by Lila Felix
“Hello? Shit!” I drop the phone, its tether to the outlet jerks it back into place. I unplug the thing and put it back to my ear. “What?”
“I thought you stayed up reading sappy romances until dawn. And stop cussing.”
“Don’t tell me to stop cussing at midnight.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll let you go back to sleep.”
“It’s too late. I’m up. What do you need?”
A bit of silence answers me. “I need you. I mean, I just needed to hear your voice.”
In all the world, there is no one who has ever needed to hear those words more than I did. Counter to my steel-hearted façade, I need to be needed by Ezra. I need to be needed by him and no one else.
“Now I don’t know what to say.”
“Say anything. Tell me anything.”
“You know why I started cussing? I started because I was all of the sudden hanging out with a bunch of boys. I swear, Roman, Neil and Leon cuss like sailors. I cringed at first. And they tried to curb their own words. But then, I tried it, and they laughed. Then it became this habit. And it’s so much easier. I don’t have to think of words to say, I just substitute a shit or a damn here and there. I don’t know why it offends you so much. I’ve never seen you ask anyone else to stop.”
By the time I finish, my head is back on my pillow and I wish Ezra’s face was next to mine, breathing the same air, sharing the same heat.
My own need for him is infallible.
“Your mouth is like an angel’s. There’s something so startling about that beautiful set of perfectly formed lips muttering such foul words. But I hadn’t realized that you did it just to fit in with my friends. I won’t ask you to stop again. I had no right to in the first place.”
I curl the blankets around me tighter.
“There’s going to be a party next Saturday night. A fund raiser for the college. I need a date.”
He chuckles over the phone. The same shiver runs down my spine at the sound of it.
“I never thought I’d hear that sound again.”
“Sweetheart, keep being you and you’ll hear it all the time. So, do I need to dress up?”
For a second, I forget what he is offering to dress up for. Split-second images of Ezra loosening a tie as he stalks toward me thrust me into breathlessness.
“Aysa?”
“Hey, yeah. I was just imagining you in a suit. Oh, wow. I can’t believe I just said that. Yes, Ezra, suit. A dark suit.”
“Only if you wear the red dress or the blue one. One of those two.”
“Okay.”
I’ll agree to just about anything in the middle of the night if Ezra was the one asking.
I can hear him breathing over the phone. We are content to stay that way for a while.
“You can count on me now, Aysa. You know that, right? If you need a date, I’m yours. If you need a shoulder, I’m yours. There’s nothing more important to me than you. I know I have a lot to prove to you. I’m willing to spend the rest of my life proving it.”
“I just wanted you to be better. For you.”
We speak in clipped moments of tangled affection. There is no need for further explanation. I know what every comment means and so does he.
“And I did—for us. I still am. I’m a work in progress.”
“We all are.”
“I’m picking you up at six tonight.”
“We don’t have to do this. We can just hang out.”
“I have to do this. My girl deserves a real date.”
“Your girl?”
“You don’t want me to say that?”
“No. I love it. It makes me feel like I belong with you again.”
“Aysa, you’ve always belonged by my side. My side just needed to be a little more deserving.”
I bite my lip against the influx of things I want to say to him. I love him. I miss him in a way so painful that sometimes it was hard to breathe. I miss him right now. I want my arms curled around his neck and my mouth locked with his.
“Goodnight, Ezra. See you tonight.”
“Okay. See you tonight.”
There are no tours booked the next day. I spend the morning cleaning up the apartment. My mom calls at noon and asks me if I’d like to join her for a mani-pedi. I don’t want to, but this is the first time she’s asked me, so I comply. This is the trying thing we are all supposed to be striving for.
I get to the place and before I know it, I’ve agreed to wax my eyebrows and a massage. It’s all on the tab of my mom, of course.
“There’s some things I need to say to you, Aysa.”
The woman who is rubbing my feet and the woman filing down my mom’s heels give each other a look.
They can turn down the soap operas on the flat-screens in the corners. This is going to be drama central enough for us all. I can feel it.
