Page 72 of Defect
“Right. Now, what’s wrong? Did you get in a fight with Ezra?” The fact that used his name and didn’t call him my teenage lover showed me she was taking our relationship seriously. It also made me even sadder that Ezra and I weren’t speaking.
“How did you know?” I asked, finishing off my wine.
“Because lately he’s been the reason you’ve been so happy and you’re not happy right now.”
“There’s so much shit going on in his life right now.” I slid the hair tie from my bun and let my hair fall over my shoulders then I ran my fingers through it a few times. “His mother has been lying to him about his brain injury. She told him he’d never have a normal life, remember I told you?” I sat up a little straighter and pulled my knees up to my chest.
“Wait…she was lying? He didn’t have a brain injury?”
“He did but it wasn’t anywhere near what she made it out to be. I did some digging and found out what hospital Ezra was at after his accident. I found out everything down to the doctor that worked on him.
I set up an appointment with the doctor because once again, Ezra was spewing shit about how he’d never be able to live a normal life and talking about me having to help take care of him for the rest of his life. It was ridiculous. Anyone can look at Ezra and tell he’s fine. Not that you can look at people and diagnose them but you know what I mean. You’ve talked to him and been around him. He’s fine. I sensed it.
I was fully prepared to deal with the news if he wasn’t but I wanted to hear it for myself not from his mother and not from the warped seeds she planted in his head. When we went to the hospital and met with the doctor.” I shook my head on the brink of tears. My heart ached for Ezra. Amaris reached over and rubbed my shoulder.
“He was fine, Amaris. He’d been healing ever since they released him from the hospital. He would have healed faster if his mother told him about the opportunity for recovery therapy.”
“Munchausen syndrome by proxy,” she said in a matter of fact tone.
“What?” My face twisted in a frown. “You can have Munchausen by proxy?”
“Yes. Whenever a caretaker or parent makes up an illness or exaggerates a non-life threatening ailment to keep the person dependent on them. That’s exactly what his mother did.”
“Fuck…I don’t know why I didn’t think about that.” I chewed on my bottom lip and shook my head.
“How is he?” She asked.
“I don’t know. I know he’s pissed at me and I stormed away from him without a word. We haven’t talked all day. I don’t know where he’s at and I know he’s out of class by now.” I checked my phone and my heart sank when I saw I had no notifications.
“What the hell happened, Solana?” I took a deep breath and told her all about our encounters at the diner today. By the time I was done telling her about everything her jaw was nearly on the floor. “His mother is off her fucking rocker. That’s flat-out child abuse. I know Ezra is grown but that’s abuse. She paid people to jump her son. She lied to him about…everything.”
“I know. He was doing everything not to talk about it today. He kept avoiding the topic every time I tried to bring it up. He told me he didn’t want to talk about it on the way home and that was fine. He blew up when we got back to the studio though. I told him he couldn’t just throw himself into work and bottle everything up.”
Amaris looked at me with big eyes and shrugged her shoulders a little. “I mean, sis he told you he didn’t want to talk about it. I could see if he’d been avoiding it for days but he just found out about it. That’s serious, Solana. Let the man breathe. I know you love him and you hate seeing him hurt but you can’t force him to heal when you want to because you hate seeing him in pain.”
Fuck.
She was right.
Her words were swift and they hit me so deep that my eyes watered.
“I was wrong as fuck,” I said.
“Yeah. You were wrong on this one. Ezra has to handle this in his own way. You can’t dictate that. I’m sure after being controlled by his mother the last thing he wants is for you to control him too.”
“Oh my god, you’re right.” I rubbed my chest because my heart ached for him. I was the closest person to him right now and I was being pushy and controlling at the worst possible time.
“Look, he’s a levelheaded guy. Let him cool off and stop acting like you can do no wrong. When some time has passed, go apologize to him. Now, would you like for me to fix dinner while you pout?”
“Yes please,” I pouted. Amaris shook her head at me and went to change her clothes then she started cooking. “I didn’t get to see Malachi today, how is he?” I asked.
“He um…” I didn’t like the deep breath she took. “He had bruises this morning. I’m not going to lie to you, Solana.” My stomach twisted.
“I should have come to the school this morning.”
“You do realize that you can’t be everywhere at once right? You can’t save the world, sissy. I love how big your heart is but you literally cannot put on a cape and come to everyone’s rescue.”
“How bad were the bruises?” I asked. I sat at the kitchen table while she stood at the stove cooking black beans and sautéing onions. She was making meatless tacos and my stomach growled ferociously.
