Page 32 of Wrath

Nine

Ezra

Ishut my eyes and blow the smoke out slowly. With the heat of the roof, the way my body’s tilted downward like I'm falling through some floor—with everything that's in my blood—I feel somewhere else.

Closing my eyes is a danger, but I don't see anything red. Just the pale gray of the moonlight bleeding through my eyelids.

I'm outside. I can feel the breeze tickle my hair. It feels soft.

No shirt tonight. No one's gonna see me, so it doesn't matter.

Behind my head, a few steps up from where I'm lying on the shingles, there's a window, and I want to push it open. Blow some smoke into the slit of dark between the white sill and window frame.

I want to wake him up and bring him out so I can call him Millsy. So much football lately, I barely even got to do it. Once, when he was pulling clothes out of the dryer, I walked by.

"Millsy…"

Then again a few mornings ago when he was in the bathroom.

"MILLSY!" I knocked a few times, hard, and he said, "Fuck, dude. Coming!"

Are you, though?I wanted to ask.

Josh Miller is so easy. That's the thing I like. In a world of shit, from start to finish, he’s the one easy thing. A constant. The guy is a fucking Boy Scout. Like, for real. He got the Eagle Scout badge.

The guy would never have been sent off like I was, but if he had been? He'd have done the whole damn thing the way they wanted. He'd have—

Don’t.

Not tonight. I’ve got that shit roped off in my brain.

I spend a minute breathing, moving past the danger.

The breeze…

I like it.

I don't mind the way the shingles scratch my back when I move.

I hold my left hand up and look at it. It's alright. Healing.

I don't like this feeling where my heart is beating too hard, but I went too close to that stuff. Too close to the partition in my mind. I won't do it again.

I feel something on my hand, realize my Marlboro has burned itself into a flaky rope of gray ash. Light another one up.

School here starts tomorrow, and I could just cut the cord. Why make it messy? Why get wires crossed and...lines crossed? Why pretend I’m planning to stay?

I open my eyes and startle. It's dark. Fuck.

It’s just the sky.

I'm outside.

I feel the breeze and look down at myself. I fell asleep onthe roof. Again.

Every night with this, and every night for the last few nights, all the looking over at his window.

I look at my finger again. Think of his hands. His hands at dinner and his hands around my hand. I see his hands wrapping my finger. They're not sharp and hard like mine. Miller's hands are thick, like you could squeeze them. They could squeeze you.

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