Needless to say, the car ride back to the room was silent at first. We were all ready to burst, it seemed. Kai leaned his head on the back of the seat, his nose raised, his T-shirt pressed to his face to stop the bleeding. Ezra’s knuckles strained white against the steering wheel, his jaw clenched in obvious anger. He was seething. I had to admit, I was more than a little pissed myself. Kai had ruined my moment with Ezra. Ruined it!
I flipped around toward Kai. “Listen up, buttercup,” I told him. He snorted and shifted in his seat. “Obviously you’re a few fries short of a Happy Meal, so I’m only going to ask one question.”
“What?” he bit out.
“What is wrong with you?”
“Listen, I’d been talking online to this chick for six months—”
“Kai!” Ezra chimed in. “We don’t care who that was. I don’t care! Look at my car now! It’s soaked!”
Iehgliuhelelhghg! (That was my actual thought.) “Seriously? That’s what you focus on?” I asked Ezra.
“Look at this!” Ezra said, gesturing to the wet upholstery and leather.
“Listen, I did what I had to do!” I yelled.
“It was a little extreme,” he countered.
I scoffed. “A little extreme? A little extreme? Were you even there? You were running alongside a circling car, Ezra, battling your cousin, with a giant hanging out the passenger side screaming at Kai to ‘Slow down, turbo!’”
Kai started laughing.
“Shut up!” Ezra and I yelled at him.
Ezra turned back to me. “I had it under control, Jupiter!”
“You didn’t, Ezra!”
“I did too! He was starting to lag.”
“I was not,” Kai chimed in.
“Shut up!” Ezra and I both yelled again.
I took a deep breath. “Ezra, I was desperate. The cops were coming. I didn’t think it would be wise for us to be under police supervision. Who knows what Kai would admit to?”
“Hey!” Kai said, offended.
“No offense, Kai,” I said.
“Nah, you’re right,” he admitted.
“Ezra.” I sighed. “I’m sorry, but I was desperate.”
Ezra blew out a heavy breath, causing his hair to fly up briefly. He looked down at himself then over at Kai and me. “I’m sorry. I’m ju-just frustrated, I guess.”
I raised a brow at him. “Let’s just get back to the room. I just want this night to end.”
Ezra drove us back to the motel, and we all barreled into the room. He went straight toward the bathroom and grabbed all the towels he could find.
“Call down to room service for more,” he told us.
“Here, let me help,” I said, and reached out.
“Don’t worry about it. I saw a car wash with a wet-vac down the road. I’m going to vacuum all the water out. These are just for the leather.”
“Let me go with you then.”
“Whatever,” he said, walking toward the door. He opened it, but stopped short and turned back toward Kai. “Your phone?” he asked, laying out his hand.
“No way,” Kai said.
“Uh, yes way,” Ezra mocked. “I have to leave here and I don’t want you to have access to all your vices, you strange, strange weirdo.” Kai laughed and handed over his phone. “Try to stay out of trouble.”
“Same goes,” he said as Ezra glided through the open door.
I followed him but yelped when Kai popped me on the butt. “Have a good time,” he said with a wink.
I rubbed the welt. “Stop!” I whisper-yelled.
He started making kissing noises.
“Stop!” I yelled, glancing over my shoulder. “He’ll hear you.”
“Oh, Ezra,” he wailed. “I love you, Ezra.”
“Oh my God, I am going to kill you.”
He laughed and followed me toward the door. I shut it on him before he could potentially ruin all my chances with Ezra, but he grabbed the handle and tried to open the door. I gasped, holding it closed with a boot on the wall, making Kai laugh harder. We struggled like that for at least ten seconds before I heard, “You comin’ or not?”
I let go and Kai fell on his backside. It was my turn to laugh. “Sucker!” I threw over my shoulder before popping over the fence near the sidewalk outside our door, but I didn’t quite make it over and ended up tripping over the top rail, landing on my hands and skinning my knees.
I laid on the blacktop trying to decide whether I wanted to go ahead and die of embarrassment there or try to play off my clumsiness with a giggle or something equally feminine. You know, a distraction.
“Dude, are you all right?” Ezra asked, offering a hand. I took it and he lifted me.
I stood tall even though my skin was screaming at me to cry. Distract him with your feminine wiles! Instead of the cute, whimsical giggle I’d intended, a garbled, strangled noise came out in its place. Ezra looked at me like I was nuts.
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, man, you know, I’m cool or whatever.”
“Okay,” he sang, obviously not believing me but choosing to give me whatever dignity I had left.