“I was angry at you for a long time, and wrongfully so. I was even jealous of you and your father’s relationship. Ariel was too, but I’m not here to talk about her.”
If I had known this was going down, I would’ve said no to the eyebrows. This will sting quite enough without ripping my hair out.
“When you were little, your father had become not so affectionate with me. He showered you with hugs and kisses and paid attention to every single thing you did. It was an odd time in our marriage. He worked a lot. I soothed myself with shopping and keeping up with the women in town. Then that woman happened. Your father went insane. Did you know that he stayed up some nights sitting outside your bedroom worried to death?”
I shake my head. I had no idea.
“He did. It went on for weeks. Then he had that alarm installed. Parents shouldn’t have favorite children, and we don’t. But you and your father had a relationship that Ariel and I had. It was like you were cut from the same cloth. I’m sorry for not being more of a good mother to you. I know we’ve danced around apologies and laying blame, but I wanted to come out and say it once and for all.”
All motion in the nail salon had come to a halt. Nail files stopped filing, women in the other chairs stopped flipping pages and ticking texts into their phones. I swear, even the fish in the tank stopped gurgling.
“Mom, you’re forgiven. We have time to fix it all. Start over. Whatever we need to do. I love you. All I’ve ever wanted was your love in return.”
Now the only noise in the room is Kleenex being freed from their boxes.
The rest of the day, my mom smiled freer, laughed louder, and actually cracked jokes.
Silly jokes, but she is trying.
All we are asked to do is try.
“So, you keep checking your watch. What’s going on tonight?”
A smile comes to my face naturally at the mention of anything slightly Ezra.
“I have a date.”
“Oh, that Roman guy? He’s hot.”
The smile fades.
“No, Ezra. You never met him.”
Roman was around when my parents and I were making amends. Plus, he was always at my house so when they showed up, sometimes they inferred that he was my boyfriend.
They never asked, just presumed.
I should’ve corrected. I see that now.
“The one that hurt you?”
I sigh. This isn’t how I want them to know Ezra. It’s not how I think of him. When I think about that time, I think about the turning point in my life.
And I’m grateful.
If it weren’t for Ezra, I’d still be hiding, in that tiny cubicle where no one knew who I was. I had no friends. I was the embodiment of the church mouse.
A little squeak here and there, but otherwise, unnoticed.
“We were in different places in our lives. But I love him, Mom.”
Every time I said it out loud, it fills up more and more of my chest.
“I don’t understand. You’re in love with the guy that’s not around and you don’t like the guy with the…” She flexes and pushes up the back of her arm to make a fake muscle.
“Yes.” I don’t want to go into detail about Ezra and how he’s filled out almost more than Roman.
“You are your father’s girl.”
I take it as a compliment.
Back home, I wait until the last minute to put the dress on. Ariel brought me some tape to place strategically and I just hoped no one asked me how I am keeping the damned things up. I always tend to go into the bathroom at the exact moment that one of those chatty girls goes in. She wants to know what kind of lipstick I’m wearing and what brand my shoes are. She’s the kind that will ask me how I keep my boobs in place when the dress is just a glorified skirt and a pair of suspenders. Not really, it covers a little more than that.
Kind of.
I giggle, prohibiting myself from putting on the matching red lipstick. My stomach performs tiny somersaults as I think about this normal person date.
I haven’t been nervous about a date since—well, since Ezra.
The window is open, letting in some of the cooler air of the incoming fall and chilling me out. There is a moment where I think I might faint.
I hear his truck pulling in. There’s a hundred cars passing by, but I know that truck.
I paint a perfect heart with the lipstick and then slip on the shoes that aren’t as hard to walk in as I once thought.
I may or may not have also been practicing throughout the week.
Stopping dead before opening the door, I choke down the emotions bubbling up in me. My face reddens as I stand motionless. My caution is completely unfounded.
This is Ezra.
And he loves me.
“Hi.” I answer the door with a fake cheer.
“Hi, Aysa. These are for you.”
He hands me a bouquet of the most pristine daisies I’d seen. Each and every one was perfect.
