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

by Brianna R. Shrum

  I laugh again; I can’t stop. I’m giddy. Gracious, get it together, me. I say, “Well, hold on. You consider what we did in the pool house sex?”

  “Well,” he says, “at least sex stuff. What, hands don’t count? There’s gotta be a penis involved for it to be sex stuff?”

  I raise my eyebrows and prop myself up to look him in the eye. “That’s progressive for a straight.”

  He says, “Well, I don’t want to brag, but I’ve read the internet.”

  “Did you . . . did you do research?”

  Even in the dark, I can see his face get a little red. He looks up at the roof and the sky when he says, “I wanted to know what someone like you . . .”

  “A queer girl.”

  “Yeah. What you would call sex.”

  “And you couldn’t just ask me?”

  “God, no,” he says, and then we’re both laughing and it’s like a drug. I’m so comfortable, because somewhere along the way I guess I started trusting him.

  And there is a huge, massive difference in hooking up with someone you don’t know all that well, and hooking up with someone you really, truly trust.

  I’ve done both.

  And this . . . this is definitely the latter.

  Ezra whispers into my hair, “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone.”

  I breathe. I stare at the vines and the little flowers woven around the sparse boards of the roof. The first thing that comes to my mind is so sad that I don’t want to say it, but the second I think it, I have to. I say, out loud, “Skylar is my best friend. And I think we’re the kind of best friends who don’t make it after high school.”

  Ezra blows out a breath.

  I feel an instant hole in my chest. But also a relief. Skylar and I both know it, but we haven’t said it and it’s sad and I don’t know how to fix it or how bad I want to. But I guess I’ve said it now. To someone.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. He kisses my hair and it’s so tender, so sincere that it makes me want to cry.

  “It’s okay. Well. It’s not okay. But—but in some ways it is. I don’t know.”

  He doesn’t ask me anything else about it. And I’m grateful for it because now that it’s said, I don’t want to take it back exactly, but it’s the kind of thing you only have to say out loud once.

  I say, “Now you. Tell me something.”

  “What kind of something?”

  “Something you’ve never told anyone.”

  He’s quiet. Stroking my hair still. Staring up at the sky, watching the stars fade in and out, in and out against the black. He’s quiet for so long that I think maybe he won’t answer, and I’m enjoying all of this too much to push him.

  Then he says, “I’m in love with you.”

  I stop breathing. “What?”

  I feel his heart stutter under my ear.

  “I think . . .” His breath shakes. “I’m in love with you, Amalia.”

  At that second, in which I am completely frozen, the sky opens up and it starts to rain.

  It is the perfect reason for me to say, “I have to go.”

  It feels wrong when I do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Observation: Humans, the Earth, the universe all have one thing in common: the tendency toward self-destruction.

  The universe will eventually do it no matter what.

  The shitty thing is, if the Earth isn’t doing it to itself fast enough, well, people are happy to help it along.

  The shittier thing is that we are also, as a species, eager to help each OTHER self-destruct. Billions of people. Billions of sentient DO NOT PRESS, DESTRUCTION IMMINENT buttons, just.

  Walking the frick around.

  It’s a wonder we’ve made it this far, being so unanimously helpful.

  Since Sukkot, Ezra and I have hardly talked. We’ve seen each other at school and compared data sets and ideas on our project in class. We’re getting close to the end of it, very close to drawing all our conclusions and wrapping up our findings on love in a neat presentation. It stings, thinking about that. I want it to be part relief, but it’s not.

  I haven’t texted him since he said it, which makes me feel kind of guilty. It’s been a week. And just. Nothing. In fairness, he hasn’t texted me either. Or called or just showed up randomly like he apparently does sometimes. I didn’t go to temple Friday so who knows if he was there.

  What I know is: we are both pretending he didn’t say what he said, we are both pretending I didn’t get up and immediately leave in response, and we are both terrible at it.

