Page 15 of Defect
“I’m a grown ass man. You can’t keep me caged up in the house. If I want to walk around, I’m going to walk around, Ma. This is fucking ridiculous.”
“Keeping you in the house means keeping you safe. Do you see what happened to you the minute you went outside? Why do you think I’m not letting you out of my sight?”
“Because you’re a fucking psycho,” I snapped.
“Ezra, watch your mouth!” I didn’t say another word to her. I couldn’t. I was tired of talking to her and trying to get her to understand things from my point of view. She didn’t get it. She didn’t get it when I yelled and she didn’t get it when I spoke calmly.
I was a prisoner inside and outside of my head. It was terrifying.
“I’m going to find a nice small town to move to. We’ll rent a house while I get our old one ready to sell. It’ll be good for you. That way you won’t have to mope around in the house you and Everett grew up in.” There were no more ways for her to stab me. No more ways for her to snatch away every piece of Everett that I ever had. If we moved out of that house all of my memories would fade into black and white. They would turn to fog and dust.
“We can leave by the end of the month, Ezra. I mean look at everything that has happened to you. It’s time for a fresh start. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. You need to be somewhere new. You can’t grow in the same old spot. Who knows, maybe you’ll be able to find a small job and take classes so you can get your GED?” She smiled but it didn’t land. It went straight through me.
She didn’t give a fuck what I thought about moving or she would have asked me. She wanted to move because she couldn’t handle living in that house anymore. Maybe the memories were too much for her. Whatever the reason was it had nothing to do with me.
I was an afterthought.
The entire time I was stuck in the emergency room, Mom talked about moving and how much better it would be to leave all the evil of Inglewood behind. She beat me over the head with bible verses and told me that she’d be sure to find a town close enough so that she could still go to church. Yeah, that was exactly what I cared about.
The neurologist told me that he didn’t find any further damage done to my brain after I’d been there for hours. I guess it was a victory. He smiled at me and said, “Ezra, your brain is healing well from the accident and thank goodness there aren’t any new lesions or swelling that we have to worry about. You have a clean bill of health, young man. But please stay out of trouble.”
He said I had a clean bill of health.
Yeah, right.
Didn’t he know how fucked up my head was? I mean he looked directly at it on the screen. Maybe he meant in spite of everything else that happened. I wanted to be normal though. It was all I could think about. I wanted to go to NYU and start my own life. I wanted to get away from my mother so I could figure out exactly how I felt about her. There was no way I could unpack everything with her on top of me constantly.
…
Back at home, I sat in my room staring at the wall, wondering what things would be like if Everett were still alive. My thoughts were interrupted when my mother came in, unannounced, to talk my ear off about moving.
“Next week I’m going to start the process of looking for a place to rent. So while I’m at work I expect for you to start packing your things up. I’m going to have a lot of overtime on my plate too so I’ll need you to pack up Ev’s room. Get a start on it today, okay?” She didn’t smile at me and try to cover her bitterness and fear with phony pleasantries. I didn’t know if that was better or worse.
When I looked at her, my face was expressionless. I was a blank canvas and I knew it meant she’d paint her own emotions on me. I couldn’t force myself to care.
I knew one thing for sure though…I wasn’t cleaning out Everett’s room. I’d go in and face my heartache enough to gather the things that meant the most to him and to me but that was it. If she wanted his room cleaned out, she’d have to do it herself or hire someone.
…
SOLANA
“Miss Solana, you should consider doing classes every day of the week. I swear I’m not right unless you guide me through yoga and meditation. You have the most soothing voice and the most uplifting energy in the world,” One of my yoga students from Radcliff Community College said. She was such an adorable girl. She always wore her hair in the coolest afro puffs with tightly coiled locks of hair spiraling everywhere.
“You think so?”
“Yes, I need it during the week to deal with these fools in my classes.”
“And see, I need the days off to recoup from all the fools in mine.” I winked at her and she laughed before bouncing out of the door full of energy. That’s what I liked to see. I loved seeing my students leave me feeling refreshed and happy.
I tossed my things in a yellow duffle bag and hurried out of the school to my car. I didn’t feel like small talk so I bypassed everyone. I wanted to get home so I could call Amaris and check on Malachi for the day. He hadn’t called me for the past two weeks and I was worried sick about him.
Once I was in the car, I pressed my back against the seat and wrapped my fingers around the steering wheel. I breathed in deeply through my nose and released it through my mouth. My shoulders loosened and my neck followed suit. I did it again and again until I was able to function without feeling like a lead knot.
When I called Amaris, she answered on the first ring. “He’s okay today, Solo. Just a little hungry and sleepy. No marks or bruises.”
I rested my forehead on the steering wheel and pushed out a relieved breath. My body vibrated with gratitude. “Did you talk to him?” I asked, pulling myself together.
“I did. He misses you but he’s a smart boy. He said he’d only call you if he needed you.” He was a smart boy but I was wondering if he knew how much hearing his voice helped me to function. I was walking around with a piece of my heart outside of my body and there was no way to protect him around the clock.