He released my arm and walked me to my side of the car, opening the door for me. I got in and sat down, buckling in. My boots squished in the water, mortifying me. When Ezra got in, water splashed everywhere, catapulting me down an embarrassment spiral.
“Oh my God,” I exclaimed. “You probably regret so hard letting me on this trip.” I fought the burning tears welling in my eyes.
Ezra started the car, putting it in reverse. He threw his arm over the back of my seat and turned to see if he was clear to back up. He stared at me, his eyes searching every inch of my face. It burned the skin there, heated it to the consistency of warm syrup, drugging me.
“Not even a little bit,” he said, his own face devoid of any emotion, confusing me. He put the car into drive and pressed the gas.
We took off toward the car wash, my heart beating a million thu-thumps a minute. We were quiet the entire ride, not even the radio to fill the silence. It was if he wanted to feel the tension that lay between us, with nothing to distract him. Every single weighted instant. I felt it. It was heady, heavy, alarming, but mostly it was torturous. A good torture, though.
We pulled in next to the wet-vac at the car wash and both got out. Ezra met me at my side.
“Why don’t you ever wait?” he asked, reaching into his pocket for a few quarters.
“Wait for what?” I asked, a bit disoriented from the car ride, from the proximity.
“For me to open the door for you,” he said, shoving in the quarters.
The machine bolted to life before I had a chance to answer. He looked at me a moment before ripping down the hose and leaning into the car. I walked to the other side, grabbed the hotel towels from the backseat, and set them on top of the car. I removed one and began wiping down the seats. We worked methodically, carefully avoiding one another, mindful that our hands never touched. Together we were a Molotov cocktail. A single brush would ignite us, I was sure of it, and who knew what the consequences would be?
I thought back to Ezra’s touching my leg and foot at the beginning of our trip, thought back to the heat that pooled in my stomach when his fingers unzipped my boot. I stopped wiping altogether at the memory, stuck in that moment, it seemed.
Ezra noticed. “You okay?” his deep voice asked.
I shook my head to clear it. “Uh, yeah. Sorry,” I said, moving the towel to the top of the seat.
The vacuum died and the silence was deafening.
“If you’re tired,” he practically whispered, “take a break, Jupiter.”
“I’m not tired,” I told him as I continued with the work.
Forty-five minutes later, we’d gotten about as much water as you could get out of the seats and off the floorboards. I stood and started folding all the wet towels on the hood of the car. Ezra came around, his keys jingling off one of the loops on his jeans, and helped me. When we were done, he tossed them on top of a plastic bag in the backseat. He stuck his keys in the ignition and turned on one of his playlists, then left the doors open.
“Let’s let it air out for a few minutes,” he said.
He sat on the hood, scooting back until he laid on the windshield, tucking his hands behind his head. I studied him there. His muscular legs strained against his jeans. He’d removed his button-up, leaving a graphic tee underneath.
“Come up here,” he said as a small smile stretched across his beautiful mouth.
I rolled my eyes. “Fine.”
I lifted myself up onto the hood next to Ezra, lying back against the windshield as well, and crossed my boots at the ankles.
“I dig those,” he told the fluorescents above us.
“Dig what?”
“Your boots, dork.”
“They were my mama’s.” I lifted one up for a second before dropping it back down. “They’re comfortable as heck.”
We were quiet for two songs.
“Christmas break,” he began. His chest steadily rose and fell with each deep breath. “Our junior year.” This was it. This was what I’d been waiting for. The accident. “Jessica and I were supposed to go to that party at Brian Fox’s house. Remember it?”
“Vaguely.”
“Did you go?” he asked.
I turned toward him. “I didn’t exactly run in the same crowd, Ezra.”
He nodded. “Lucky,” he whispered. Another deep breath. “So we were supposed to go. Jessica was hyped.” Since he was so much taller he was a bit higher on the windshield than I was and had to look down at me. “I went to parties, Jupiter, but I didn’t exactly get anything out of them. To me it was just a bunch of idiots gathered up into a shared space vying for attention. Alcohol flowed freely. Drugs too. Always. I woke up that morning and right off the bat got into a huge fight with my mom over something. I can’t even remember what. I left in my truck, deciding to head to Jessica’s, you know, get out of my mom’s hair, but she wasn’t there. I texted her but she’d gone to the mall to get something to wear for that night.”
“Like, oh my God, the mall?” I teased.
Ezra laughed. “Shut up. Listen.”
“I am.”
