Ezra Montgomery
Wednesday, February 14th 2019
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

chapter twenty-eight: necklaces

IM DIZZY WHEN I GET HOME. I finished off the rest of the bottle on my walk home. I don't even feel the cold nipping at me. I don't feel anything, but the buzz. My chest is warm and my nose is bright red. I strolling along like a zombie.

Bentley is excited to see me when I come through the door. My dad is up, poking away at his iPad, sipping a scotch on the rocks, his usual, in our dimly lit living room. He looks up at me from under his glasses.

"You're drinking again, for fucks sake, Ezra." He says with anger, he's not concerned, he says it because he knows how I get, first comes the drinking and then the drug use and then, just like that, I don't want to live anymore. He's embarrassed of me. He wishes I was more like my cousin Fred, I know it because he tells me so, at least a dozen times a week.

The irony makes me laugh, I can't deal with him right now. This only angers my dad more, good. He clenches his jaw, putting the tablet down. "Aren't you drinking, right now?" I question, reaching down to give Bentley head scratches. I nearly topple over, but I manage. Bentley's tail thumps on the hardwood floor, lazily, he gives me a few kisses, before he trudges away, to my bedroom. He doesn't go to bed until I'm home, he waits up for me every single night.

"Unlike you, I'm a real man." He begins. "I'm not some suicidal fucking queer," He rises from the couch. He's still in a suit and tie, from his dinner date with mom. There's a humongous bouquet of red roses on the grand piano, near the floor to ceiling windows.

I rise to my feet angrily. So fucking angry at everything, I hated that I looked like him, hated that he made up fifty percent of my DNA.

"I know you just did it for attention, you're pathetic." He says it calmly, like he's stating a fact.

He's in front of me now and I can smell the booze on his breath, it makes me sick to my stomach. I want to punch and kick him for everything he's done, for ruining me. I want to beat his face until it's a bloodied pulp, but i'm too scared. I am pathetic, he's right.

"Fuck you," I say it to his face, staring into his eyes when I say it. I want him to know that I mean it. I never stand up to him, I don't know why I do today, it had to be the alcohol in my system, or the numbness that was brewing in me like a winter blizzard.

I think I want to feel something, I know he'll strike me for it. Of course he does, right to the gut. I double over, puking my guts out all over the floor. I fall to the ground, weak and empty. My stomach aching, I double over in pain, head hung low. He's standing over me now. He looks like an evil tyrant king.

My dad watches with an amused expression. "I wish I had a son instead of a daughter, can't even hold your damn alcohol."

He strikes me again on the face, kicking me while i'm down. "Now get this cleaned up," He finishes the rest of his scotch, leaving me there.

I lay there for a long time, aching, yet still so empty.

When I finally get up, the morning birds are chirping and my face and torso are bruised. I clean up the contents of my stomach, and lay down in my bed for a long while.

My alarm goes off, but I ignore it. My phone buzzes too, I don't bother to check it. My mom calls me from the kitchen to get up and get ready for school. I ignore all of it.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Tuesday, February 20, 2019

I fake sick, I tell my mom that my whole body aches and that my stomach is uneasy. She allows me to stay home, she makes me soup and brings me tea every few hours.

She doesn't know that i'm sick in another way that can't really be treated by medicine, sick in the head. Sometimes I get so sad that I can't move, don't want to get up. I stay in bed for days. She doesn't ask me about the purple bruise on my face, she never does.

She sometimes dabs concealer over them when they're too dark, or too menacing. She holds my face still, dabbing the makeup under my eye, I wince as she does. "Stay still," she says in a soothing voice.

I had to go to therapy today and I would be going back to school tomorrow, she said. I told her I wouldn't go, but she gave me a look that said otherwise.

"Your father and I are worried, you need to talk to someone, Ez." She says when she's finally done applying the makeup. She sits on the edge of my bed and she looks tired.

Her blue green eyes are glassy, like she could break down at any second. I forgot how frail she way, I hated worrying her, but the act was getting too hard to uphold, it was breaking me.

I missed Nora too, I hadn't checked my phone in nearly a week, couldn't bring myself to.

"Oh," she began. "Your girlfriend stopped by!" My mom says.

I look at her confused, and she furrows her eyebrows together, just as confused as me.

"The girl you're taking to the winter ball..." she trails off. "Oh!" she says excitedly, clapping her hands together. "When is she free? I would like to take her to go dress shopping, the dance is this weekend and she doesn't even have a dress, Ezra, what the hell, some date you are." She jokes.

