Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jo
When Ezra returned to college the semester after his monthlong stint in rehab, all of Elion University blew up with speculation. Some people thought he’d flunked out, citing his tendency to party hard. Others thought this impossible—He’s actually really smart,someone commented in my dorm’s group chat, in response to another person’s declaration thatHis daddy would never allow this place to kick him out.
Ezra could’ve cared less. With his new lease on life, he narrowed his focus to three things: his studies, his dreams, and me. We did everything together: went to the concerts on campus, stood for long hours to snag tickets for our favorite up-and-coming comedians. Ezra liked to try out new restaurants, and so dragged me to different spots around the city after class. I couldn’t afford anything outside of my cafeteria meal plan, and so, as a rule, he always paid. But without fail, every time we asked for the check, our waiter would come back with two.
Eventually, Ezra got fed up.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” he said, glaring up at the pretty brunette who had just handed us separate receipts.
Our waitress chuckled nervously, blinking down at me in a way that communicated that beautiful was a stretch. Ezra didn’t smile back.
“Yes?” she said, like it was a trick question.
“Is that why you don’t think we’re together? Because you don’t think I’m good enough for her?” Ezra said, reaching across the table to grab my hand to drive home his point. When the waitress gaped back at him, he turned away from her, running his thumb lovingly across my knuckles. “I’m paying. One check.”
Ezra had held my hand many times before. But this time felt different, the swatch of skin he brushed turning hypersensitive, burning like he’d set it aflame. His stare was piercing, unrelenting, and for the first time I wondered if I was missing something.Boys don’t look at girls they don’t have feelings for like that, right?I thought.They don’t plead with their eyes; they don’t tremble when they touch you.But then the next week Ezra hooked up with the hot goth girl in his Improvisation and Performance class, and I was reminded, once more, of my place.
“Stop it,” I said now to an Ezra several years older, several years wiser, an Ezra who, after our conversation yesterday, definitely should have known better. “I told you how I felt about you, Ez, so why are you still messing with me?”
“Because I’m not messing with you,” he said. “Because I’ve been so scared of losing you that I was in denial about how I feel about you. Because you keep using past tense, and I wish you’d use present.”
My mind was whirring. I wanted to clap my hands over Ezra’s mouth, stop him from saying what I feared was coming next. What I had wanted to hear him say for most of my adult life. I could feel his hands settle on the sides of my face, guiding me tolook at him, but I resisted, too frustrated and sad and confused to meet his eyes. Ashley had tried to tell me, drunk, at the bar, and I’d refused to take her seriously.His most precious person.
“Jo, please. Look at me,” Ezra said, and, unbidden, my gaze finally dragged to his. “I love you. I’ve probably always loved you. Maybe since the day you gave me that pen. Or when you threw that pillow at my head. I don’t know exactly. But I do know that the moment you came into my life, it became beautiful again. I didn’t want to screw things up. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you. So I looked elsewhere. Convinced myself I could feel the same way about someone else. It never worked out, of course, because they were never you.” He laughed, a soft huff of sound. “I knew you were bound to find someone else someday. I mean. Look at you. And I want to be happy for you. But after today? Having you back again? Remembering that life is too fucking short for regrets? I’m sorry. I can’t let you go. So tell me you forgive me, and that I still have a shot. That you can love me too, again.”
“You won’t have to let me go,” I said, and he lowered his forehead against mine, his hold becoming desperate. “I’ll always be your friend, Ez.”
Ezra’s nose brushed against mine, his breath wafting against my lips. If I gave him even the slightest inclination that I might want him to kiss me, I knew that he would. I could tell how badly he wanted to.
“I don’t want to be your friend,” he whispered.
And I didn’t want Ezra to kiss me, which was strange, considering how badly I’d wanted it once. I shook my head, fighting back against the new crop of tears that threatened to spill down my cheeks.
“I can’t. You know I can’t.”
“Why not?” Ezra said. His voice was ragged now, and the sound of it, choked, stung. “Because of the writer? I can wait. He’ll mess up eventually, or you’ll get tired of him, but the two of us, we’re different. We’ll—”
“I don’t want him to mess up, and I don’t want to get tired of him,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut. Why did he have to tell me this now? Why did he have to wait until I was falling for someone else? “Ezra, I’m so sorry. You’re too late.”
Ezra exhaled in a slow rattle. Then, abruptly, he pushed me into his chest with a hand against the back of my head, wrapping his arms around me like he would like nothing more than to wedge us together. In the darkness of his embrace, I could feel his heart thundering, pounding with a pain that I’d felt a hundred times but was more potent now that he was feeling it too.
“Don’t say that,” he whispered. “Don’t—”
A camera shutter went off.
“Oh shit,” an unfamiliar voice said. “Oh hey, you’re Ezra Adelman, right? FromOne True Kiss?”
Ezra cursed under his breath, then, without looking at me, released me. I’d forgotten that we were outside, in a public place, that nurses and doctors and techs and patients were walking around us to get inside. That Ezra was no longer just the good-looking son of Renata Kovalenko and Paul Adelman, but famous in his own right.
“Give me your phone,” he snarled, stalking the reedy young man who was stuffing his phone into his pocket and rapidly plotting his escape. “What the hell’s wrong with you, taking pictures of people without their consent—”
“Ez,” I said, alarmed, but other phones were coming out now, onlookers who, recognizing that something monumental might be happening in front of them even if they didn’t understandwhat, were now snapping and recording. If they caught Ezra accosting this kid, they could spin it however they wanted. I could see the headlines now: One True KissActor Ezra Adelman Assaults Honors Student Over Photographs.“Ez, no! Let’s go!”
As if on cue, Harold pulled up in a black Lincoln Town Car. Before he could make a scene, I grabbed Ezra by the elbow and dragged him backward, practically shoving him inside the car before throwing myself in next to him. It wasn’t until I’d yanked the door shut and Harold had sped out onto the highway that the enormity of what had just happened fell fully onto my shoulders.
Ezra loved me, and I no longer loved him. My mission to get over him had been a riotous success.