“So I went back home and my mom was pissed I’d left without telling her and for not picking up my phone. She’d been looking for me because she’d needed me to pick up my grandparents from the airport since they were coming in for Christmas. She had to send my brother instead. She was angry ’cause she felt I should have gone since he should have been studying for a final.
“Basically, she told me I couldn’t go out that night, not only because I’d failed to pick up my phone, but also because her mom and dad were in town and she wanted the family together.”
“But you didn’t stay.”
Ezra stared at me for a moment. “No, I didn’t,” he said quietly before continuing. “My mom and dad left with my grandparents to pick up dinner, and I was supposed stay put and wait for them. I was lounging on the couch when Jessica called.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah, she was pissed. I told her she’d have to go by herself. She started yelling about how much time she’d taken to get ready and how much she’d spent to look good for the party and all this shit and that I better get my ass over to her house or she and I were through and all this crap. I was pretty angry at her threats but said I’d meet her there.
“She told me to be at the party at nine ’cause she didn’t want to walk in by herself. I told her that would be cool and hung up. My parents and grandparents got home soon after that, so we all sat down and ate, talking and laughing. Time passed by so quickly I didn’t realize nine had flown by. It wasn't until close to eleven that I realized how late I was. My grandparents and parents had just gone to bed, so I decided to sneak out and come back before they woke.
“I called Jessica a bunch of times, but she didn’t pick up. I knew she was probably fuming, so I decided to head over there. When I got there, nobody would make eye contact with me. It was fecking weird. I caught sight of Brian in his kitchen and went over to him. I asked what was up, but he played off the question. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with everyone but chalked it up to their having been drinking the whole night.
“I searched the house for Jessica but didn’t find her anywhere the general party was.” He breathed deeply. “I decided to check upstairs.” He looked down at me again. “Jess liked to smoke a little pot sometimes, and I figured she was holed up in some room with a couple of her girls.” My stomach clenched. “She was holed up in some room, all right, but it wasn’t with her girlfriends.” I swallowed down the uncomfortable knot in my throat.
“Who was she with?” I whispered.
“Patrick Cooper.”
Oh shit. Patrick Cooper played lacrosse with Ezra.
“I’m so sorry,” I told him.
“They tried to cover themselves up, but they were so buzzed they failed. In so many words, I felt sick to my stomach. I fled the room, down the stairs, and through the party. Everyone avoided eye contact, and that’s when I discovered they knew, but they hadn’t said anything.”
“A double betrayal.”
“Yes,” his voice said, seemingly far away. “I ran out of the house and vomited into the grass outside near a bunch of sophomores, but they just laughed at me, like I wasn’t human, like I wasn’t a human being.
“Jupiter,” he said, my name hanging in the air around us. The way he said it made me feel closer to him than I’d ever felt before.
“Yes?”
“I left. Jumped into my truck, not bothering with my seatbelt, and tore out of there. I’d been in love with her. I really loved her.”
“I know.”
This surprised him. “You knew?”
“Yes.”
“How could you know?”
“There were little things I noticed that probably wouldn’t translate to anyone else watching.”
“Like what?”
“Well, you used to, like, cull her into your body whenever you walked down a crowded hall, to protect her. You were hyperaware of her. One time I saw your head shoot up in class and I wondered what it was you’d heard. I followed your gaze and there she was.” Ezra narrowed his eyes at me as if he was trying to figure me out. “Anyway,” I continued, clearing my throat, “keep going.”
Ezra swallowed hard. In preparation for the rest of the story, I thought, but I wasn’t sure. The way he’d watched me while he did it made me curious.
“I was driving too fast down Salem and hit that curve near the ravine. You know it?”
“I do.”
“I lost control and hit a large tree at the bottom of the ravine head-on. The engine was pushed into the cab, shattering both my legs in fifteen different places. I blacked out.”
My hands went to my mouth. I remembered the news articles.
“They didn’t find you for nearly twelve hours.”
“That’s right.”
“Because no one knew you were missing.”
“That’s right.”
“No one at the party called to check on you.”
“Again, right.”
“Your family was asleep.”
“That’s right.”
“And because it took them so long to find you, you were in a coma for three days.”
He nodded.
“And when you woke?”
“My parents were there. My siblings. My grandparents, but no one else.”
“I think I get it now,” I told him.
A deep, rumbling, sarcastic laugh crackled through his chest. “Do you?”
“Yes.” I paused. “And Ezra?”
“Yeah?” he said, moving his hands to rest on his chest.
“If I’d been there, I would’ve checked on you.”
Ezra took three deep breaths. “I know.”