She scoffs. I tab a page, then close the book. We’re off to the living room where we start cycling through the movie options. A cheesy, but comfortable Marvel movie is selected. Melissa rolls her eyes, but she concedes because all the men are hot. They are, but I won’t verbally agree. Mom passes the living room where Melissa and I sit in anything but silence. Five minutes in and Melissa’s already complaining.
“Want to join us, Mom?” I ask.
She lingers behind the couch and studies the movie for a second. I don’t see her commit to the act, but I can practically feel her eyes roll.
“Thank you, sweetheart, but I think I’m going to get ready for bed,” she says and saunters off with a “good night.”
The movie ensues in its disorderly fashion. Melissa’s silent when she’s invested, but these moments are familiar and comfortable. When we arrive at a particular lull in the plot, I crane my head in her direction and notice her bored expression.
“Does Dan know you’re here?” I question.
“Nah,” she says, “he thinks I’m out with Emery. He’dflipif he knew you and I were hanging out. He’s still convinced you like me.”
“I do like you,” I joke, which elicits a playful slap to my deltoid. “It’s ridiculous though.”
“Such is the way of a heterosexual man, my not-so-straight friend. How’s Ezra, by the way?”
My shoulders tense as a hot, pricking heat flushes my cheeks. I don’t think Ezra is interested in anyone, which at one point oranother made me believe he could be aroace. It’d be weird to try to hit on my best friend of fourteen years, though.
“Fine.”
“Just fine? When was the last time you talked with him?”
I ponder for a moment, reluctant to confide in her about this—the severity of Ezra’s situation. I could probably omit that part, though.
“A little while. He hasn’t responded to me.”
“Have you bothered checking on him at school or going around to his place?”
“I haven’t had the time,” I say with an immense amount of guilt pressuring my lungs.
“Sure,” she says, unfazed. “If only you would confess your feelings for him, then maybe—”
“Shut up!” I exclaim.
“Conin!” Mom calls from her bedroom.
I quiet down.
“I hate these movies. They feel so prevalent today,” Melissa says under her breath.
They do. The accords are like our registration policies and the Recidivism Act, or the mutants confined to a school due to the world treating them like freaks because of a trait that sets them apart from everyone else. Our world is downright cruel. And this movie? I find no enjoyment in it anymore.
I’m about to suggest we turn on something else when a knock comes from the door.
Chapter 5
Ezra
Ipound hard on Conin’s front door. The world shakes, blurred at the edges of my peripheries. My damp clothes cling to my skin. It continues to pour warm, relentless rain. I can barely stand upright. I can barely think straight. God knows I’ve never been able to do that. Like the masochist that I am, I met with Thax and his stupid friends to get high. And now I’m at Conin’s doorstep because it’s the only damn place I thought I could go to. Is he mad at me for being quiet these past several weeks? Will he turn me away when he realizes that I’m high as a kite? Conin answers the door, though I hardly register that he’s there in the flesh.
“Ezra?”
Conin Bresshet. The man I love with every fiber of my being. He’s eighteen now. I can call him a man. That’s sorta cool. I notice the way his belly fills out the T-shirt he wears, his strong chest, and his muscled arms. The mop of blonde curls that fallsonto a faded undercut. His azure blue eyes. I ogle at him, not caring if he notices. He repeats my name.
Melissa Abernathy materializes at his side. My mood instantly sours. I may or may not have whispered that I didn’t want her here. I don’t know. I’m mad that she is. Why the hell is she here? Were she and Conin—
Conin and Melissa whisper to one another. This sours my mood even more. I can make out bits and pieces of their hushed conversation, but nothing concrete. The next second, I’m somehow inside. Melissa is still fucking talking with Conin! She offers to help, but he says that he has it under control. Smug, I nod.He’s got it.The two say goodbye to each other. Melissa sounds concerned. I hate that she does.