  I don’t know how to go back to Ezra regarding me coolly, like I am irritating at best. I don’t know how to slip back into my casual disdain for this boy who has had his hands everywhere on me, his mouth, who has listened to my secrets and somehow knows me. Like. Knows me.

  I don’t know how it happened and I don’t know how to let it go, and what I really don’t know is why, exactly, I feel like I need to.

  But I do.

  It claws at my ribcage, pounds into my veins every time I consider picking up the phone and saying, Ezra, I don’t know what’s gotten into me here, but haha obviously I’m in love with you, too.

  Every time it crosses my mind, I start to panic. I think, because I hate the unexpected.

  That seems . . . bizarre, when I consider it. I’m like the poster child for impulse; I know that and so does everyone else.

  The thing is, when we went cliff-diving, it was me who pushed everyone into doing it.

  When I decided one afternoon in the eighth grade to walk down to the salon and shave half my head and dye the other half rainbow (to my parents’ UTTER disdain), it was a surprise to everyone but me.

  When I got high as hell and started a flash mob in the eleventh grade, it was me who organized it.

  People don’t spring things on me.

  People have never, never sprung I’m in love with you on me, and I keep glancing at Ezra during class, looking for any sign that he’s losing his shit like I am, any indication that he meant what he said, that it’s real. That he is a total freaking mess.

  But he’s not. He’s caught me looking at him several times and I just blink away and pretend I didn’t see him see me and I hate this.

  I hate this because I get the feeling that once again, I am ruining everything. That just like I did with Skylar, I’m fucking up all of this.

  I am terrified that, despite everything I would have predicted, Ezra Holtz has the potential to be good for me, and I’m so scared of the idea that I’m ruining it. I am more terrified that if I give in, if I say, Holy shit, man, I totally love you, too, it’ll take weeks and the fun, wild me will flake off day by day and Ezra will realize he has been tricked.

  He will expect me to leave like I always do, to be this fun, sexy ride that he’ll get off of the second he starts to see the rust on the gears.

  Well, more than he’s seen already.

  I guess if anyone has seen anything unsavory about me, it’s been him. But I don’t . . . No.

  I—I can’t. I can’t give him that opportunity. Ezra Holtz is smart and driven and funny—apparently—and hot and a future engineer. He is perfect, basically. No matter what he thinks about my tits and having access to them, he’s not in love with me.

  That’s not the way this works.

  I spend the rest of the week being kind of a wet paper towel about everything, Halloween comes, and then it’s a weekend studying for a chemistry exam on Monday. Ezra and I professionally and cordially worked out most of our stuff for the project that we’re presenting on Thursday, gathered all the data into something cohesive, and he’s supposed to finish up the report while I finish our visual aids and take point on the actual presenting. I’m pretty relaxed in front of a crowd, so it made the most sense to divvy it up this way.

  I still feel like I’m not entirely equipped for all of this, this life of academia. I still feel kind of like I’m missing something, spending five hours in my room studying what should hav
e taken me thirty minutes because I can’t stop getting distracted by the computer. Getting B’s on tests I could have maybe gotten A’s on if I’d only actually, you know, spent that five hours studying instead of shitposting. I still feel the slight burn of shame when I think about majoring in something different than what I’d planned, but it’s not overwhelming anymore. It’s a little sting. The way change always feels.

  I do still feel just . . . unprepared. For what comes after high school. Like it’s all too big—everything, the choices are too huge, too overwhelming. In a few months, all my stories will hearken back to college days, not Well, when I was in high school, and people will see me as an adult, which means I should at least have my shit together enough to ace a chemistry test.

  But, I don’t know.

  Maybe everyone feels this way.

  Either way, I do.

  It’s a constant in the back of my brain when I study. During the five minutes at a time I can force myself to focus on formulas and chemical reactions and all these things I am trying so hard to get a recommendation for so I can get into school, I’m also thinking about being terrified.

  Something I am good at, as it turns out, is being scared of decisions that mean something.

