EZRA
‘ O H , HI .’
The dark-haired girl who’s opened the door to Mac’s apartment is holding a crumpled joint between her fingers, smiling in a pink dress and comically oversized blazer.
‘Hi,’ I say uncertainly. ‘Is this Mac’s place?’
‘No waaaaay ,’ she drawls, smile widening. ‘You’re British?’
‘More so than not,’ I reply, and she laughs like I’ve said something hilarious.
‘Mac said he’d invited someone,’ she says, looking up at me through her eyelashes. ‘I guess that’s you. Are you an actor?’
‘He works at the restaurant,’ Mac snaps, appearing out of nowhere and snatching the joint from between her fingers. ‘And can you stop waving this shit around the hallway? We’re going to get another complaint.’
He ushers us inside, shutting the door with a scowl. The girl just smiles serenely, leaning against it.
‘He worries too much,’ she says, flicking her hair over her shoulder. ‘I’m Courtney, by the way. I live here.’
‘Ezra,’ I say absently, distracted by a small, boxy television in the corner of the furniture-less living room. It’s playing a movie that no one is watching, the dialogue inaudible over the music. The Apartment – the scene at the Christmas party. I love this movie. My mum showed it to me. Then I showed it to Audrey. Then – then nothing. Maybe the TV isn’t even on. Maybe I’m finally cracking up.
‘Ezra!’ Mac says, and with some force. I blink at him, startled.
‘Sorry?’ I reply. He’s looking at me with wide-eyed incredulity – he must have been trying to get my attention for some time, I realise.
‘Your hand ,’ he says. ‘What happened?’
Courtney’s gaze drops, her mouth forming a perfect ‘o’ of surprise.
‘Oh. Uh – stupid accident,’ I say, flexing it slightly. It’s a little stiff and looks gruesome – my knuckles are purplish-red, split open and caked with dried blood. After Audrey left my apartment for what I’m sure was the last time I caught sight of myself in the shiny surface of the fridge – my stupid fucking face, contorted with shame and panic. The wave of self-loathing was so immediate and all-consuming that I don’t even remember hitting it.
Stupid, yes, but not technically an accident.
‘You need to take care of that,’ Mac says seriously.
‘It’s fine,’ I tell him. ‘I sterilised it.’
Translation – I poured vodka over it. Then I poured the rest down my throat, because of course I did. I’ve been steadily drinking and drifting in and out of consciousness all day, paralysed by the utter fucking lack of reasons to do anything else. Then Mac messaged, and I was suddenly so desperate not to be alone that I took a cab straight here.
‘No, babe. It needs wrapping,’ Mac says firmly, putting a hand on my back and steering me away. Courtney offers a half-hearted noise of protest, but Mac ignores her, guiding me through tightly packed clusters of partygoers – more than his apartment can reasonably contain, by the looks of it. It’s a bleak place, low-ceilinged, every wall painted a sickly shade of pale green. Mac’s room is at the end of a narrow corridor, and I flop on to his bed as he shuts the door behind us – it’s clean, clutter free, but windowless. Scented candles don’t quite mask the smell of damp.
‘Courtney the birthday girl, then?’ I ask, looking up at a mysterious brown patch on the ceiling.
‘Yup,’ he replies, rummaging around in a dresser. ‘This whole party was an ambush, by the way. I worked a double and all I wanted to do was come home, carb-load and watch Gilmore Girls .’
‘They threw a party without asking you?’
‘Except they’re claiming it’s an improv group session that “got out of hand”. Sit up.’
I do as he says, and he sits on the bed beside me, tearing open a foil packet of antibacterial wipes.
‘This’ll sting.’
He takes my hand in his, dabbing at my swollen knuckles – it does sting, but only dimly. I watch him wipe away the blood, a little embarrassed that it’s only just occurred to me how lucky I am to have him as a friend.
‘What happened?’ he asks mildly.
‘Nothing. It was stupid. And I don’t really want to talk about it, so …’
‘We should, though. If you’re dealing with anger issues—’
I scoff. Mac looks up at me, expression intent.
‘You got your nose broken in a fight,’ he says seriously.
