Defect

by Danielle James

  “I’m helping. Don’t try to stop me.” I walked right in when he unlocked the door. The living room was full of pictures of Ezra and Everett from birth until right before Everett died. My heart was extremely heavy walking through the living, breathing memorial. High on a shelf, there was nothing but pictures of Everett. His funeral program sat in the middle of the makeshift collage along with a crucifix.

  Everything about the inside of that house brought my energy down. How the fuck did Ezra survive in there place day after day?

  I was more than happy to go upstairs. “It’s like she memorialized Everett right here in the house without any regard to how it would make you feel,” I said once we were in Ezra’s room.

  “Yeah. I know. I have to see his face everywhere but it doesn’t matter because I can never escape the mirror. I just hate reliving the memories constantly when I’m not in a space to do that yet.” He pulled a few bags out of the closet and with them tumbled out a lime green and black Nike duffle bag splattered with brownish red dots and smears.

  My chest tightened immediately. I stood beside Ezra and picked the splattered bag up off the floor. He stopped rifling through the closet and looked at me. Sadness blared to life in his eyes.

  “It’s Ev’s. He had that bag in the crash. My mother kept it. I took it from the hospital when I left. It was all I had of his. I can’t bring myself to wash it because I know he’s all over it. I know it’s morbid and probably disgusting but…”

  “No, it’s not. Not any more disgusting than people putting burnt bodies in pretty urns or filling dead bodies with preservation fluid and holding them in ornate boxes to shove in the ground.”

  “How do you want to be handled after you die, Solana?” He asked.

  “I want to be turned into a tree.”

  “Somehow, I knew that’s exactly what you’d say. Then I guess I’ll be a tree beside you.”

  “You want to be a tree beside me?” I smiled like an idiot.

  “Where else would I want to be for the rest of eternity?” Talking about forever after was making me tingly. Or maybe it was holding the bag because seconds later my hands felt hot and my core twisted in knots.

  “This bag is teeming with energy.” I set it down because my head was starting to pulse. It wasn’t a headache though. Ezra looked me over and frowned.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m not used to getting such a rush.” I swallowed and sat on Ezra’s bed. “Your brother was…vibrant.”

  “I feel him around me sometimes,” he told me fondly.

  “I bet. I’m sure he’s around you all the fucking time. I’m sure he can’t leave your side. Not yet.”

  His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You think so?”

  “Oh yeah.” I nodded with a chuckle.

  “The last time I felt him around me was yesterday. I felt like he was smiling.”

  “He probably was.” I watched Ezra toss clothes in his bags and once I felt my energy settle back down, I helped him.

  “I’m going to get some trash bags. I want all my clothes out of here immediately. I can move the other stuff tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Do you want me to keep putting things away while you’re downstairs?”

  “Yeah, thank you, baby.” My heart fluttered in my chest when he called me baby. I listened as his heavy footsteps headed downstairs and then I started folding his clothes and putting them away neatly in the duffle bags. Ezra didn’t give a damn about folding anything. He was focused on tossing everything in the bag and leaving.

  Downstairs, I heard the front door close then I heard voices. I rushed to the steps and peered down. Mrs. Fredericks must have come home. I saw her walk past the bottom steps, then I saw Ezra behind her.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t come home last night. You were spending the night with that bitch weren’t you?”

  “Don’t call her that,” he snapped angrily. My feet wouldn’t stay still. They drove me toward the arguing. Mrs. Fredericks looked like she saw a ghost when I appeared seemingly out of nowhere. “Solana, you don’t have to be here for this,” he said quietly.

  “You let her in my damn house? Ezra, I can’t believe you!”

  “She’s helping me move my things out of here. I don’t want her near you though.” He motioned for me to go out of the front door but I was torn. I wanted to stay for moral support. “Solana, go home for a minute. I’ll be there soon.”

