Page 5 of Defect
So, whatever resentment you have in your heart toward me, you have to let it go. I’m the one who’s going to have to take care of you from now on. We have to work together. The doctors don’t know if you’ll be able to live alone or…”
I didn’t want to hear anything she was saying. It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel real. I was definitely angry and confused but after everything that happened shouldn’t I have been?
“No. That’s not right,” I said.
“That’s why they’ve been running so many tests, scans, and x-rays. They’re trying to see the extent of it all but from what they can tell, you won’t ever be the same Ezra you used to be and you’re going to need a lot of help. Let me help you, baby.” She reached out to touch the side of my face but I shoved her hand away. “When you do stuff like that, it hurts,” she told me.
“How do you think I feel right now? I don’t want comfort. I want to be left alone, Ma. I want to talk to my fucking brother.”
“You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I want to talk to him too? To hug him one more time. To kiss my son? I should have never had to bury him.” She shook her head as tears slid down her penny brown face.
“I should be the one in the ground. Not Ev.” Mom grabbed my hand and held it firmly in hers, forcing me to look at her.
“Don’t you dare say that. It’s hard enough losing one son. I don’t even want to think about something happening to you too. You’re all I have now, Ezra.”
I was all she had. She was all I had. I still felt so angry though. It was like wielding a sword far too big and heavy. I had no idea where to put my anger and I started to wonder if it was because my brain wasn’t right anymore. I was broken. I was only a piece of what I used to be. Losing Everett didn’t help with that.
I’d never be the same again.
“I want to talk to the doctor. Why is he always talking to you? Nobody has explained anything to me yet and I’m the goddamn patient.”
“Please stop talking like that. I barely recognize your voice. Everything about you is different. You’re like a brand new person. I know I have to get to know you all over again but lets at least establish some decency.”
“I don’t want to be decent. If I did, I’d be polite. Nothing about me feels polite so if you don’t like me cursing when I talk then I don’t know what to tell you.” No matter how many times I heard the tiny voice in my broken brain tell me that I shouldn’t be speaking to my mother the way I was, I couldn’t stop it.
The part of my head that filtered out the thoughts from the words that actually made it out of my mouth seemed to have dissolved. Whatever popped into my head came out of my mouth. It didn’t seem to matter if it was harsh or not. There didn’t seem to be much left of sweet, quiet Ezra. This new Ezra was blunt, harsh, and uninhibited.
What the fuck did I have to lose?
My brother was dead.
From the way things sounded, I could never lead a normal life again.
I had nothing.
Being a dick was the least of my worries.
“We’ll work on it. We have a long road ahead of us, Ezra but we can do it together.” She reached up to touch my face but curled her fingers inward and dropped her hand to her side instead. “I figure when all this is done, you can go back to school and finish out senior year and after you graduate I’ll find you a job and…”
“Wait, find me a job? I applied to NYU. I don’t want to graduate and get a job. I want to go to college like I planned. Like me and Ev planned.” I saw my brother’s face in my mind and it crushed me.
Before I knew what was happening, tears were consuming me. Drowning me at a rate I couldn’t keep up with. I drew in a staggered breath and shut my eyes. It didn’t help the fact that I still saw his face.
The entire time I’d been conscious, I avoided looking at a mirror because I knew I’d see Everett’s face looking back at me. It was the only time I wished we weren’t identical in every way. Looking at me was like looking at him and I couldn’t handle it right then. I didn’t know if I had scars or if my face was swollen and bruised. I didn’t care either. I didn’t care if I never saw my face again.
“You aren’t able to go to school on your own, Ezra. If you want, we can enroll you in community college so you’re close to the house. You need to be somewhere nearby. Somewhere I can drop you off and pick you up from.” I opened my eyes and glared at her.
“What? I can’t drive either?” It felt like my entire world was spinning so fast it was turning to dust before my eyes. “So for the rest of my life, I have to be some kind of fucking invalid?”
“You need help now. Like I said, we’ll work on the way you talk and the outbursts. They’re just a symptom of your brain trauma. I spoke to the doctor about your cursing when you first woke up and he said that because it may be difficult for you to access words to properly describe how you feel, you’ll go for buzz words.”
“So I’m stupid now too? Fucking perfect.” I wanted to crack my skull open and pry my brain out so I could examine all the dead parts that would never come to life again.
“No. Don’t say that. You are not stupid. Just…different.” I saw the way she looked at me when she said I was different. I was different in a way that she didn’t like. I wasn’t her son anymore. I didn’t feel like her son anymore. I felt like a stranger. Even inside my own body.
“Whatever, Ma. You know what? I don’t even want to deal with this shit right now. I just want to go see my brother and I want to get the fuck out of this hospital.”
“I know, Ez. You should be ready to go in a few days, okay? Then we can go home and everything will be fine.”