‘Exactly. My nose. He punched me.’
‘And who started it?’ he retorts, which … I don’t have a rebuttal for, unfortunately.
‘If you have a temper, you need to address it,’ he continues. ‘Figure out what you’re actually in your feelings about and stop trying to stomp it down. I’m speaking from experience here.’
‘You? Come on.’
‘Not me. My brother.’
‘You have a brother?’
‘Yeah,’ he says simply, reaching for a piece of gauze. I watch as he deftly secures it, winding the bandage through my fingers. He’s done this before, I realise.
‘Is he—’ I venture, but Mac cuts me off with a shake of his head.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he says. Then, after a beat – ‘Thanks, though.’
There’s a light rapping at the door, then. Mac rolls his eyes.
‘That’ll be Courtney. She knocks but never waits—’
The door parts, and Courtney pokes her head through.
‘Sorry to interrupt!’ She beams, sounding anything but. ‘One of my friends has an audition for a play next week and she’s really struggling with her British accent. Like – it’s giving Eliza Doolittle when it needs to be Mary Poppins, you know? Could you help?’
There’s a moment of strained silence before I realise that she’s talking to me.
‘Oh, uh – sure,’ I manage, my head feeling very heavy as I nod. ‘I can try.’
‘Would you? That’s awesome!’
‘Yeah, awesome . Want to give us a minute?’ Mac says curtly. Courtney’s smile doesn’t waver, but she somehow manages to cast a vaguely murderous look in his direction before slipping back out and shutting the door with a click.
‘That’s Courtney’s modus operandi.’ Mac says flatly. ‘It’s just an excuse to sit in your lap and touch your hair.’
‘Right. I’d say you owe me, but …’ I raise my now-bandaged hand. Mac doesn’t smile.
‘What happened?’ he asks. ‘Your hand is busted, you look like shit – no offence—’
‘None taken.’
‘—and you’re obviously wasted. Did something happen with Audrey?’
Audrey. I could drink every ounce of alcohol in this apartment and it still wouldn’t be enough to blot out the memory of her face when she realised what I’d done.
‘No,’ I say, sobered by his sudden clairvoyance. ‘Nothing like that.’
‘Then what?’
‘Nothing. I got drunk and punched a fridge. It happens.’
‘ “It happens,” ’ he echoes. ‘Fine. I won’t push you.’
But he cares enough to want to, and I wish I could explain to him why I don’t deserve it – his concern, his kindness, his time. But I need his company more. I need noise.
‘Fuck this party,’ he says. ‘Let’s go get a pizza and hole up in here. Watch Gilmore Girls together. You’ll hate it. It’ll be fun.’
‘People will say we’re in love.’
Mac laughs, and it’s nice. So is what he’s offering – if I were a functional human being then I’d probably take him up on it. But I didn’t come here for a quiet evening of pizza and TV , and as soon as we’re out of this room I’m going to let Courtney and her cohorts drag me away. They can parrot my accent, clamber all over me – I don’t give a shit, so long as I can get obliterated while they do it. And eventually I’ll pass out somewhere – anywhere, so long as I don’t have to go back to my apartment tonight. Back to the dark and the quiet and sheets that smell like Audrey.
I think I might have loved her, as ridiculous as that sounds. And I tried to hide from that, just like I tried to pretend that the connection between us wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Our ‘chance’ meetings, all those little threads of synchronicity – I didn’t want to acknowledge them as anything other than coincidence, because that would have meant acknowledging fate as something other than a reassuring fairy tale that people use to make themselves feel better about their shitty lives. Any worldview that might frame losing Mum as inevitable has always been entirely fucking unacceptable to me, but what if it was never as big as that? What if it was as small and simple and utterly miraculous as a single piece of string?
Not that it matters now. The things Audrey said before she left – worse still, the look in her eyes. Forget the hurt, the anger – it was that painful, palpable bewilderment that killed me. It was like she was seeing – really seeing – me for the first time, and she fucking hated it.
She saw me and she hated me and she left. And God, do I ever hate myself for being stupid enough to think that wasn’t inevitable.