Chapter 9

Nine

Ezra

July 4, 2019

H e's at the bar again. This time, in Auburn. Always at the bar and always with the drunk, glazed eyes, and always with his tired, halfhearted smirks, the little duck-faced, not-smile smiles.

It's the usual suspects, wearing dumb shit for the Fourth of July. There's the blond one he tags sometimes—DanielG6. I think that might be his boyfriend. Another guy—FinnyGuy12. And some girl named JennaWinnaBinenna. I like that one okay. I can tell she likes him, that she cares about him. It's in her face.

It's getting late—almost midnight—and I've got practice tomorrow. I went to the football cookout, but I only stayed for an hour and a half because there's no drinking before a practice.

Also because of this.My fucked-up obsession. Watching this guy that I don't even know as he lives his best semi-out gay life in fucking Auburn. My school's rival. This year, the infamous Auburn-Alabama game is happening down in Auburn, so I'll play on his home field. Assuming I get field time. But I already know I will. Bama lost their big star last year to the draft. There's a rising junior, Kip Hollis, who was second-string QB last year, but I'm better than Kip. I really like the guy; he joined the football yoga class, and I found out he’s pretty funny. But...his numbers aren't what mine are.

It's weird, but I think they’re gonna start me. Or maybe start Kip first, but they'll switch to me pretty fast.

Auburn's where my brain is almost all the time now, so I think about that game. Their stadium. I think about their campus, which I’ve looked up online. I can see its red brick crosswalks and the streetlights dappling the sidewalk gold at night, the red and black brick buildings, all the green lawns. I can feel the heat of the grass, heat that seeps up through the warm dirt, like it does on our lawns here.

Mills snaps chipmunks, their cheeks filled with nuts; cars some drunk ass parked all crazy; lots of bar stuff. I learned through his snaps that he doesn't have a car; he's walking everywhere. His calves are getting muscular from all the walking. He takes Pepcid, Advil, and drinks a Bloody Mary, of all fucking things, for his hangovers. There's a slanted lawn by his apartment building, and he lies there on a blanket sometimes just to get some sun. He's in a fucking frat, or will be later? I’m not sure the rules; I think rush hasn’t started. The frat where he’s been hanging out has a nice house with a kudzu-swathed lawn and a pond out front, and in the pond, there's a dock that just floats around. You have to row a boat out or swim to reach it.

I hold my phone, my back pressed against my headboard, waiting for the next snap. He snaps a few at a time, then takes a break and comes back usually about an hour later. I don't know why he likes Snapchat so much. Maybe he's doing it for the boyfriend.

Maybe he's just lonely.

He seems lonely to me. Not happy. I keep wondering why he never seems to drive. I see on his Facebook profile, in a picture that's not private, that he used to have a white Jetta. He's got eleven pictures public on his Facebook. It’s true I don’t know him, but I’m pretty sure he used to look a whole lot happier.

Maybe that's what I like about him. This started out with the MILLER on my arm, and it got more intense when I realized I have a stepbrother named Miller. But this obsession...it's more visceral. It's how he looks, yeah. He's hot. He's cute. I want to reach in through the screen and touch him. Also, he gives me that clenched-chest feeling—the weird one. Which may mean something.

But more than anything else, he looks alone. Like me. When the blond is around—Daniel—he smiles, but it's like he's just tolerating it. He posts a lot of snaps where he's smiling at his phone's cam with his cheek down on a bar's table. Or he's got his wavy hair ruffled, or he's rubbing at his dark brows like his head hurts.

The guy is self-deprecating. He'll get eviscerated at the bar and snap himself walking to class the next day with a light bulb icon above his head and the caption "genius." Below that, even smaller, "Van Gogh-style."

Van Gogh was a drunk. And so is Miller.

He snaps from his classrooms—blue desk chairs with pale beige desks. He always looks so big in them, as if he nearly doesn't fit.

Saturdays, he plays intramural soccer. He snaps his cleats and socks. One time, he snapped his red-cheeked face after a game.I try not to screen shot everything he posts, but I save that one.

My favorite snaps or Insta stories are the ones from his bed. Sleepy Miller with his head on his pillow. Eyes half shut, like he's already almost out.

I want that for him. I want him to close his tired eyes and sleep. The way that I can't.

It's not because of Alton anymore—there’s no denying that fact now. It's because of him.

I thought of going back to SP. Going back on their meds. I realize there's something wrong with me, but...I can't do that. I don't want to go back.

I can keep this secret, keep the weird feelings in my chest secret. I'm starting in the fall. I’m the starting QB at Alabama.

I deserve that. I deserve...something. To make me happy.

I might know this guy—Josh Miller. Maybe that's the reason that I cry the night he posts a snap of him getting kissed by some guy I don't know at 12:14 a.m.

I feel that panic feeling, take a walk. I smoke a cigarette. The first one in...I don't know. I picked up smoking the first time around at Sheppard Pratt. So I guess I quit during my senior year. It's so bad for running.

My hands shake as I stub the thing out.

When I get back up to my room, I log onto the fake Instagram account I made for this purpose and browse through Josh's main page pictures. It's the way I go to sleep every night. Imagining him...

Sometimes it makes me feel like breaking things—because I don't have him. But when I'm tired, I look at him smiling with his friends on the gram, and it puts me to sleep. Pretending.That I know him? That he loves me?

Maybe all I'm good for is pretending after everything that happened. That's the last thought I remember before I wake up with tears on my cheeks.

This time, it's a dream about him hugging me.

I want it.