  It’s Sunday night, and here I am, studying, when I want to be with friends, when I . . . ugh. When I want to be with Ezra Holtz.

  Monday comes and goes, and I do well on the test, I think, and now it is time for my brain to switch gears.

  Tuesday morning, I skate into class two minutes late, and Ezra gives me the same look he did the day we were paired and I was late. Dismissive.

  I slide into my desk beside him, try not to think about I’m in love with you, Amalia, and the goose bumps on my skin at the memory. Try not to let it show on my face that I’m afraid I might be making a huge mistake ignoring it.

  I say, “Holtz,” without looking at him, because I can’t look at him. I know if he really looks at my eyes, he will see me. He will see what’s really happening up here in this messed up brain of mine and know, somehow, that what I’m thinking is: Do you love me? You? HOW. Does it even matter? Not really. If you wait it out long enough, you’ll start to feel like you’ve been fooled. And then. Well. Then, you’ll leave.

  So I say it to the dry-erase board up front.

  Ezra says, “Amalia.”

  Even though it’s a few minutes past the start of class, kids are still murmuring, readying their projects. Talking to each other. It should be interesting, presentation-wise. I mean, I’m sure some of them will be pairs of Ezras so their projects will be just completely devoid of interest, which basically guarantees them A’s but also guarantees that the rest of us will fall asleep. Besides that though, it’s psychology. And though it pains me to say this, well, psychology is kind of cool.

  Kaylee would be doing straight-up pirouettes if she knew I was transforming into a nerd before her eyes. Psychology is cool. Chemistry is cool. Jesus, what’s next? MITOSIS, SPECIFICALLY, IS COOL. Shit, you know what? It probably is.

  “Cutting it close there,” says Ezra, and I raise an eyebrow at him.

  “Hm?”

  “Presentations start in two minutes.”

  “Okay?”

  Ezra’s eyes narrow. “Presentations. Start.” He leans forward and I glance down at his forearms, his veins, before looking back up at his face. “In two minutes.”

  “Right, yes, thank you, I can hear.”

  “Then why aren’t you digging in your bag?”

  I frown.

  Ezra smooths his hand over the pages on his desk—our report.

  “It’s . . . our presentation is on Thursday,” I say.

  The color drains from Ezra’s face. “What?”

  “It’s on Thursday.”

  “Amalia.” He turns toward his backpack and yanks the syllabus out. It looks brand new, like it hasn’t lived in a backpack for the entire quarter. My stomach hollows and then knots. He reads it off where he scribbled—excuse me, wrote with the precision of a typewriter—next to this assignment: today’s date.

  Oh my god.

  Oh my god.

  “Ezra,” I say, and my mouth hangs open, just a little, so I can breathe.

  “You didn’t,” he says.

  “I just . . .” I can feel the panic strangling me, just blocking off my airway and filling my lungs like cement. My head hurts suddenly and it feels huge, it feels irrecoverable. With Ezra staring at me like that, all wide-eyed and lock-jawed. He reaches for his glasses and adjusts them in the most pointed, barely controlled way, and I want to slide under my desk and melt in to the floor. “I thought. I thought it was Thursday. I thought the whole time.”

  “I said Tuesday! The last time we talked!”

  “Which was when, even? We’ve barely spoken.” I say that and hear it the second it leaves my mouth; I’m a moron. That’s my fault, too, so like Here, enemy in war, are you out of ammunition? I’ll just toss you some. Yeah, it’s cool, my weapon is completely empty.

  Ezra’s jaw drops.

  I am grateful that he is speechless, because I don’t even want to hear what he would otherwise have to say back to that.

  “I’m sure you said it,” I say. “I had this huge chem test and I’m not used to this, and oh my god, Ezra. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry; can I make this up to you? What do I do?”

  Ezra purses his lips. He presses his fingers into the table.

  He says, in this low, measured voice, “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean, nothing?”

