Ezra
As soon as the worn-down Chrysler pulls into Emery’s packed street, I regret saying yes to Conin. Her home is decked to the nines with students. Half of them probably don’t even go to Ogden High, in need of something mundane to occupy their weekend with cheap thrills and stale beer. A claustrophobic agitation itches my skin. Conin glances at me with a furrowed brow, trying to detect the bullshit—I don’t want to be here. I slip on my signature resting bitch face. I pull on the hem of my sleeves to make sure they’re covering the brunt end of my scars even when most of the people here have probably seen them at one point or another. Together, we shuffle inside.
We can hardly move. The throng of people won’t budge, relentless at the threshold of Emery’s home. Conin pushes our way through. There are a few grunts and stifled protests, but he manages.
“Is this okay?” he questions once we’ve skirted around the worst of it.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” I lie. “I’m fine.”
He’s skeptical, but I won’t admit anything. Instead, I chart my course straight to the alcohol. I’ll take cheap, stale beer over sobriety any day. With each step, that numbness settles in, and with it, the craving for liquid death. Conin’s eyes sear holes into my flesh. They burn into me until I arrive at the kitchen where an honest-to-god keg sits on top of the island. Tommy Donahue pours a gold liquid into his red solo cup. I have the sudden urge to turn away. Right as I’m about to, Tommy looks up, and takes this unfortunate opportunity to call my name. I redirect myself to the keg and act unbothered by the encounter.
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” Tommy says, reminding me too much of Conin. I ghosted him, too. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’ve just been . . . busy, with orchestra,” I lie.
The third or maybe the fourth time tonight.
Beer sloshes into my cup. I half-ass a smile at Tommy and then move in search of Conin. Tommy sighs and hurries to stop me. He grabs my wrist. The act itself isn’t violent, but the swift suddenness of the action makes me flinch. I whirl at Tommy and he backs away with arms raised in surrender. Understanding dawns on his face.
“Sorry,” he says.
“What do you want?” I hiss. The music’s loud. There are so many people. I feel backed against the wall, the air is tight, my throat closes.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
“No,” I say, “I haven’t.”
“Yes, you have,” Tommy persists. I glare daggers at him, willing him to push me to the edge.
“I’ve been texting you, calling you even. We need to talk—”
“About what?” I contend.
The speakers blast. Everyone’s voices drown under the blaring music. I quell the urge to be sick.
“I’m assuming you saw the news, about the recidivist reforms . . . the mandatory testing. How are you holding up?” he asks. On instinct, I check to see if anyone overheard. I don’t think they could even if they tried. Tommy is barely audible. I have to seriously strain to hear him.
“I’mfine,” I insist.
Recidivist or not, I don’t want to be having this conversation with Tommy Donahue. Not here, not now. The beer suddenly vanishes in my cup. I down it in one gulp and push past him to refill it to the brim. Tommy, like the indelible stain that he is, follows. Even after I’ve filled my cup, he idles close behind me. He watches as if he’s my guard, there for protection, but allowing enough leniency for me to do as I please. I get sick of it really fucking fast. I ignore Tommy in search of Conin. My search is for naught as the throng of students has multiplied. They’re everywhere and it’s hard to breathe. I can’t breathe.
“Ezra?” comes Tommy’s voice.
“Leave me alone,” I shout. He cringes.
I push through the sea of people, but Tommy is nothing if not persistent. He was persistent back then, too. When we first met, it was in the music hall. He looked nervous, wringing his hands together as if he were about to confess unrequited feelings. I ignored him at first until it became clear he was there to see me. I’d seen him around, but he and I never interacted. I was confused and thought it was some prank, or perhaps a friend of Conin’s I wasn’t aware of, but I decided to concede.
“Hey, sorry, um . . . my name’s Tommy. You’re Ezra Gray, right?” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Can we talk?”
Turned out Tommy’s a recidivist. He told me he could feel my presence, sense it unmistakably. When I was hurt and confused, attempting to understand how he knew and what was in it forhim, he conceded by presenting to me his abilities. Tommy said not everyone had the capability of sensing other recidivists’ presences, that others were just more attuned to the sensation. If I felt broken then, I certainly felt irreparable afterward. We soon were acquainted and resembled friends in some regard. Admittedly, Tommy’s helped me through a lot. I may be angry with him now, but I am grateful he reached out to me all those months ago.
I just didn’t need a constant reminder of what I am when I’ve been trying so hard to forget.
And in the waves of never-ending bodies, I see Thax. He sports a bruised eye and a bloodied lip that’s dried over. Lukeman Gray did this to him. As much as I hate my brother, it breaks me to see him this way. Knowing that, even through all the pain Thax has caused me, he and I still have the same father. He and I had to go through this shit together. If I had stayed in the Gray household, what more would our father have done to me? The violin would not have been the means to an end. It would only have been the start of something more.