Josh Miller is trying to kill his liver. I look at his snaps and try to ESP him to slow down a little, but he doesn’t listen. He’s out every night, cheesin’ with a bunch of different people—some of them in frat T-shirts, others wearing Chucks with their jeans rolled up at the bottom and nails painted. I watch as the blond guy starts to hang out more with a red-haired guy; Josh takes snaps of them both. I watch as Josh’s dark hair grows out longer, curling in the summer heat. As he perfects drunk poses like the one where he tilts his head back, smiling halfway like he might pass out before the smile can bloom.

I learn things about him. Lots of things I store in my head like a real stalker.

He likes cherry red Icees.

He likes Cheetos and that sugary kid candy called Fun Dip.

He walks everywhere; I swear, there’s no way the guy has a car.

He doesn’t like to get sweaty, and he makes cringey faces like he’s melting when it’s really hot out.

He’s got a good sense of humor. Doesn’t take himself too seriously.

Life at Bama is moving on for me. No matter how I feel about that. I'm starting to know my neighbors on my hall in the athletic dorms. After practice, sometimes I go out for food or shit like that. I’ve made a game of avoiding Marcel after hours, even though we chat and talk on the field sometimes. Checking my phone to see Josh Miller’s updates becomes part of the day.

I've started putting the phone down at the bottom of my bed at night, so I won't roll over and be tempted to check his snap or Insta stories. Sometimes I still do.

There's a bookstore near the Auburn campus that he likes to go to. He gets paperbacks—and sometimes hardbacks—and shows the spines in his snaps. One day he gets The Color Purple . Another day, The Berlin Stories and Less . I buy them, too, next time I'm at work .

I know it's not normal, this. But for a little while, it's okay. I just need something. Something that can make me feel good. It makes me feel good to see him.

Sometimes I think about him when I'm falling asleep. His arms wrapped around me. I can tell he's gay—for sure. I mean, he isn't hiding it at this point. I tell myself that he would like me if he knew me. I tell myself this in a low-key way...without really saying it out loud in my head. It's a feeling I have. All of this just feelings.

Feelings to replace the other ones. Like the one where I enrolled in a short, summer semester of physics and I don't remember any of it, even though I have a list of courses I took at Fairplay High school, and this is one of them. Or the one where I still get the tight, clawing feeling a lot. Especially if I miss one of his snaps.

Josh Miller—he gives me that feeling. Like I need something. A clawing need. A splayed-hands, grasping feeling. Desperation. But watching him is also soothing.

It's too hard to explain.I know he’s my stepbrother. I know we weren't in love or anything. But I think I must have felt something for him. We were friends, I think. I like him. I can tell through the snaps. Sometimes I'm gripped by the feeling that I was supposed to call him or something. But I don't have my old phone. I don't know how to get into that account. Not without asking my mom.

It's okay. I’ve found a way for things to be okay. I'm playing football, and I love it. I do.

I like my dorm. I bought a painting from an art department exhibit. It's kind of wild and I guess abstract, but it's a brick wall, and ivy is crawling all up it. The sky is blue with fluffy white smears of clouds. I hung it by my bed.

And I have tea in here. It's weird—I know—but I got hooked on tea at Amelia’s place, and I just keep on making it.

I have a life here.

I'm not really a stalker or anything. I'm just entertaining myself. Speculating. Or maybe more like observing.

I know we're not real friends. If I were to try to find out if we even got along, I'd have to tell him why I don't know that answer. Assuming we knew each other, he’d be shocked to find I lost my memory.

It's a Thursday, and I have a pretty solid day. My non-physics class is English lit, and we're reading The World and Me . I like it decently well. I'm supposed to go out with Kip and some of the guys for dinner at a Japanese steakhouse. Maybe Marcel, although I hope not.

I go home and shower, check my phone, and nearly swallow my tongue when I see he's in T-town. Miller! He's down at the arboretum. The next snap is of a guy. ArnieRey111.

In the third snap, Arnie has his track shorts pulled up, showing off the bottom of his asscheeks.

My heart beats so hard, I can't get a breath. Then I can, and I feel like I might puke.

He's here.

I get up and tug my shirt off. Watch my chest move in the mirror as I try to get a lungful of air. My throat is too tight. My whole damn body starts to sweat. I sit down and check his snaps again, and there's another one. It's them together. By the bookstore— my bookstore.

I get in the shower, lean against the cool tiles. I shut my eyes and think of jumping off a building. Who would notice? Who would come ID me when they hauled me off to the morgue?

It's really bad in the bathroom. Even after I get out of the small space, I can't breathe. The clawing feeling.Like I need to do something but I DON’T FUCKING KNOW WHAT .

I lie on my bed wrapped in a towel, feeling like I might sob or howl like a wolf. Fuck! I'm going crazy!

I watch TV. News. A big-name pastor has come out. It's Luke McDowell. I'm surprised that dude is gay. I wonder if his famous megachurch will kick him out now.

I make tea, but I can't drink it. I can't swallow.

He doesn't want you, Ezra.

Doesn't know you.

He doesn't want you and he doesn't know you and he never will. He goes to Auburn.

I spend some time in the bathroom, on my knees with my arms propped up on the toilet.

Maybe all of this is PTSD. From what happened to me. I'm shaking, and I can't stop. I take a Xanax and lie on the bed.

No one wants you.

Just delete your Snapchat, moron.

So, I do.

I delete the fucking app, and he posts them on Insta stories. They're in a dark car that has orange lights on the dashboard.

They're smiling at the phone's cam.

They're not driving to the gas station to get an Icee. They're not driving to an old house with a cemetery or a ballpark to get blow jobs. There is no ivy-covered wall where they might kiss.

I can't breathe.

"Oh God ."

I take the whole bottle of Xanax.

It takes a while for it to feel wrong. But by then, I'm just too sleepy. I don't even think I care.