  “You’re not going anywhere with her, Ezra. I’m going to have to put you in an involuntary psychiatric hold. You’ve lost your mind.”

  “Yeah, I’d love to see you try. Solana, go home.” His voice was gruff and held a tone of authority that I didn’t want to push. As hard as it was for me to do so, I left Ezra to deal with his mother. He was more than equipped to handle whatever she threw at him.

  …

  EZRA

  I gave Solo a hug and a kiss right before she left.

  My mother’s fingers dug into the back of my t-shirt as she yanked me backward. Solana stopped in her tracks and shot a death glare at my mother for touching me, but I waved her on. I wasn’t worried about my mother.

  Spending time with Solo today made everything fall into place after I slept at the studio last night. I didn’t know I needed a night alone so badly. There was nothing wrong with spending the night with Solana but after getting hit with so many life-altering things at once, I needed time to let my mind work everything out.

  I still had a hard time understanding why, even through grief and depression my mother would go to such lengths. I was ready to hear everything from her mouth. I slammed the door and tore away from her grasp, straightening my shirt with a scowl.

  “What the hell is your problem, Ma? You aren’t in control of me and you damn sure don’t control what I do with Solana. She’s my woman. Mine. You have no say so in that.”

  “Your woman?” She said sourly. “She is too old for you and she’s sick if she thinks she can have a relationship with someone who’s mentally damaged like you.” Her words still lodged jagged pieces of hatred into my heart and it hurt like a motherfucker.

  “I’m mentally damaged? I’m glad you brought that up like you’ve been doing every five minutes since the crash.”

  “It’s because you won’t listen. Even after you got jumped by those boys, you won’t listen to me. I’m trying to help you live a better quality of life but you refuse to cooperate.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I laughed but it was a humorless sound. I leaned against the wall and it creaked under my weight. “I refuse to cooperate or I refuse to behave like the sick person you want me to believe I am?” Confusion painted her brown face and she shook her head at me as if it would stop the words from leaving my mouth. Nothing would stop them. They needed to be out in the open.

  “There’s no believing or not believing. There are only facts and lies,” she said defiantly.

  “I agree. Only facts and lies. So let’s talk about the fucking lies, Ma. Yesterday Solana took me to see Doctor Chin.” I let that hang in the air for a few moments. I wanted to take in the look of horror in her eyes. I wanted her to know that I knew before I even said it. “She let me drive over there while you were trying to attack her car like a psycho. Guess what? I drove over there just fine.”

  “You could have killed yourself! That girl is trouble for you, Ezra. She has you doing dangerous things you don’t need to be doing because of your brain…”

  “Shut up about my goddamn brain! I told you I saw Doctor Chin yesterday. He told me everything. He told me I was healing. He told me he set up recovery therapy for me but I never showed up. He told me all the doctors expected me to make a full recovery. He said I was a normal young man and I didn’t have any limitations. Not one, Ma.” My voice lowered to a quiet hush. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “Ezra…” her voice broke into a million pieces. If she hadn’t turned into such a monster, I would have felt bad for her. “You can’t listen to doctors all the time. They�
��they don’t know you the way that I do. You have to understand.”

  “Understand what? Do you have a medical degree? Did you study neurology and suddenly you know better than a team of doctors? Why would you do something like that?” I watched as she wrung her hands thousands of times. She paced the floor in front of the couch before sitting down and looking up at the pictures of Everett everywhere.

  “You don’t know the pain of losing a child,” she began. “When the doctors told me Everett was dead on arrival I…”

  I cut her off swiftly. I couldn’t sit and listen to more lies when I was giving her the opportunity to tell the truth. There was no more space for lies. I’d been pumped full of them and they were making me sick.

  “Don’t bring Ev into this bullshit. I won’t let you. I know you pulled the plug on him. Don’t cover his memory in your twisted lies. Tell the truth about him at least. He lived for two days. Two days!” My voice exploded. I stood up straight and the picture frames on the mantel rattled like chattering teeth. The moment was still and ripe with silence.

