Page 40 of Wrath

I’m surprised when he grins, jutting one eyebrow up. “Millsy with the old-school Mormon pop rock.”

“It’s alternative,” I say ofThe Killers. They were one of my mom’s favorite bands when I was younger. “Ed Sheeran is pop.”

“Touché.” He blows a stream of smoke and tips his head back against the wall. From where I’m standing, I can see the smudge of blue-purple around his left eye. He looks tired as fuck, the way he’s standing. Like he might slide down the wall.

“Miss out on your beauty sleep, dickface?”

I expect some snap-back—in fact, I want it—but he stares blankly out ahead of him.

I know I’m going to fold before I open my mouth. Always the nice guy, even when it gets me nothing but fucked. I hear myself say, “Karma serve you a shit sandwich?”

His eyes shift to mine, but they’re so vacant, I can’t read them. He looks back at the stadium and takes another long drag without answering.

He shuts his eyes for just a second, holding the smoke in his lungs, then blows another stream out. “You should go back to class.” His jaw tics as he looks down at the cigarette between his fingers.

“Bumble sent me to find you.”

“Tell him you couldn’t.”

I hesitate a second—because that’s me, too. Go the extra, extra mile. I turn away from him so he can’t read that on my face as I go. “Suit yourself.”

Eleven

Josh

Dickface doesn’t show up back in class until a minute before the bell. He tells Bumble something that elicits a nod, and which is probably a lie. Good news: Physics is the last class I share with him.

The angry angel. Such a stupid nickname, and I’m pissed off that he saw it in my sketchbook. I hope he remembers where the “angel” part started. It’s because his name is so weird, like one of those Bible angels that swoops down to give some bad news.

“You’re gonna burn, you sinners.”

My mind hops back to last night, to his face as he said,“You’re good, Millsy. It was like looking in the mirror.”

I chase the echo of his voice out of my head as I walk to yearbook production. That and band are pretty solid classes, wrapping my day on a high note. It’s not over yet, though.

After marching band practice, I trudge from the band field to the soccer one. I don’t take my snare drum gear home, but today I’ve got my cello, even though I won’t play it again at school until concert band in the spring. I miss the thing—it’s myfavorite instrument that I play—and I’ve decided I might practice sometime when the dickface is out of the house. I’m already cleated up and ready for soccer. It’s gonna be short—only an hour. I’ll have to wait another twenty for him. Football practice doesn’t end until 4:30.

As we do sprints, I'm overly aware of the football practice field behind ours. Once, I hear Coach Nix shout "Masters." I try not to listen, though, or look. We have a quick but pretty aggressive scrimmage, and I get a "good job" from Coach McGee.

Since football practice is still going strong, I head into the locker room to shower. I used to hate to shower in here, but last year they renovated, and now they've got stalls. I take my time in the steam, trying not to think of Ezra's hand as I soap my dick.

Why'd he do that? Was he lashing out because I saw him cry? Is he a homophobe, and he wanted to fuck with me out of pure hate?

I think of him this morning, standing in the red dirt of the old ball field.

"You wanna fight it out? You get the first shot."

He knew he’d been a fucking asshole; I could tell.

I'm rolling my balls in my soapy palm, imagining it's his hand—even though I know I'm fucking crazy for it—when someone shouts, "Miller?"

Brennan’s voice echoes off the locker room walls. “Yeah?” I answer.

“You’ve gotta come! I hit your brother hard and he went down. Coach said to get you."

"You hit him?" I ask, turning off the shower.

"By accident. I knocked him out. He was blinking when I ran off, but they want you out there."

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