Page 37 of Wrath

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

He waves the damn thing at me. "It's not lit. Yet." As I roll through the four-way stop at Broad and Franklin, he lights it. He cracks his window, and he starts to smoke his cigarette in my car.

I make it through one more stop sign before my temper surges. I swerve onto the road that leads down to the little league fields and slam my foot on the brakes at the first field.

"GET OUT."

He's got his hand out the window. For a second, I wish I could roll it up.

"You heard me. Get the fuck out of my car!"

When he doesn't move, just lifts a brow, I yank the keys from the ignition, march around to his side of the car, and throw his damn door open.

Ezra steps out slowly, like he just had the idea to get some fresh air. Like it’s a long drive, and he’s getting out to stretch his legs. I watch in dismay as he takes another drag of his cigarette, then flicks it to the ground and steps on it.

"Is this about last night?" His right hand flexes at his side. "You wanna fight it out? You get the first shot." He smirks slightly, with his bruised eye.

God, I want to hit him. I want to hit him again and again, until he’s gasping and he feels like I did last night. I want to smash his face in so he knows he can't fuck with me. So he'll stay out of my sight for the rest of the year.

"C'mon, Mills." He gestures to his cheek. "You're not gonna break it."

His eyelids look heavy, and I realize he's not sneering. He looks tired, almost desolate.

"Go on," he says quietly. "I'm ready."

In my mind, I do it. I can feel the pop of pain to my knuckles and the rush of perverse satisfaction. I can see him wobble on his long legs. Me, hitting my new stepbrother right before school.

"Fuck you, Ezra." I walk to the driver's side and get in, drumming my hand on the wheel until he gets into the backseat.

For the remainder of the ride, there's silence in the car. I crack both of the back windows to air the space out, and Ezra says nothing.Thankfully, it's only a few minutes.

Our two-story, red brick high school is set back off the road that leads down to the new ball parks, right by the bluff. There’s a nursing home across the street from Fairplay High, and behind that and across a field, the middle school.

The Fairplay High School parking lot is bustling even though we're early. It reminds me of the traffic in an anthill—all the little cars, some moving in a line but others breaking away, snatching up the better parking spots the way an ant goes for a crumb. I find a spot on the second row, reserved for seniors.

I don't want to see Ezra’s smirking face, so after I kill the ignition, I grab my denim blue backpack and step out, walking with long strides toward the narrow swatch of grass that runs along the left side of the main school building. I don't even bother locking the car door. Let him do it. If he doesn't, let some fucker steal my iPhone charger and a bunch of Wendy’s napkins.

I have to cut across a breezeway that adjoins the main building to the agriculture science wing. Then I'm in the patch of grass that leads to the walkway beside the arts wing. Music, art, choral, and band are housed here in this add-on.

One knock on the exterior door of the band room, and another kid—Alonzo—lets me into the big, open space, which always smells like gum and carpet. It doesn't take me long to grab the sheet music I need to practice my drum parts in my mind during my new classes. I should have played a lot more at home in the last few weeks, but I knew that prick would comment on it, so I've avoided practicing at the house unless he's gone.

I arrive in homeroom early. No one's in here except Landry—Simmons, I think her last name is—and Robby Hartford. Iunzip my backpack, pull my schedule out, and refresh. I'm in homeroom for forty-five minutes, which will mostly be spent studying. After that, it’s first period government and civics with Mr. Lavers. Second period is calculus, followed by junior and senior lunch. Then I’ve got AP British lit, physics with Eeyore-ish Dr. Bumble, yearbook with Ms. Cern, and gym and band.

Not a bad schedule.

I look at my sheet music until my homeroom teacher, Mr. Burns from calculus, steps into the room, followed by a spurt of students. Everyone is wearing nicer clothes than normal, acting amped for the first day.

"Let's get up and line the wall,” Mr. Burns says. “When everyone is here, I'll call you out in alphabetized order. This is just a study period. It's easier for me to mark you absent or not if I see you in the same spot daily. Apologizes to A through Es and the Ws through Zs. I'm sure this arrangement must get tiresome."

I gather my stuff up, put it back into my book bag, and stand beside Landry. That's when Ezra walks into the room.

Ezra

I can feel his eyes on my back all through homeroom. I didn't think about it before, but I'm Masters and he's Miller, so this shouldn’t be a surprise.

Quitting all those pills today was not a good idea. By lunchtime, my brain and eyes are tracking half a second behind real time. I feel like I’m withdrawing for real—weird and twitchy, and I can't get full breaths. In the cafeteria, I sit with Brennan, Marcel, Cara, Landry, James, and some other people whose names I can’t remember. When Brennan asks me where Miller is, I shrug.

“Is he supposed to be here?” I manage.

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