Chapter 8 #3
“Where to next?” He bounced on his feet as we left the chocolate store. “I was thinking we could go to an underwear shop.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I bet we could find some interesting stuff there.”
I snorted silently and shook my head at him, and he laughed.
“Ezra?”
A woman’s voice stopped Ezra in his tracks immediately, pulling me to a halt as well.
His eyes widened as they slid to me, fear plastered across his face.
We turned and came face-to-face with a woman who looked so much like an older female version of Ezra, it wasn’t hard to figure out she was his mother.
She had the same face, from their noses to their mouths to their eyes.
“Ezra!” She clutched her bag to her side and rushed toward us, but Ezra’s entire demeanor changed.
His body went tight and he leaned in closer to me.
Instinctively, I slid half in front of him, protecting him with my body.
The movement made her pause as she came to an abrupt halt in front of me. “Ez?”
“Mom?” Ezra buried himself against my back, and I let him, keeping an eye on the woman who seemed innocent, but I knew better. Sometimes it was the least suspicious ones who were the worst.
“Where have you been?” Her tone came out screechy as she tightened her hold on her bag, her stare sliding to me. “I’ve been worried sick for years. You just left the house and were gone when I got home from work. Your uncle—”
“He’s not my uncle by choice,” Ezra hissed.
“—told me you were home when he left to go to Frank’s. And look at you. Why do you have bruises all over your face?” She shot me a glare. “Was it you? Did you do this to him?”
“Mom, stop!” Ezra edged to my side, eyebrows drawn low. “Stop acting innocent. You know I left and never came back because of Gary. And this?” He pointed at his face. “Is nothing compared to what he used to do to me. He beat the shit out of me.”
“That can’t be true.” She rolled her eyes and huffed, smiling at an older gentleman who seemed like he was going to stop and see if everything was okay, but he kept walking.
People were beginning to look at us, and I shifted my weight uncomfortably between my feet. I’d made it my mission to fly under everyone’s radar. I was a nobody and this was giving me attention I didn’t want. Yet, I wasn’t going to let Ezra face her alone.
“Gary would never do that.” She shook her head, brushing a hand through her dark hair. “He saved us when we had nowhere else to go.”
Ezra flinched, his face paling.
“You let it happen, Mom. You made us live there and it’s your fault.” Ezra’s voice bordered on hysterical anger, and I reached behind to grip his wrist for support. Some of the tension bled away from his body and he sighed.
“You should come visit Gary for Christmas,” she said, as though Ezra wasn’t on the verge of enraged tears.
His eyes glistened as she kept talking. “He’d love to see you and you can both work out your issues.
He’ll be alone for Christmas. I have a double shift at the hospital.
” She rolled her eyes. “You know what those seniors are like. So needy. But most of them are in palliative care anyway.”
The more she talked, the more I hated her. The hand that I wasn’t using to hold Ezra’s wrist balled into a fist. I wanted to end her.
She smiled. “So, you should spend Christmas Day with Gary. I’m sure he’d love it.”
“No,” I struggled out sharply, earning a surprised and confused look from his mom.
Ezra’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “I’d rather rot.” His eyes were wild, a storm brewing in the hazel depths, and I understood that feeling well because I’d felt the same about my own father.
“Ezra—”
“We’re done here,” Ezra snapped, glancing at me. “Let’s go.”
I nodded and sent his mother a scowl before I took Ezra’s hand and led him away. She called his name, but we ignored her. Ezra’s palm was sweaty in mine, and I gripped it tighter to let him know I wasn’t going to let go.
We left the mall, Ezra stomping with more aggression than I’d seen from him before. Once we had the rest of the bags loaded into the car, we both got inside the cab. I switched on the ignition to turn on the heater, and he settled into the passenger seat, stare distant as he gazed at the building.
I stayed silent, aware of his bad mood seeping out of him, as though expunging all the poison in his system. When finally, his shoulders drooped, I grabbed his hand and threaded our fingers together.
He sent me a small smile. “I hate them. Both of them.”
I tilted my chin to let him know I understood.
“We moved in with him when I was thirteen. We’d been alone since my dad left.
I think I was about six or seven when he walked out the door.
I don’t know.” A tick began in his jaw and his nostrils flared.
“We’d never been close anyway. She always went from one man to another, searching for someone to take care of her.
When she couldn’t find another man, she turned to Gary, her brother.
We moved in with him, and he hated me from the beginning.
I didn’t know him before that, didn’t know he existed.
Sometimes I wonder if he is really my uncle. ”
I clutched the steering wheel, my knuckles turning white.
“I was thirteen. Innocent. I thought I was getting a father figure, but instead I was his punching bag. It started the week we moved in. I told Mom, and she didn’t believe me.
Said I was misbehaving and Gary probably spanked me.
” He laughed sadly. “Said I’d been a bad kid since Dad left.
I was out of control. And I was, that much was true, but I thought she’d believe me about Gary. ”
The tears that had been glistening in his eyes since he’d seen her escaped, dropping and sliding down his cheek. I released my hold on the steering wheel to brush one away with my thumb.
“He had a tradition on Christmas Eve. It was his favorite game.” His voice shook.
“He made me watch all the Home Away From Home movies, even the horrible sequels, without going to the bathroom. Threatened that if I did, he’d throw me and my mom out.
It scared me at the time. He forced glasses of water down my throat with more threats, making it worse.
Even if I was ready to burst and begging him to let me use the toilet, he wouldn’t until I pissed myself right there on the couch.
Then he’d make me clean it up with a toothbrush.
The beatings were worse if I didn’t do what he’d told me to.
He threatened to hurt Mom in ways I never want to talk about.
He scared me.” He gave me a shaky smile, everything about him trembling.
“I hate her for not believing me when I did so much for her. And I hate him, too. I despised Christmas for so long because of Gary.”
“Do you want them to die?” I asked, ignoring the aching pain from talking. For Ezra, I would accept any type of agony.
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Not her.” Another few tears tracked down his flushed face. “I want her to suffer. But Gary?” This time when he smiled, it was in rage. “He deserves death.”
I leaned closer and brushed my nose against his. Our lips met, soft and sweet, and his taste was intoxicating. I wasn’t gay, straight, or bisexual, and while I didn’t know what label I belonged to, I knew one thing for sure—I was definitely Ezrasexual. “Then, he will die.”