  “I’m going to get a pass from the teacher. And I’m going to drive home. My house is three minutes away. When I’m there, I’m going to pick up the draft of the presentation that I have on my computer. I’m going to bring it back here, and you are going to read it off. Take the credit, I don’t care. I’m used to it in group projects.”

  I blink. “You did your own version of my work?”

  Ezra doesn’t answer. He just looks at me like Can you blame me?

  And that cuts like a knife. I’ve been trying so hard. So. Freaking hard. I’ve been killing myself and trying like hell to turn into this new person and to believe in myself and work and Ezra. Ezra Holtz was in love with me, but now I’m sure he’s not, and I fucked everything up like I always do, and Ezra. Ezra didn’t even believe in me.

  Once again, I destroyed everything.

  And Ezra isn’t surprised. Because, like I said, he didn’t believe in me.

  Who could?

  What kind of a total moron would?

  I feel sick. Like literally physically sick to my stomach, and I raise my hand, not even waiting for the teacher to call on me before I run out of the classroom and down the hall. This is not super surprising, I guess, because I’m on my period today, which means I’ve already been nauseated since I woke up, but yeah. I get sick in the bathroom.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Analysis: Available data suggests that, contrary to scientist’s initial conjecture, scientist and subject know each other more deeply than they thought.

  Available data suggests emotional intimacy.

  Available data suggests intense emotion between scientist and subject.

  Available data . . . available data is an absolute mess.

  Much like the freaking scientist.

  Something I hate is that I pride myself in being cool and medium while on my period, because it’s shitty when you get like, justifiably mad about something and some dude fires back at you with, “What? Are you on your period?” And I was on my period, and totally overreacted to something.

  That just infuriates me.

  It doesn’t make it less shitty and sexist when dudes do that, but it makes me mad at myself.

  Here’s the thing, though: period cramps are the worst. Period NAUSEA proves that claim wrong. And all of that combined with intense, sudden anxiety and guilt and some self-worth issues that I probably need therapy for just combined into one giant swirling torrent of “I AM SPRINTING TO THE BATHROOM
NOW.”

  Ezra, at least, had the grace to look a little guilty. A little surprised.

  I actually leave class.

  I just . . . go home. I call the school after to try to salvage some level of excusal and just pray that the teacher is cool about me skipping out.

  Ezra texts me later to say that we’re clear, that he talked with the teacher and it’s going to be fine, and I text back: ok.

  That’s it.

  That’s Tuesday.

  Skylar comes over on Wednesday while I work and tells me about her girlfriend and how maybe they’re going to break up, because they’re going to be going to different colleges anyway, and should they? Or is that stupid?

  I’m listening and working at the same time.

  I feel like kind of a crappy friend because I should be paying more attention. I should want to tell her about Ezra and all the total stress I am putting on myself about it and the disaster that was Tuesday. I should tell her all these things, but I don’t want to.

  And that, that is why I said what I said to Ezra in the sukkah: that I love Skylar now, but that maybe we are the friends who drift after we don’t see each other at school every day.

  I don’t know.

  Maybe that’s shitty.

  Maybe it’s okay.

  I’m here with her now, though. She’s on the carpet being a good friend who’s not thinking about the inevitable dissolution of our friendship one day and I have no idea why I even am, and . . . I close my laptop.

  I’ll stay up late tonight to finish.

  I say, “I’m sorry, Sky. Say that last thing again?”

  Because goddammit. Whatever happens with us, what-ever kind of friends we are ultimately meant to be, I love her.

  And she matters.

  On Thursday, Ezra is waiting outside before class starts. We’re the first ones to present and we only have five minutes so I’m not expecting him to do anything but disapprove of whatever time I show up.

  Back to old times.

  That’s not what happens.

  Ezra brushes his fingers over my elbow and I stop, just in front of the door. That turns out to be a stupid choice, because kids keep shoving past us to get in and we waste a good sixty seconds just being jostled. Eventually, we relocate to the lockers.