Page 201 of Wrath

I know this is devious as fuck but I’m going to take a bus up to Richmond at that same time, break into my bedroom window, and steal back my Jeep. It’s a black Wrangler, and I miss it. I lost it when I bounced from Sheppard Pratt. But I paid for almost all of it myself. I waited tables at a restaurant starting when I was 15, and I didn’t stop until I went to Alton.

I’m thinking of deleting Snapchat. If I’m going to feel this way about you, I kind of want it to be more organic…not because I watch you on snap all day and have this feeling we’re connected- when maybe we’re not.

Ezra

October 16, 2019

Miller.

I’m eating all this protein. To help me recover from the games.

Fuck, Miller. The first day of October, I think I remembered you. I was getting in my Jeep to go get more eggs. I looked over at the passenger’s seat, and it’s like…I could see you in it. Not even “see” you- I could feel you sitting there. And feel the way I felt about it. How I would feel if I had you in my car. Like the whole world is limitless. Like anything might happen- but not any bad thing. Good things. It was a Christmas morning feeling, and it seemed so real.

I hadn’t looked at Snapchat in a while, but after that, I downloaded it again.

Yesterday at practice, someone hit me too hard. Knocked theair out of my lungs and sort of rattled my head for a second. Someone mentioned pulling me into the clinic room inside the locker room. Scared the fuck out of me. You know what?

I whimpered, “Mills.”

Mills.

Not Miller.

Mills.

I’m in Auburn right now. Sitting under a tree near the stadium. I walked by your apartment building, or the one I think might be yours.

Maybe we had something.

Maybe.

I guess it’s over now.

I found some papers in my hiding spot in my old room at Mom’s, when I went up there to steal my Jeep back. I’m getting my old phone restored as soon as I can drop by the AT&T store.

Auburn-Alabama’s coming up fast.

It’s here on your campus this year.

I’m seeing a therapist. A nonbinary one that I like.

After the season is over, we’re going to start doing trauma therapy. I think the person likes me okay. I’m trying to be honest.

They say it’s okay to watch your snaps, but I don’t know if it is. I don’t want to be that weirdo.

Soon, I’ll have to read the letters I found in my bedroom.

Soon, I have to go and get the phone and turn it on and see what’s in it.

Soon, I’ll know if none of this is real.

I still don’t want to.

Two

Josh

November 18, 2019