WICKED BOY(15) (Patreon)

(warnings for: continued and less than implied alcohol dependency.  Ez being Ez.)

I don't make it home until the sun is peaking over the city's edge and it's large oak trees.  It's too bright to make out the shape of it, so it appears just as a thick overlay of warm orange trickling across the neighborhoods ahead. I don't know how much time I spent in Huxley's night, but it's drained me into something barely there.

When I'm not holding onto the past — with this feeling that, life, my bitterness, my regrets, that they're all slipping through my fingers, I feel soundless, even on the creaky tri-stairs up to my apartment complex — even when I twist the latch to unlock the building's front door, I suffer like an emptied jar.

I trip inside, still as inebriated as ever. I feel weightless like this, like nothing, intangible as smoke but as frantic as white noise.  My hands feel numb.

I think, mildly, of calling Isaac. I stare at Lucas' old contact information on my cellphone.  I even consider dialing him up — apologizing for God knows what that has made him so bitter towards me, and saving those recollections of his friendship that feel so tainted now. 

I think of apologizing to Isaac too. I even think of what I could say — what I couldn't, and push my phone back into my pocket.

I then think what a horrible idea that would be.

I'm full of horrible — desperate ideas lately.

My clothes feel too snug, too constricting. I feel like I'm trapped in a skin that isn't mine, and it lights my nerves. I tug off my down jacket and deposit it over the back of my desk chair, trading jeans for the comfort of Ez's too large top and pajama bottoms. I fall onto the floor as I trade one for the other.

I sigh, righting myself, hands moving endlessly, body tired — and exhausted, I bite my cheek — tongue moving to mend the inner areas of my sore mouth.

I reek of alcohol.

I sniff my discarded dress-shirt, remove Ez's number from its pocket and drop it into the trash. There's no point in keeping it, I tell myself. Ez likely has wealthier clients — smarter, easier, more exciting clients. Ones that don't reek of vodka and beg him for his business.

How embarrassing.

I glance around my near-empty complex, sad, low-lit, and suffocating. I look towards my window and consider drawing the curtains closed to the city — but only before I see the sun threatening to spill through. I take a deep breath — and I decide against it.

Instead, I wonder quietly into the bathroom.

Instead, I shower. After, I swipe at the condensation on the bathroom mirror. I trace my fingers gently over where Ez had touched, but my reflection is smudged with fog. I wonder what I look like when I can't work out my desires. I wonder — what look I gave that inspired an escort's pity.

It's my number. Use it.

I think of vomiting so that my stomach doesn't hurt later. I think of Ez's dimples. The two have nothing to do with one another, but my thoughts are slipping in two different directions.

I don't know men like Ez.

I don't know how to hate myself any quieter than I already do. I likely never will. This applies to both.

I redress myself in Ez's pajamas, laugh at the fact that I've made the decision to put them on twice in one night, and in the same night, discard our only form of contact,

Because that's me, I'm an empty jar.

—

I sit on the bathroom floor for a long time, contemplating the pros and cons of emptying the contents of my still partying stomach.  I think of putting on music so that my neighbor can't hear me retching into the toilet again.  I think of buying a new carpet to go around it, so that sits like this are more comfortable.

My thoughts stray into something domestic — like the color of said carpet, another that lingers on decorating, and colors, and plants and style, what a home would look like if I were to build it from the ground up —

What is it that I even like?

And only then, do I realize that through the closed door, and past the sound of my neighbor's early morning talk show playing through the thin connecting wall,

I hear a knock.

I hear it again.  And again.

I frown.  I wonder if it's Tamela.  I check my phone to make sure that it isn't.  Tamela always calls before visiting — but maybe, if somehow word of Isaac and I's fight had traveled faster on elite shipping, she wouldn't. I'm irritated at the thought, somehow sick in general and therefore sick of her coddling,

And of Isaac complaining —

But, with all of these feelings in tow, when I storm through the house,

When I throw open the door, and it bounces off the wall behind it—

I don't find Tamela, in her prettily fitted pantsuit, with her small diamond studs. I don't find Isaac.

"Damn, cool your jets, guard puppy."  Ez looks severe even in the lighting of my apartment hallway, even against the pastel blue backdrop behind him.  My cheeks heat in embarrassment.  He doesn't look like Pennbrook.  Not in his thin t-shirt, dragged low and haphazard under his jacket.  He tuts at me.  "Ya' didn't lock up after yourself."

Sinner arches unabashedly across his neck, buried in colors and caving designs — the word the very last thing a Pennbrook resident would like to be. He doesn't just look out of place — he seems like an outsider.  His chartreuse eyes slide reluctantly from me to the quiet, dark hues of my apartment.  His brows raise, just a bit. 

I realize I'm staring, three beats too late. I realize my heart is pounding at nearly the same time.

"... Nice place." He says. It's so simple. He hands me a thick, manila envelope, and I take it from him without question. I blink down at it, unsure of which presence to be alarmed by. "It's bent. Was in my pocket." He shrugs, drops a motorcycle helmet onto my shoe rack, and pops his gum.

