Kissing Ezra Holtz (and Other Things I Did for Science)

by Brianna R. Shrum

  “Shit,” he says.

  God, I’m so embarrassed. What is wrong with me?

  I don’t even look at him because that can only possibly make it worse; I don’t want to see him looking pitying or terrified at a girl crying or any number of things I am positive he looks like right now. I want to pretend this isn’t happening. I want to uninvite him over, this boy who I allegedly want to want to put his tongue in my mouth and who now is watching me be the most unkissable, un-everything-able version of myself.

  Either that, or I want to go back in time and stop myself from sitting down at the one thing that reminds me how much of a failure I am, that I can’t seem to stop failing at in a million different ways.

  I cover my face with my hands, wipe away these super attractive tears, which probably destroys my eyeliner, and look at the blank nothing that I quit at literally before I even started it, and just lose it again.

  Might as well go all in. If you can’t accept me at my ILLOGICAL PATHETIC WEEPINGEST, you don’t deserve me at my nakedest.

  I feel Ezra’s long, slender fingers on my shoulder, but he doesn’t say anything else. He just stands there, applying gentle pressure to my skin. I could shrug him off. But I don’t want to. I’m a little quieter. He runs his thumb over my back, a place he is familiar with. Not that it’s anywhere sexy—it’s the curve of my shoulder. Still, he’s touched it enough times and having him touch me there again is grounding, comforting.

  I stutter in a breath, feeling less out of control and more just . . . stupid. And I wrestle my face into submission. Okay. Okay, I am fine.

  I breathe out. Slowly. Like I’m at the doctor’s office—breath, two, three.

  Then I spin slowly around. I say brightly, “Hey!”

  Ezra raises an eyebrow and says, “Hey, Taylor Momsen.”

  I groan. “Yeah, I’m sure my eyeliner is a freaking mess.”

  “Eh. Matches the rest of everything in here.”

  I shove him and he stumbles back, smirking. It’s irritating, in one way—the little jab. In another way, it’s familiar. It’s the way we talk to each other and I like it. It doesn’t feel like he’s actually insulting me, it feels more like . . . more like he’s saying, I know you.

  I say, “You asshole.”

  He shrugs. “You okay?”

  I say, “Yeah, what, do I not look okay?”

  “No, obviously, you’re right. Frequently, when I’m feeling average, I find myself crying in my room in front of an easel.”

  “Good, glad to know I’m not alone then.”

  Ezra runs his hand through his hair and lets it rest on the back of his neck. “Seriously though, are you okay?”

  “I—no. No, I guess I’m not.”

  “Hit me with it.”

  “We’re supposed to be working.”

  “We are working,” Ezra says. He pulls a familiar slip of paper from his backpack and scans the list of questions we forced on our study participants. “What was the last thing that made you cry?”

  I roll my eyes. “We’re not supposed to answer those; the test subjects are.”

  “Humor me.”

  I rub my hands under my eyes, get my emotions a little more under control. “Better?” I say.

  “You’re golden.” He smiles—genuinely smiles, and I am caught off-guard.

  I can feel it in my chest, like a spring loosening.

  I say, “Well. Good.” Then: “Tell me I’m not a failure.”

  “Amalia,” he says. “You are not a failure.”

  “Liar.”

  “Unfair.”

  “I feel like . . .” I don’t even know how to say this, it’s so vulnerable. It’s so . . . like . . . it’s like vivisecting myself. It’s the kind of thing I wouldn’t even say to a friend. But then again, Ezra isn’t a friend, is he? He’s just some guy I’ve known a while. Some boy I’m fooling around with. And maybe that is why I say: “I feel like there’s nothing in my life I’ve really succeeded at. I wanted to be an artist, and I couldn’t. I want to be an academic now and like, I’m doing okay, but I have to kill myself every night to make it happen. I’m kind of a shitty friend, being jealous of Skylar all the time and totally ditching out on the smoker’s corner kids. I’m not great at relationships either, like, romantic ones.”

  “I don’t know about that,” he says.

  “What we have isn’t exactly romantic, Holtz.”

