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“Whoa,” Ezra said quietly, after Aria let out a stifled sob. “It’s okay. So you didn’t like the book. It’s fine.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just…” She felt hot tears on her palms. Ezra’s room had grown so quiet. There was only the whirring of the computer’s hard drive. The buzz of the fluorescent lamp. The happy cries from the lower school playground—all the little kids were out for recess.
“Is there something you want to talk about?” Ezra asked.
Aria wiped her eyes with the back of her blazer sleeve. She picked at a loose button on one of the couch’s seat cushions. “My father had an affair with his student three years ago,” she blurted out. “He’s a professor at Hollis. I knew about it the whole time, but he asked me not to tell my mom. Well, now he’s back with the student…and my mom found out. She’s furious I knew for so long…and now my dad’s gone.”
“Jesus,” Ezra whispered. “This just happened?”
“A few weeks ago, yeah.”
“God.” Ezra stared up at the beamed ceiling for a while. “That doesn’t sound very fair of your dad. Or your mom.”
Aria shrugged. Her chin started to tremble again. “I shouldn’t have kept it a secret from my mom. But what was I supposed to do?”
“It’s not your fault,” Ezra told her.
He got out of his chair, walked around to the front of the desk, pushed a few papers aside, and sat on the edge.
“Okay. So, I’ve never told anyone this, but when I was in high school, I saw my mom kissing her doctor. She had cancer at the time, and since my dad was traveling, she asked me to take her to her chemotherapy treatments. Once, while I was waiting, I had to use the bathroom, and as I was walking back through the hall, I saw this exam room door open. I don’t know why I looked in, but when I did…there they were. Kissing.”
Aria gasped. “What did you do?”
“I pretended like I didn’t see it. My mom had no idea that I had. She came out twenty minutes later, all straightened up and proper and in a hurry. I really wanted to bring it up, but at the same time, I couldn’t.” He shook his head. “Dr. Poole. I never looked at him in the same way again.”
“Didn’t you say your parents got divorced?” Aria asked, remembering a conversation they’d had at Ezra’s house. “Did your mom go off with Dr. Poole?”
“Nah.” Ezra reached over and grabbed a McNugget out of the box. “They got divorced a couple years later. Dr. Poole and the cancer were long gone.”
“God,” was all Aria could think to say.
“It sucks.” Ezra fiddled with one of the rocks in the mini zen rock garden that sat at the edge of his desk. “I idolized my parents’ marriage. It didn’t seem to me like they were having problems. My whole relationship ideal was shattered.”
“Mine too,” Aria said glumly, running her foot against a stack of paperbacks on the floor. “My parents seemed really happy together.”
“It has nothing to do with you,” Ezra told her. “That’s a big thing I learned. It’s their thing. Unfortunately, you have to deal with it, and I think it makes you stronger.”
Aria groaned and clunked her head against the couch’s stiff back. “I hate when people say things like that to me. That things will make me a better person, even if the things themselves suck.”
Ezra chuckled. “Actually, I do too.”
Aria shut her eyes, finding this moment bittersweet. She had been waiting for someone to talk to about all this—someone who really, truly understood. She wanted to kiss Ezra for having as messed-up a family as she did.
Or maybe, she wanted to kiss Ezra…because he was Ezra.
Ezra’s eyes met hers. Aria could see her reflection in his inky pupils. With his hand, Ezra pushed the little Happy Meal car so that it rolled across his desk, over the edge, and onto her lap. A smile whispered across his face.
“Do you have a girlfriend in New York?” Aria blurted out.
Ezra’s forehead furrowed. “A girlfriend…” He blinked a few times. “I did. But we broke up this summer.”
“Oh.”
“Where did that come from?” Ezra asked.
“Some kids were talking about it, I guess. And I…I wondered what she was like.”
A devilish look danced in Ezra’s eyes, then escaped. He opened his mouth to say something but changed his mind. “What?” Aria asked him.
“I shouldn’t.”
“What?”
“It’s just…” He glanced at her askance. “She was nothing compared to you.”
A hot feeling swished through Aria. Slowly, without taking his eyes off her, Ezra slid off the desk to stand. Aria inched toward the edge of the couch. The moment stretched on forever. And then, Ezra lunged forward, grabbed Aria at her shoulders, and pressed her to him. Her lips crashed onto his. She held the sides of his face, and he ran his hands up the length of her back. They broke away and stared at each other, then dove back in again. Ezra smelled delicious, like a mix of Pantene and mint and chai tea and something that was just…Ezra. Aria had never felt this way from kissing. Not with Sean, not with anyone.
Sean. His image swam into her head. Sean letting Aria lean into him while they watched the BBC version of The Office last night. Sean kissing her before bio class, comforting her because they were starting dissections today. Sean holding her hand at dinner with his family. Sean was her boyfriend.