"I don't understand,"  I tell him, but my voice, as it has been lately, betrays the words. I could just open the packet, part of me thinks, but I just wait for Ez's response to my unvoiced question.

Did I fuckin' stutter?

"That so?"  He smiles. His eyes slide from my hair to my neck.  I cup it without thinking.  "Well, well."  He blows a bubble.  It smells like spearmint when he pops it between his teeth.  "You're all wet."

I run warmer— bewildered by my own reaction.

"Why're you...?"  Ez doesn't respond, distracted with something behind me.  "You didn't even call — before you came."

"I knocked." He laughs. "Isn't that polite enough for ya'?"

"I'm still drunk,"  I say instead.  Ez's gaze falls on my pocket.  He reaches, tugs at the fabric, and I stumble closer to him.  His thumb drags a droplet of water from my collarbone.  My cheeks tingle.

"So ya' are."

"So — why?"   I shake my head, try to right my thoughts.

"Somethin' didn't feel right about that,"  Ez hums, amiable as ever.  He steps back, feigning picking at his nails. Then he steps around me and into my apartment.  He slides his ringed hands over everything he passes. 

"So?"  I press.  I try to sound firm.  His head tilts towards me in acknowledgment again, eyes cutting and narrowed.

"Had a bad feelin'."

I close the door softly. I feel strange about turning the lock, so I don't.

"About?"

I follow Ez as he wanders around my home. He touches the empty fruit tray on the counter. Flips the lid to the empty breadbox. He reaches into the trash can. 

Lifts his discarded card with two fingers and sneers.

"You leavin' Huxley." Ez's expression settles into nothing for a moment, quiet consideration, one so barely there, so hidden that I'm not sure if anyone else can take hold of it or shape it into what it really is. He opens my fridge. Shuts it. Checks the cabinets. "Not havin' the balls to come back."

He finds my small stash of vodka on the top, middle, shelf. My hair is undried and dripping onto my face. My glasses are spattered with shower water. I blink as I watch his frown grow — and struggle to cleanse my lenses on my pajama shirt.

"Who're you hidin' this from?"

He points to it.

"That's mine," I say, pushing my glasses back up onto my nose — and I don't know why I've suddenly grown so defensive. I stare at the bottles he pulls down to the counter. "Don't. Put those back."

Ez snorts, then grins nastily, all teeth, eyes as bright as ever. His focus shifts back to me and me alone. He holds two of the bottles up between his fingers, just like he did with his card moments before.  There's blood in the water — and this time, I think he's found the wound.

"I mean — " I try to backtrack from my outburst, but my brain is muddled with the culprit in his hands, "I don't know why..."

Ez nods, sarcasm spilling and overtaking the gesture.

"You tryin' to tell me what to do, babe?" He chuckles at that, places the bottles — some half-empty, some still full, along the counter. "How fuckin' cute."  He counts them.

"Six." Ez smiles. "You must entertain a lot of friends."

I avert my eyes to the ground.

"Right.  I'm the drinkin' police.  Remember?"  He hums.  I hear his fingers tapping against the island counter. "I need ya' to look at me, and tell me somethin'."

I struggle to do so. First, I look at his chest. Then the zipper of his jacket. His neck. But his eyes are bright. Once I make it there, there's no going back.

"What is it?" I ask. Because only I would let a near-stranger waltz into my room, rummage through my cabinets — without any sort of explanation first.

"Where's your food?" He shakes his head. I stare at each open cabinet. I think — maybe that there's jelly in the fridge. I want to say that — but I don't. "Did I miss grocery day or what?"

"I think so." I lie. "I've just been busy.  And — I haven't had the time to go to the store."

He rolls his eyes. I shrink.

"Listen." He takes one of the glass bottles, leans over the counter when he does so — just to slide it towards me.  I struggle to catch it, and his fingers are brushing mine when he says,  "ya' want my company? Enough to pay for it?"

"Well..."

He strolls towards me — something overwhelming about it, something that has my stomach stirring with something other than drunken nausea. I turn my head a bit. 

"Thought so." Ez is smirking. "So.  How about — I come shack up here?" My heart is fluttering. I hold the manila envelope closer to my chest in hopes of quieting it.

"What?"  I sputter, eyebrows gathering in utter — bafflement.  "Why on earth would you do that?"

"The why is mine."  Ez lounges back against the counter.  "All the company in the world. Same price?"  He pops his gum again — grins around it.  "It's a good deal."

"But, I'm drunk," I say it without thinking. Ez is here, my shame is hot, and my home feels alive. The grey suits him. His helmet doesn't fit sitting atop my Oxford shoes, and below my hanging ties.

I'm glad I left the curtains drawn — it's the first time I've seen Ez in the sunlight.

My roommate?

"Right." He nods, his head tilting slightly.  He taps the envelope in my hands. "Which is why I'm gonna' enjoy your flatscreen — and thoughts of ya' all fuckin' wet and in my pajamas,"

He winks.  My hands tremble.

"Ez."

"...While ya drink some water," he swipes a cup from the counter. "And take a fuckin' nap.  Deal?"

-

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