  “Well,” he says, “touché.”

  “I’m like . . . I think I’m That Friend everyone has.”

  Ezra scoots a sweatshirt aside with his foot and sinks down onto my carpet. He criss-crosses his legs and leans back on his hands. “Elaborate.”

  “That friend. Who’s kind of wild and crazy and reckless. The one you invite to the party because you know she’s going to make it a great time for everyone. She’s probably going to make out with someone of who knows what gender while you’re there and then she’ll have some amazing stories to tell after and god, she’s so fun. That’s just Amalia, my wild, unpredictable best friend. Twirling her way through life making everyone else’s interesting. The Artiste. I’m a fucking manic pixie dream girl, Ezra.”

  A frown flickers across his face. “You think it’s a character flaw that you’re interesting?”

  “I’m not interesting. Not really. I’m a collection of things people think are fun and fascinating from a distance. As a whole person, though? I’ve built this entire life. This person. And what does it even matter? I’m not the kind of person who has meaningful relationships and makes differences in people’s lives and gets what I want, am I? I’m the kind of person who makes plans and when they shatter, I shatter with them and no one cares because I’m fine, I’ll be fine. I’ll just go skydive or something or have a torrid affair with an older French boy while I’m cavorting through Tuscany—”

  “Tuscany is in Italy.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Well that’s the freaking truth.”

  Ezra rolls his eyes. “No. I can’t just sit here and listen to you saying all this shit about yourself, Amalia.”

  I blink back new frustrated tears, and then I’m frustrated about those. “It’s true. You know it’s true.”

  “That what? You’re too wild to live your own life? You’re just too much of a free spirit to be a full human?”

  I shrug. It feels kind of weird and self-important now that I’m hearing it coming from his mouth.

  “I think it’s how people think of me,” I say. “I think—you know, since I started staying in to study”—I pause to fake gag and Ezra rolls his eyes—“most of my friends have stopped texting me. I’ve seen them a little. Here and there, I guess. But it’s not like . . . it’s not like I’m hanging out every time they are. Not like they text me all the time.”

  “Have you texted them?”

  I pick at the carpet. “Not a lot. I guess. No I get it, communication is a two-way thing. It’s just weird when it becomes clear that a whole lot of people you hang out with are going to forget you exist. It’s fine. I’m fine.” I set my jaw and say, “Let’s work, yeah? I’m sure we have data to chart.”

  Ezra furrows his brow, then says, almost like a question, “No.”

  “No?”

  He says, more resolutely this time, “No. No, we’re ahead of schedule right now and what you need is to get out of this house.”

  I almost laugh out loud. “Who are you? Seriously, get out your notebook.”

  He grabs my hand. “Nah.” Pulls me up. “It’s Everett Andrews’s birthday and I am certain he’s someone you used to hang around with.”

  “Yeah, I guess. I mean, I still do kind of hang around with him.”

  “So you’d probably be able to take him up on the halfway open invitation to his house party tonight.”

  “Yeah. If I had time.”

  “It’s Saturday night. You have time.”

  I blink up at him. “What is going on? You beg me to stay on task and no
w I am and you’re trying to get me to ditch studying and go party?”

  Ezra shrugs with just one shoulder, that never-smiling mouth tugging up. “You’ve got me curious. I’m intrigued at whatever manic pixie life it is you’re dangling out there. Come on.” He bites his lip, looking downright mischievous. It’s too much. “Show me how the other half lives.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  TEST GROUP SAM AND RILEY

  Riley: JESUS.

  Sam: Well, my friends call me Sam

  Riley: Stop. You are exhausting.

  Sam: Nah, you like me.

  Riley: Only because we haven’t gotten to phase three yet.

  Sam: Look at that not-denial

  Sam: You liiiiiiiiiike me

  Sam: You like LIKE like me

  Sam: Riley

  Sam: hello

  Riley: W H A T

  Sam: u like me

  Sam: is all im trying to say

  Riley: I mean I thought I made that clear. What with all the making out we did last night?

