Page 151 of Wrath

“C’mon, son.” He ruffles Ezra’s hair, and then says, “I’ll give y’all a minute. Cover up what God gave ya,” he calls as he walks back toward the porch steps.

Five

Ezra

I’m awake a long time after Mills falls asleep, wrapped around me with his cheek against my shoulder. It’s so warm under his covers. He’s got the strobe light set to teal green, just a faint glow, like those blinking microbes in the ocean. My eyes shut and my mind drifts.

I can see Dad’s face—his eyes wide and his thin lips grinning—as we sit down at the table. I can still hear his voice as he says, “Well, who’s gonna give us a grandbaby?”

Suzanne’s jaw dropped, but then she laughed behind her hand.

Dad said, “Well, this is pretty awkward,” and then frowned and added, “Maybe it’s the pheromones. Like dad like son, eh?”

Mills looked like he wanted to sink through the floor. Suzanne laughed again, and that's what really broke the ice. Apparently my dad is sort of a comedic genius. Also, both of them are...well, not bigots.

Suzanne cried and told Miller she had figured for a while. When he asked why, she screwed her face up in a thoughtfullook and said because he didn't look twice at some pretty girl babysitter she left him with when he was 13.

"I just...thought," she said.“Mom’s intuition.”

Miller squeezed my hand under the table, and he almost cried again.

Dad, of course, had no idea about me. He asked if my mom knew, and all I could do was shrug.

My eyes sting now, in the privacy of darkness. I have a fucking dad who's not a fucking bigot.

What they said to us was fuckingperfect. I think Dad's exact words were, "Be safe, respect each other. If you break up, nobody has to move out, so don't ask us for that. Be mature and figure out how to share the bathroom. I think if you break up, no post-breakup boyfriends at the house..."

Suzanne agreed.

They said they didn't want us hiding.

"You're both over-age, after all."

They didn't even fucking say "don't share a bed." Nothing like that. When we got up from the table, they both hugged both of us, and Dad murmured he was proud of me. Like he could tell I had wanted to protect Miller from them.

I can't eventhinkabout him saying that without getting fucked up. I feel so...old. And sad. Like, I should feel so free now, but it’s the total fucking opposite. I realize everything about me will always be marked by…what happened to me. Like that shit's all I am, and this with Miller, this with my dad and Suzanne being accepting—it's just playing pretend. Isn't real.

I can't have a real life like other people. How can I? I'm so fucked up. Every part of me is damaged somehow.

Then tears start to streak down my cheeks, and it hits me, the real gut-punch: I could have come here.

I went through all that shit when I could have simply moved in with Dad.

I didn't know.

I think about this comfy bed below me. I think about where I was. It seems wrong—so fucking wrong—that my dad doesn't even care I’m gay. My whole life could have been different.

I shut my eyes and try to focus on the weight of Miller's arm around me.Miller wants you. Your dad loves you. Everything's okay, Ezra.

I'm just...fucking sad. Christ.

I tell myself that it'll go away.

I stay awake till almost 3, and I look down at my arm, at what Miller drew. I want to do something like that for him. I let myself sleep, but set my phone alarm a little early. Miller is a heavy sleeper—unless I wake him up. By the time the alarm goes off, we're both on our backs, so I'm able to slip out of the bed and grab a pen out of his desk drawer.

I pick a smooth, pale spot on the inside of his forearm, near the crease of his elbow—where he left my already-fading infinity sign—and draw an angel with big wings, a halo, and some freckles.

The tickling of the pen's tip wakes him. He looks down and grins. All I can think is that he isn't mine to keep. There’s no way to believe all this…mirage shit. Life’s not that good.

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