Ezra’s name appeared and I couldn’t focus on anything else.
Multiple texts from him, all asking how I was doing and where I was? Requests for a third date, requests for me to spend the night. They descended into chaotic ramblings about ghostinghim, and how he knew nothing out of my mouth could’ve been true. It stabbed through me like a hot knife, cauterizing just to keep me alive and strengthen the stabbing.
I called him, anger swimming through me. I wanted to crunch the phone in my hands.
Declined. He’d declined it.
Another call.
Another decline.
Answer the phone, please. I can explain. Please.I sent him a text once my thumbs had readjusted to just how tiny the keys were on the screen.
I spoke to my therapist, and they said they think I should cut the negative noise out of my life.He replied.
Answer the phone. Or I’m coming over.
I called again.
“Hello,” he answered. “I’m only doing this because I’m not sure I want to see you right now.”
“I’ll respect your wishes,” I told him. A lie. I was going to see him. “I’ve been sick. I was in hospital.”
“Liar!” he snapped. “I—I—I sound so fucking foolish, but I called the local accident and emergency rooms. I was worried. Your last texts to me were about needing to see me. Then nothing.”
“Ezra, please,” I said, sinking into a seat at the foot of my bed. “You didn’t respond to anything for days.”
“Two days,” he said. “I told you when you came to see me I was going to be in Vegas for a conference. I had no time.”
It was entirely possible, but that wasn’t my fault. He didn’t text back, at all. I had to climb his tree. I had to see inside his apartment to make sure. “If you say so,” I replied.
“I like you, Jacques, but you’re guarded. You’re a different person when you’re with me,” he said. “You make me feel like a dirty secret sometimes, and I’m dealing withsomething huge at work, and I really—I—I—” He started to sob down the phone.
“I’m coming over to you,” I whispered. “I’ll be twenty minutes.”
And that was if I raced—and managed to pass Mercy without her calling me in for whatever work she had. Ezra was the most important thing right now. He was where I needed to be.
He responded weakly. “Okay.” And that was all I needed to slip into sweatpants and a hoodie, skipping the boxers and undershirt.
2. EZRA
Jacques was the last person I wanted to see right now. I wanted closure, obviously, but I also didn’t need him to be here, telling me everything was going to be good, building a fantasy with me, and then leaving after all that comfort and care just to abandon me for ten days. All I needed now was my childhood teddy, Mr. Thimble, and a good glass of wine.
It had all happened intensely. My therapist, Dr. Ramirez had told me there was a lot of need in my life, especially where there was a need to fit in, to find a place and a community. It was always something I’d struggled with. I wasn’t Korean enough for the Asian kids, and I wasn’t white enough for the country club my father had forced me to go to with him. I’d once been asked to clean a table, thinking I was there to work. I never fit in, I never found my place. So when a guy like Jacques walked right into my life, all that roughness to him, and told me I was his little kitten and I didn’t have to worry about anything ever again...
I was stuck in that waiting zone when Jacques finally showed up at the door, a box of chocolates and a bouquet of flowers in hand. “I don’t know how to do this,” he whispered.
My arms folded over, and I held them intensely in place. I had to stay strong. “Do what?”
“Apologize,” he said, looking around like the doorbell camera from next door was going to catch this amazing, magnificent apology he was about to give.
I looked him up and down, all six foot four of him. Fuck, that was apology enough, right? Him showing up when he could’ve just walked down any street and found someone else. My standards were on the floor, and he was about to walk all over them. “Come in,” I grumbled.
“Thank you,” he said, leaning in as I dodged his kiss. “Come on, kitten. I think we’ve both had a pretty awful go of things the last two weeks, but I’m here.”
Closing the door behind him, I briefly closed my eyes and inhaled the musk he travelled with, mixed in with the red roses. “What happened to you?” I asked. “Like, no bullshit. What happened?”
“I know you’re mad,” he said, smiling at me. “But I can explain, and I’ve always been honest with you.”