  Sam: I just wanted to be SURE

  Sam: so cool now that that’s settled

  Riley: Give me your deepest, darkest secret

  Sam: I don’t think that’s on the list, Ri.

  Riley: Don’t be a chicken shit

  Sam: I liked the prequel trilogy

  Riley: . . .

  Riley: I’m assuming you don’t mean of STAR WARS

  Riley: I’m ASSUMING you mean SOME OTHER less famous prequel trilogy that is not complete sacrilege because there is no way you can mean that you ENJOYED ~i DoN’t LiKe SaNd~

  Sam: IT’S COARSE

  Sam: IT’S ROUGH

  Riley: oh my god

  Sam: IT’S IRRITATING

  Sam: Is he wrong

  Sam: Does it not get everywhere

  Riley: That’s it. I want an experiment divorce

  Sam: you can’t do that

  Riley: No. These differences are irreconcilable

  Sam: would you say they’re irritating

  Riley: Yes

  Sam: so

  Sam: like sand

  When I hop in Ezra’s car, he’s blasting klezmer (eastern European Jewish music). Golem is about to rip a hole through those speakers, it’s so loud.

  “You wanna turn that down?” I say. Shout.

  Ezra yells back, “Absolutely not.”

  I frown at him, exaggeratedly.

  “Come on, Amalia, where’s your holiday spirit?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re one of those Rosh Hashanah music and décor just get put out earlier and earlier every year, ugh, turn down the holiday music PLEASE kind of people.”

  He kicks the car into gear and we drive off.

  “Ezra. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “As if you haven’t heard the Jewish music blasting through every mall and department store for the last month.”

  I actually start laughing. Now I know exactly what he’s doing. “I mean really, if I have to hear Matisyahu in the craft store ONE MORE TIME.”

  Ezra cackles. Straight up cackles.

  He does not turn his “holiday music” down.

  He smiles right at me, mischievous and free and loose and something tells me he set up his radio, this whole gag, just for me.

  I don’t know why something as small as someone’s musical life being momentarily switched up because I exist in it puts butterflies in my stomach.

  But lord help me. It does.

  Everett Andrews’s house is not huge. It’s not like those giant block party houses in every eighties and nineties teen movie where kids are like . . . wrecking crystal vases and hanging out in the indoor pool and weaving in and out of the eight-thousand-square-foot marble kitchen splashing beer on the travertine.

  It’s a little bigger than mine, by a bathroom and a couple bedrooms. Nice. Everett has money.

  But most of it is in the yard.

  No one is congregated inside the house because everyone is spilling all that cheap beer outside. He’s got like, five wooded acres and his parents completely tricked it out. There’s little winding faerie paths through the woods and an amazing fire pit and a hot tub, and I would live out here if it were an option.

  I kind of used to, I guess. Before this semester, this last month, month or two, when I have been forced to reconfigure all my life plans and learn how to be an introvert.

  I walk beside Ezra into the backyard and Everett sees me almost immediately. “Oh daaaaaaaamn!” His smile is wide and genuinely happy; it’s always been infectious. He plays baseball, and most of the baseball guys are pretty popular so that’s his crowd. One of the crowds I’ve moved effortlessly through when I’ve chosen to.

  I smile back. It’s also genuine; I forgot how much I liked Everett. It rushes back immediately. “Oh heeeyyyyy!” I yell across the yard.

  “The party is HERE,” he says. “I didn’t know you were coming, Yaabez.”

  “Ah,” I say, faking offense. “I guess I’ll just have to head out if I’m not invited.” I say it with a glint in my eye, and for a second, I forget about academia, I forget about work, I forget all the complications with Ezra and my pity party and I just . . . remember who I’ve been. The life I’ve had before all my plans went down the drain.

  Everett says, “Oh no you don’t,” and grabs me by the wrist, spinning me into his arms. There’s something Top 40 streaming through the in-ground speakers his parents must have blown a truly RIDICULOUS amount of money on. I throw my arms around his neck and move against him, and he slides his hands down my back, eyes sparkling.

  “Where you been?” he says.

  “Everywhere.”