“Thank you. I’ll put them in some water before we leave.”
“No, I’ve got it.” While he walks to my kitchen, I observe this new man, so familiar, yet he carries a refinement I hadn’t noticed before. His dark gray slacks swish back and forth. A button-down, crisp white shirt is rolled up at the elbows and his tie’s knot is slack. There’s a new tattoo on his arm and it peeks through the roll. He has a beard now, a whisper of a real beard, more like purposeful stubble.
“What?” He fills up one of the vases from under my sink.
“You’ve changed.”
“So have you.”
“But we are still the same.”
He sets the vase full of flowers on my counter. “Aysa, there are things about me and you that will never change. They will only get better.”
I want everything that involves Ezra to get better.
“Where are we going?”
“To a place we’ve never been.”
My moron of a mind contemplates the bigger picture. Surely, he means our future—until reality snaps me back.
Don’t be an idiot. He probably means that new Chinese place.
Ezra holds my hand during the drive over. He doesn’t ask permission or hesitate. He knows what he wants. And he knows what I want.
He smiles when I say something funny. He’s not lost in a sea of guilt anymore.
This is how he was always meant to be.
“Tell me more about this fundraiser. What’s it about?”
“For the college. The taxes and upkeep on that place are really expensive. And the tours don’t bring in as much income as before.”
“But this will help? Are you auctioning off things?”
“I think so. My aunt and the town council are handling it all. It’s my job to show up and look pretty and tell them all of my stories about the place.”
“You’re always the most gorgeous woman in the room.”
That Aysa who didn’t want to take compliments shrinks back, but the Aysa who knew that Ezra didn’t lie blushes.
“Thank you.”
He beams. “That’s a new thing. Finally, you are taking my compliments.”
“And will you take mine?”
He straightens up in the driver’s seat, squaring off his shoulders and clearing his throat. “I’m ready. Hit me.”
“You’re incredibly handsome when you smile. You’ve got a new tattoo and I’m dying to see what it is. And the beard…”
“What about the beard?”
I reach across the truck, letting go of his hand, and run my fingers through the hair on his face. He groans at the contact. If he hadn’t been driving, I just know he would’ve closed his eyes.
“It’s sexy.”
Apparently, that wasn’t the word he expects me to use. He sticks a finger in his collar and loosens it even more.
“That’s the first time I’ve heard you say that word to me.”
“It’s probably one of only three times I’ve ever said it in my life and the rest were making fun of myself or someone in a book, trust me.”
We park in the parking lot of the nicest restaurant in Mansfield, which is probably just a regular place in most cities. But around here, it’s formal.
He throws the truck into park and then wrings his hands on the steering wheel.
“What’s wrong?” I’m instantly pulled into an Ezra moment and think he’s having one of those moments. I panic. He’s thinking about Mara again—or worse, Gray. This is it. We’ve moved too fast. I should’ve pushed him away instead of taking him in.
I’ve done it again.
“I promised myself I was going to wait until you made the move to kiss me, but you just made that promise ten times harder. Wait…you thought…shit. I’m sorry.”
Relief pulses through me. “No, I’m sorry. I thought you were having a moment.”
He laughs and gets in my face in the best way possible. “Sweetheart, I was. But not what you were thinking. Come on, let’s get out of here before you do something else to drive me insane. Don’t move. I’m coming over there.”
He leaves me to squirm. The cab of his truck is full of everything Ezra. It smells like him. The remnants of his heat makes me fan myself, overheated. We lock eyes while he strolls around the front of the truck and don’t stop until he opened the door.
“You’ve got to stop looking at me like that.”
He says, curling me under his arm.
“I can’t help it. You’re like this new person, but at the same time, you’re still the man I…”
I don’t finish the sentence and he doesn’t push me to. The place isn’t packed, but that’s because it’s a Thursday. The waiter puts us on opposite sides of a square table, but Ezra is having none of it. He is polite, but as soon as the waiter turns, he moves his chair beside me.
“Too far away. I’ve been far away long enough.”