  Tears flooded Mom’s eyes garnering no sympathy for me. Fuck those tears. They weren’t tears of remorse. They were tears from getting caught.

  “He was brain dead on arrival, Ezra…I-I.”

  “You what? You neglected to tell me that. You told me, and everyone else including the news, that Ev died on impact. Why? Was it because you didn’t want the world to know how impatient you were? How cruel and swift you were? You didn’t even wait for me to wake up.”

  Mental images of Everett lying in the hospital on life support flooded my brain and tears stole away my thoughts for a moment. The only way to bring me back to the present was to think about Solana and how her warm hands felt on me.

  “They told me there was no chance of him coming back, Ezra! He was gone!”

  “He was not gone. You pulled the plug on him. I’ll never know if he would have opened his eyes after hearing my voice. I’ll never know if all I needed to do was wake up and hold his hand like I did when we were little. I’ll never know if he needed more time and someone who cared enough to fight for his fucking life!” Mom sprang to her feet and slapped my face as hard as she could. It stung and I rubbed the sore spot but that’s about all I did. I had enough control over myself not to stoop as low as hitting a woman. Especially not my mother.

  “Don’t you dare act like I didn’t fight for my son. Everett was my son. Do you understand how badly that hurt me? I had to let him go. You were in a coma and they couldn’t wake you up. I had so much going on that…”

  “That you made a horrible mistake taking Ev off life support so quickly. We were identical twins,” I said. The pressure in my chest pushed against my heart making it ache. “We had a connection that nobody else understood. If I could have just…”

  “There was no way you were going to bring him back! Stop it! That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you he was on life support. You’re beating yourself up over nothing.”

  “Over nothing? My brother’s life wasn’t nothing. I don’t understand how you could do all this and sit here like you’re justified. You’re a horrible mother.”

  “I needed to keep you close, Ezra.” She tried to hold my hands but I yanked away so violently it made her flinch. “You were going to leave me and go away to NYU. How would I have lived without Everett and with you in New York? I only wanted a chance to make life better for you.”

  “By lying to me? By not telling me about recovery therapy? By keeping me caged in the house? Answer me!” My voice thundered, making her jump.

  “I needed you close to me. I need you. You’re all I have left in the world. I lost your father, I lost Everett, and you were going to leave me too. I needed all the time I could get with you, baby. I’m sorry. I didn’t know how else to keep you here. My heart would shatter if you healed then left.” She pressed her lips together and sniffled. “I would do anything in the world to keep you close to me.”

  “It’s amazing that you’re playing the victim like I should have some kind of sympathy for you after what you’ve done. You treated me like shit after I got out of the hospital. You manipulated me and fucked up my self-confidence. You paid people to jump me.” She blinked rapidly and opened her mouth but nothing came out. “Don’t try to explain that shit away. I’m done with you, Ma. You’re dead to me at this point. There’s no coming back from this shit. If it weren’t for Solana I would have believed everything you said. It would have taken me so long to realize what a conniving, disturbed person you really are. I would have lost years of my life fucking around with you.” I rubbed my forehead and walked over to the stairs while my mother sobbed into her hands.

  “I’m moving across the street. Seems the only person in this whole world who cares about me is Solana.”

  “She doesn’t even know you! I forbid you to leave this house, Ezra! I need you!” Her words trembled with fear and sadness. I left her down there while I finished packing my bags. I loaded up three huge duffel bags and lugged them down the steps. My mother was standing by the front door when I got downstairs like a human barrier.

  “Move, please,” I said, adjusting the bags on my shoulders.

  “You can’t leave me.”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “I’ll kill myself, Ezra. You’re all I have and if I don’t have you anymore then what is the purpose of me living? Then you’ll have no one. You won’t have your father, Everett or me.” I couldn’t believe the low blow she was dealing. I tipped my head back and growled out of frustration. “Please stay,” she begged. Tears clung to her lashes as she looked up at me.