I sit up in bed, she came to see me? But why? It was obvious she didn't like me, I was just a distraction to her.

"What did she want?" I try to ask cooly, like I didn't care, but I did. I wanted to know what she was wearing, what she said, how she looked, I just wanted to see her, hear her voice.

I suddenly felt like going to therapy all of a sudden. "She wanted to give you something." My heart breaks again. It was probably that dammed necklace, she probably hated me by now. It was probably for the best.

"Oh," I can't fake my disappointment when I say it. Still I rise from my bed and head to take a shower, my mom is still sitting on the bed.

"You never answered my question," she mentions.

"I'm not going to the dance."

My mom gasps dramatically. "Why?" Her voice is quiet and concerned.

I sift through my closet, looking for something to wear. I think deeply, why? So many why's come to mind, because there's nothing to celebrate, because I hate dances, because I don't want to pretend anymore, because i'm not happy, instead I just shrug and leave her there to go take a shower.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

My hair is still damp and I tuck my arms into my sweater, freezing. After a week of faking sick, now I was certain I was actually going to catch a cold.

I sit in the waiting room, leg shaking. I was so nervous, for everything. To see Dr. V, but most of all, Nora.

After her meeting ends, she just stares at me from afar and she looks pissed.

She then turns her back to me and heads to leave. I stay put, letting her go, like I should, but before I know it, I'm standing.

I jog lightly to catch up to her, my wet hair falling into my face, it was getting too long.

I find her, tucked away in our usual spot. The spot where I kissed her last week, it was our little spot, near the window.

"I thought you were sick," She doesn't take her eyes off the window, and her back is still facing me. Her voice sounds unamused and irritated.

I lean against the wall, opposite of her, staring at her backside. It was good to see her and hear her voice, even if she was angry with me, even if I was staring at the back of her head.

"I just wasn't feeling good," I admit, lowly, which wasn't entirely a lie.

"So you couldn't answer your phone?" she whips to me, her voice slightly elevated, not a yell, but she was angry.

She turns back around, out the window, with a sigh. She reaches into her hoodie pocket and retrieves something.

She stares down at it for a long while, but I can't see what it is. "I'm sorry." I say, I want to step towards her, to fill the space between us, but I know better.

She presses her forehead to the window, fogging it. "I was just...worried." She says quietly.

She finally turns around and I see that she is teary eyed, she quickly wipes them. "Well...I see that you're okay."

"Please don't cry," I'm begging, I don't like seeing her cry, especially not over something I did. I step forward to comfort her, but she puts a hand up.

"I'm not crying." She stubbornly says, staring at me with teary eyes. I study her, she looks beautiful even crying, I notice her neck, she's wearing it.

I step closer, trying to get a better view, but she steps back. She grabs my hand forcefully, placing something small inside it. It feels like a necklace.

I hold it there, wanting to hold onto her hand a little longer. "Let go." she says, she's still angry.

"What is this?" I ask. "You're wearing it?"

She rolls her eyes. "Let. Go."

I don't, instead I pull her in for a hug. It's more for me than anything, my fist is still balled up tight, so I don't lose whatever she's placed into my hand. She stands stiff as a board against me. She's hesitant at first, but hugs me back.

"Are you okay, Ezzie?" she says after a while, her anger suddenly gone, she doesn't know that I've shed a few tears into her hair. Or that when she wraps her arms around my waist it makes me bruises ache.

"I am now." I say pulling away. I finally open my palm and see a necklace, it's cheap, not real gold and the neck band is thick, not quite a chain, but not dainty either. But I hold it up to examine it better. Nora looks embarrassed.

"It's not much," she says quietly. But it means the world to me. I hold it up to my lips kissing it, I will cherish it forever.

The necklace reads Nora. I place it around my neck, without hesitation. "I love it."

She tries to hold down her smile, but she can't. I pull her closer, tilting her chin up so that she's staring at me.

"What are you gonna say when people ask you about your necklace?" I ask quietly.

She's staring into my eyes, not pulling away, the world goes quiet around us. "That some idiot gave it to me and you?" She asks.

"I'm gonna say that my girlfriend got it for me," I say with a devilish grin.

She just rolls her eyes, but her smile is still there.

a/n
super unedited but we are almost at 13k woah 🤯also ezra pov because y'all be eating that up for some reason