I nod and though I was grateful for the trouble he was going to in order to give me a perfect date, I just want him all to myself.
“Yes, you have.”
I order for us both, since he says he doesn’t care what he eats as long as it’s not soup and he’s with me. The waiter scoffs at me ordering for us, but takes the order anyway.
“What’s next?” I ask as we finish our meal.
“You’re going to think I’m nuts—again.”
“I would never.”
“Okay. We’re going to church.”
Ezra
Taking the ethereal being that was Aysa back to church, the first place where I’d discovered her, makes perfect sense to me.
It probably sounds like the lamest post-date activity in the world to some—but to us, these oddities chime true.
“I can’t wear this to church, Ezra. They’d think Jezebel was haunting the place.”
I haven’t thought of that.
“We’ll stop and get you a jacket—or you can change.”
“Okay.”
We stop at her apartment where she doesn’t change, but instead picks up a sweater that gives her a bit more modesty.
“This place is bittersweet for me, you know.”
“That’s why I have to bring you he
re. I have to try and make some kind of new memories with you there. Some that don’t hinge on…”
“I know. That’s fine. Knox would be proud of us.”
As we sit in that same pew, one side of my mouth tips up in recognition of Aysa. Long gone is the girl who couldn’t get away from me fast enough. She takes my hand as soon as I open the car door for her, and hasn’t let it go since.
Her eyes always shone in the lights of the church, but now they glimmer with a light that comes from within. The thumbprint on her iris is more pronounced.
God really wanted the world to know that he’d placed His stamp of approval on this one.
“You’re making me squirm, stop it.”
Just when I think she’s changed…
“If looking at you is making you squirm, then get ready for a long time of feeling like a worm.”
Real smooth. Call the girl a worm.
“You, Ezra Mason, are the greatest weird ever.”
“That’s good because greatest weird and indecisive awkward go together. We’ll never be bored.”
She and I take the place in. It’s empty.
“Don’t even think about it.” She turns to me. Whatever she’s talking about, the contradiction rolls off her tongue.
She doesn’t mean a word of it.
And for the record, I know exactly what she means.
“There’s nobody here.”
She points to the front of the church. “The big guy is here.”
“But He’s everywhere, right?”
“These places are supposed to be sacred.”
“You’re not making your case very well. Kissing those lips is the most sacred thing I can think of right now.”
“You know what I mean.”
I do. I just don’t care.
“Just pretend I’m a priest. You can’t kiss me then.” I fold my arms over my chest and stick my chin in the air to make the point.
“In that case, I need to confess. Get thee to the booth, priest.”
I love this girl’s games.
We sit on either side of the spooky booth and I open the divider between us. I’ve seen Knox do it a million times.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. I suck.”
“Shhh. I’m bearing my soul here.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“This is the last time I’m going to talk about these things, Ezra. I mean it. I’m done with the past. I’m so done with what was. From the time I saw you with Gray…” She holds up her hand to shush me before I can defend myself, though I don’t find defending myself quite as necessary anymore. “I regretted letting you go. I thought you’d do whatever you had to and then move on to someone new. I always hoped you’d come back for me, but I knew it was an impossibility. I broke down once, in the middle of a tour, right in the library. It was just a regular tour with some older people from the Council on Aging. Nothing special. A woman commented on the wallpaper, the ones with the birds on them. She thought they were doves, but I corrected her a little harshly, telling her they were sparrows. Something snapped in me. I begged my heart to still. I demanded the memories and visions of you to stop, but they were relentless. I sat down, to get ahold of myself. Eventually, the group left. They weren’t all that interested anyway. Sometimes I missed you so much that I thought my lungs were collapsing from the void. My chest was empty. I was just a shell.” She stops speaking. I watch as the only woman I’ve ever loved wipes tears from her face, tears that I put there. Tears that I keep causing to fall. “But then one day I thought about you a little less. I slept a little more. Food regained its taste. And then I was okay. I have to say this. There isn’t a moment you’ve been gone that my love for you has faltered. You’ll always be my great love, even if this doesn’t work out this time around. It was worth the fight.”
