.
Maybe Jude could offer some much-needed insight, because lord knew Ezra could use it right about now.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he began, “he can be a total jerk, but also… I think there may be something more to him than that, and whatever that something is, I’m into it. Like, really into it. And it’s ruining my fucking life.”
He noticedthat, without consciously deciding to, he was chewing on his cuticle.
Jude twisted his mouth, taking this in. He drummed his fingers on his thigh and searched Ezra’s face as though looking for more to work with.
“I haven’t spent much time with Titan,” Jude confessed. “Al doesn’t want him around, and the kids keep me so busy I haven’t had time to really get to know him myself, so I can’t speak on the type of person—er, alien—he is, but I can speak on douchey brothers.”
“Right. You and Lennon. Oil and water.”
“To put it mildly,” Jude agreed. A troubled look crossed his face, and he paused for a moment, seemingly to gather his thoughts. Eventually, he said, “When Al first told me about his family, I felt like I knew exactly what he was going through, because in a lot of ways, my family dynamic is the same. My brother has always been the golden child—the one my parents thought could do no wrong—and no matter what I did or how hard I tried, I felt like I always fell short of their expectations. For a long time I thought this was my fault, and it made me hate Lennon because he was the embodiment of everything I could never achieve. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the way he’s treated me has been shitty to the extreme, but when I thought about it, what really hurt was knowing no matter what I did, my parents would never love me the way they lovehim.”
Jude’s voice cracked, and hearing it sent a wash of sorrow through Ezra that broke him to his very core. He scooted over and brushed his shoulder against Jude’s, letting Jude know he was there.
Jude chuckled and wiped his eyes. He hadn’t shed a tear, but it had been a near thing.
“I’m okay,” he promised. “I’ve been coming to terms with it for a while, and my relationship with my folks has improved since… well…everything,and I’ve been working on my relationship with myself, too. Seeing how down Al was on himself reallyopened my eyes, because he’s so funny, and smart, and determined, and hardworking, and caring, yet he couldn’t see it, and I thought… I thought to myself, if he can’t see something so obvious, what am I missing about myself? I’m worthwhile, too, even if my parents don’t—or didn’t—see it. I’m talented and tenacious. I’m artistic. I’m resourceful. I have all these wonderful traits that I never learned to appreciate because my parents made me feel like I was a failure in comparison to my brother. It was never me; it wasthem.And that got me thinking about Lennon, and what parts of himself he had to minimize to meet their picture of who he was as a human being.
“It’s fucked. It’s really fucked, what they did. Being a parent has made me realize just how much our folks influence us, and how much power they yield over our development. I’m not saying Lennon is blameless—he’s an adult who can make his own decisions and reflect upon his own actions—but, fuck, if it took me falling in love and having kids to realize these things about myself, what hope does he have of snapping out of it? Yeah, he’s treated me like crap, but he’s not the villain I always made him out to be. Our mom and dad shaped the person he is today, and he’s going to have to wade through a lot of bullshit in order to break out of that mold and become the guy he would have been if their shitty parenting hadn’t fucked him all up.”
“And you think Titan is the same?” Ezra asked cautiously.
Jude shrugged. “I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t really know him. All I know is that Al and I were brought up in very similar ways, and I see a lot of myself in him. It wouldn’t surprise me if Titan is the way he is because he was raised like my folks raised Lennon.”
“So… what does that mean?”
Jude clicked his tongue and leaned back, hands sinking into the mattress. He tilted his chin so he was looking up at the ceiling. “Well, I guess it means Titan is an asshole by design who has a lot of shit he’ll need to wade through before he can become the person he was meant to be. There’s a lot he’ll need to overcome while he learns to accept responsibility for his actions, but whether he’ll turn out to be a bigger asshole once he does is unclear.”