  I hear it as I say it. The manic pixie thing. The whirling, twirling, phantom mystery girl persona that I fall so easily into now, and it makes me mad. But it’s not like I try to do this. Is it a problem, I wonder, if this is the person I am?

  Everett rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling. “Yeah that sounds right.”

  He pulls me a little closer, dances with me just a little dirty. I play right along with it. Everett and I have never been anything more than friends, never even fooled around. Unless you count the one time everyone got a little high and decided for some reason that playing spin-the-bottle was a good idea, and Everett and I wound up making out and both being kind of embarrassed about it. He’s hot; there is zero denying that. That—like I said—totally infectious smile, dark brown eyes, darker brown skin, broad shoulders, long legs. He’s hot. And funny; Everett is one of those jocks who has the innate ability to make everyone feel comfortable in fifteen seconds flat. Mostly because he knows how to make people laugh. He’s going to school on a baseball scholarship to be a therapist, and wow is that the correct career choice for him. But anyway, nothing’s ever gone down between us. We’re friends, we’ve always been friends, and our hips might be moving a little filthily right now but that’s just what you do when Ariana Grande comes on. Freaking ‘God is a Woman.’ Who isn’t powerless against it?

  “Who’d you bring?” he says, tipping his chin up at Ezra, who is trying his level best not to be uncomfortable, but alone in a big crowd like this where he probably knows next to no one, he’s looking just a little uncomfortable.

  Running his hand back through his hair, adjusting his glasses. I pull back from Everett and walk the few steps back to Ezra. His shoulders immediately fall from where they were—basically by his ears.

  “Ezra Holtz?” I say.

  “Oh shit, right! I know you.”

  “You do?” Ezra’s eyebrow jumps up.

  “Yeah, man. We’re in speech together, that’s where I recognize you from. Talking Nazi-punching and stuff in a real red classroom. I remember that.” He says, “Plus you’re what, valedictorian or something?”

  “Going for it,” Ezra says. He’s not exactly smiling but he’s pleased, I can tell. He’s doing that little non-grin with his mouth, this tapping thing with his fingers on his chest. He’s enjoyi
ng the recognition from someone like Everett. Everyone does. I am absolutely gonna give him shit about it later, though.

  “You don’t remember me. It’s cool; I have a thing for faces.”

  Ezra actually laughs. “Of course I know you. Baseball god. Everyone knows you.”

  Everett throws his head back and laughs and says, “Don’t bullshit me. Go get a drink. Enjoy the party.” He looks at me and says, “You, find me later? Or hit me up after the party some time. We need to catch up. It’s been too long.”

  “You’re right. No, it definitely has.”

  Everett heads off to play host and I smile at Ezra. “Star struck?”

  “No.”

  “You should have seen the look on your face.” I press my hand to my chest dramatically. “Oh, oh Everett? Of course I know who you are. Please. Sign my pecs.”

  “You are an absolute menace,” he says.

  I say back, “You like me,” and almost immediately regret it, as though something as innocuous as you like me is a regrettable thing to say. The thing is, I don’t really know if he does. I don’t really know if I even like him; I have no idea how we feel about each other.

  I do know that suddenly I’m nervous.

  That high that came from being in a familiar environment, that wow I miss, is wearing off, my boldness wearing down with it, because Ezra constantly has me upside down wondering who on Earth I am and what I’m doing.

  So I bring us both back into my territory before he can answer. Before he can clarify and make any kind of adjustment to my assumption.

  I grab him by the waist and pull him into me, hips flush with mine, and I run my hand up his chest.

  Ezra swallows hard and fits one hand around the back of my neck. He slides the other down my waist, fingertips skimming my skin. This. This I can do.

  This ground is familiar and here, bodies moving against each other, I know exactly how we both feel.

  I know exactly what it means when Ezra dips his gaze down to my mouth and then catches himself and looks back at my eyes. Like it requires physical effort. I am comfortable, in the most perfectly hyper-aware, beautifully, desperately uncomfortable way, when he slides my hair back behind my ear and trails his fingers down the side of my neck. I fight shuddering.