Page 229 of Wrath

He says he tried to put up a good front for his mom and my dad so they’d let him leave for college, but they both felt pretty nervous.

"Rightfully so, I guess,” Mills admits. “I met Daniel and his friends, and…you saw my Snapchat. And when that didn't do the trick—" He takes a deep breath, blows it slowly out.

I squeeze his hand, feeling my throat tighten.

“When school got going, things got worse...a little bit at a time." He rubs his forehead, shutting his eyes.

“Did something set you off, the night you took too much stuff?” I manage, working hard to steady my voice. “What do you think happened?”

I’m asking so I can understand him. I don’t expect the deer-in-headlights look he gives me.

"You can tell me,” I urge. “Whatever it is, I can take it.”

Mills looks down at his lap, then back up at me. "It was when your mom said you went missing. My momcalled me.” He must mean when my mom tried to come visit me, but I’d gone to San Francisco. She went apeshit, reported me missing like a lost five-year-old. “I thought if you were having problems,” he says, “if you’d been in inpatient, which my mom told me that same day—and youstilldidn't want to talk to me at all—that what we had together had meant nothing. To you,” Josh whispers. “Mom told me to keep an eye out for you. That you left Tuscaloosa. And I felt helpless. And then you were 'found' or whatever. And I was not involved in any way. When, to me, the thing between us had been everything."

I change lanes smoothly, exiting and stopping at the next gas station. I slide into a parking spot and lean over, wrapping him the fuck up. “I just need to hold you,” I rasp. “Tell you I’m so sorry for what happened.”

Miller says, “It’s not your fault,” and I tell him, “I still feel sick about it.”

“Maybe you’re just hungry,” he jokes.

We walk inside and get some powdered donuts and split the pack. As I drive us toward Tuscaloosa, I tell him more about my lonely spring and strange amnesia summer and this fevered fall. And I feel sick for me, too.

I wish badly for a time machine. So I could go back and know that whole plan with my mom was shit. That ECT would steal my memory. That we would both suffer.

"Why do you think this shit happens?" he asks, looking discouraged.

I can’t help a soft laugh. "You think I know? You think I ever saw myself as fighting with a grown man, squeezing his throat until he had a stroke? Or getting dumped off by my mom at a psych hospital to do some ECT?"

"No," he murmurs.

My throat feels too tight to breathe.

"I only know one thing," I manage, as we drive past the “Welcome to Tuscaloosa” sign.

"What's the one thing?"Josh asks.

I give him a fucked-up little grin. "What do you think?"

"I have no idea, man. Enlighten me."

I bring our joined hands to my mouth and brush my lips over his knuckles. "It's a fucked up story, Miller. But it looks like we're together at the end."

Eleven

Josh

Ezra parks in a shady lot beside the University of Alabama’s swank athletic dorms, and we follow a brick sidewalk to the building. He makes a funny little nervous face as he pulls the lobby door open for me, and then we’re stepping into a space that smells like new carpet and Doritos. Two guys sitting on the couches hop up and high five him, talking about the game in a way that makes me realize they must be on the team.

Ezra introduces me as his best friend Josh, from Auburn. I don’t know what I was expecting, but best friend doesn’t make me feel too bummed out.

As soon as we’re in the elevator, he murmurs, “Was that okay? I didn’t really think about it before we got here.”

“I loved it,” I tell him.

“We can change it later. Anything you want,” he says, and I can feel my face heat up as my chest goes all warm and happy.

The elevator door opens on the third floor, and he takes my hand. “C’mon, my Miller. Let’s go see my dorm room.”

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