  “Ma, move out of the way. I’m going to Solana’s. I don’t have any control over what you do to yourself.” Her face warped into a crushed frown.

  “You’re a disgusting son. You don’t care if your own mother kills herself? You’re so selfish that you would chase a piece of ass across the street and not stay here with me? You know I need you!”

  “Goodbye,” I said, moving her to the side so I could step out. I headed across the street and didn’t look back even though my mother yelled and screamed for me to come home. I no longer had a home with her. Solana was standing in the doorway on pins and needles by the time I reached her.

  “What happened?” She asked, taking one of the heavy duffle bags from my shoulder. It hit the floor with a thud when she tried to carry it on her own. It probably weighed as much as she did.

  “A huge blowup,” I told her. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. I just want to be around you and soak up your energy. Is that cool?” I closed the door behind myself and walked into the living room.

  “Of course, Ezra. Whatever you need.” Her voice was like rushing water over my bruised soul. “You wanna take these upstairs?” She asked, looking at my bags. She tried to lug one over to the steps like she was a superhero.

  “Give me that. You’re not big enough to carry these bags,” I laughed a little even though my heart still hurt and my brain was still scrambling to pick up the pieces. Being in Solo’s house felt like home. My energy was calm there. I cringed a little when I walked into her bedroom and saw the mattress on the floor though.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry about that, Solana. I’ll get you a new frame.”

  “I already ordered one. It’ll be here tomorrow. It’s all metal. I got it with you in mind.”

  I put my bags by the closet door and laughed again. “So you just knew I was going to stay over here, huh?” I reached over and poked her stomach.

  “I had an idea. A girl can dream.” She was so fucking cute sometimes I couldn’t stand it.

  “Oh, I need to call the police and send them to my mom’s house,” I said, pulling my phone from my pocket.

  “Um…wanna tell me why?” Solana asked.

  “She was talking stupid. She said if I left her she was going to kill herself.”

  “Wow. Okay, she’s a narcissist on a whole different level, Ezra.”

  “I know. I want to send s
omeone over there in case she does something stupid to herself for sympathy.”

  “You’re still a good son even though she’s been an awful mother. I want you to know that.”

  “Thank you. That means a lot.”

  “I’m going to get in the shower and then get dinner started.” Without another word, Solo came out of her clothes and walked into the bathroom swaying her hips like they made music with every step she took.

  Jesus.

  I almost forgot I was supposed to call someone to check on my crazy ass mother. I called the non-emergency number and reported a suicide concern. I tossed my phone on Solo’s mattress after that and started taking my clothes out of the duffle bags and putting them away in the closet.

  When Solana got out of the shower, the entire bedroom smelled like a bouquet of roses sprinkled in sugar. I looked over my shoulder at her and stopped everything I was doing just to stare. She was wrapped in a white towel with her hair tied up in one of those terry cloth turban things. Whatever the fuck it was made her look like a goddess. I wanted to lick every inch of her from her toes to her lips and everything in between.

  She stood in front of the dresser, untied the towel from around her mocha body and started rubbing lotion all over her skin. Looking at her had my dick so hard, I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. I moved over to her, took the bottle of lotion from her and squeezed some in my hand.

  “Can you get my back?” She asked softly. I bent down and placed kisses along her shoulders then the base of her neck. “I meant with the lotion, Ezra.”

  “I know what you meant. I still like to taste the chocolate as I go.” I smoothed lotion on her back then hooked my arm around her neck and pulled her against my body so she could feel how stiff my dick was.

  “Damn, Ezra,” she moaned. She spun around and tugged my shirt over my head. It felt like someone flipped a switch and turned on the savage side of me. I had so much bullshit I needed to work through and right then, Solana was my therapy. Her body was my altar and I was about to worship all my troubles away inside her pussy.