Kissing Ezra Holtz (and Other Things I Did for Science) Read online

  I lie on my back, arms behind my head, and stare up at the ceiling.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket.

  Ezra: I shouldn’t have called you lazy.

  I roll my eyes and flip the phone over, let it lie silently there on the floor.

  It sucks. It wouldn’t suck so hard if I didn’t . . . if what he said was just totally ridiculous. If he’d accused me of being overly emotional or something sexist and untrue.

  But what he said, what he thinks of me—not that I care what Ezra, specifically, thinks of me—is the thing I’ve been quietly worried about since the ninth grade. Since I stopped being able to skate my way through all the gifted classes and realized I’d rather sit in the back and screw around when the teacher droned on about stuff I could do in my sleep. Since I realized that I wanted a social life instead of night after night buried in an organic chem textbook. Since my teachers stopped telling my parents how smart I was.

  I’ve been in gifted and talented and all that since freaking elementary school, I’ve never had to study a day in my life, and high school, as it turned out, was a little different. People don’t know this about me, that my report cards are usually at least bordering on decent. I can kill a test every time.

  But homework. Studying. I’ve never had to do it before and I don’t want to do it now, and sometimes I don’t even think I know how, and it’s all just. . . . Well, I guess I’m lazy then. I guess he’s right.

  I guess everyone’s right.

  Maybe if I had applied myself a little harder, I could have gotten the only thing I ever really wanted. The only thing. I was not the kid who changed her life plan nineteen times. I’ve never . . . I’ve never even considered an alternative. This—this was what I wanted enough to bust my ass and all my summer job money on art supplies and extra classes.

  Maybe . . .

  Maybe I could have had this whole life I’ve dreamed about since I was eight. Sliding into art classes, hands stained from oils and charcoal, hiding behind a messy bun and ratty hoodie, this cool, mysterious girl who stayed up too late drinking wine and working on a total modern masterpiece. A little studio apartment in the city scattered with all my paints, smelling like canvas, draped with sheets to protect the floor I’d ruined with color. After that, after I’d finally had enough living off Ramen and cold showers, a gallery. An exhibit with my name on it.

  I’m Amalia, I’d tell people. I’m an artist.

  I’m an artist.

  Who the fuck am I if I’m not an artist?

  Now I’m crying.

  I can’t even blame Ezra.

  I’m crying because I know that’s not true. That working harder wouldn’t have gotten me that, that nothing could have, because when it comes down it, eighty percent of the time I guess I’m just lazy. And the other twenty? The twenty that wanted this so bad she could taste it on her tongue? Isn’t good enough.

  That’s it.

  I’m not good enough.

  And there is nothing, nothing, nothing I can do to change that.

  By the time I am done with my total pity party, the sun has set. It was just this side of night before I sob-climbed my way up here, so it’s not like I spent hours and hours up here crying in the dirt. Just like . . . hour and hour.

  I breathe for a little while, and I climb down and take my phone, with its four unread text messages, which I leave unread.

  In the house, Ben is watching Bojack Horseman and he looks up at me. “Molls, you’ve looked better.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Nah, I’m serious, you good?”

  My mouth does one of those almost comically exaggerated frowns like little kids do before they’re gonna cry.

  “Shit,” he says. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” I say, running the heel of my hand preemptively over my eye. My mascara and eyeliner are probably all over my face.

  But I didn’t think ahead re: the crying this morning and didn’t wear waterproof so it was probably already everywhere before the ill-advised eye rub.

  Who cares. It’s just Ben.

  Ben hits pause on the TV and turns around, arms on the back of the couch. He just waits until I say something, which, as it turns out, is an astoundingly effective tactic.

  I say, “Well I was hanging out with Ezra—”

  “Yeah, I’d be crying, too.”

  I laugh. It’s a little watery but it’s a laugh. “He’s not that bad.”

  Ben raises his big, need-to-be-hacked-at eyebrows.

  “Okay,” I say. “He is. But he just said some stuff I didn’t want to hear and I’m being weird about it.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That I was lazy.” I shrug, like I don’t care, like who gives a shit, this is Amalia you’re talking to! Amalia Yaabez, who cuts class to go steal weed from the vice principal’s glove compartment and light it up with her stoner friends in the woods off campus. Amalia Yaabez, who shows up to school, whenever she feels like it, in shredded jeans and an old ripped up leather jacket she found at a Goodwill, because it makes her feel like James Dean. Bad influence, wild, fun, rebel without a cause, Amalia Yaabez. Tell her she’s lazy and she’ll take it as a compliment! Who cares.

  Ben narrows his eyes. I watch his chest expand, his big shoulders broaden. “Come here.”

  I groan but I listen.

  Ben yanks me down onto the couch and puts his giant arm around my shoulders and says, “Ezra Holtz? Is a prick.”

  “Ben, come o—”

  “He’s a prick who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to you.”

  I’m quiet, way quieter than I think I’ll be, when I say, “Maybe he does, though.”

  “You?” Ben pulls back and looks at me, really looks at me. My dirt-matted hair and my tear-streaked face, and I hate how vulnerable I am right now, but at least it’s just my brother. No one else gets to see me like this, thank god. “You’re not lazy. Look at your hands. They’re perma-stained from all the art and crap you do all the time. You always smell like freaking turpentine and the rest of us have to retreat to our rooms to get away from it.”

  “Oh, gee, thanks.”

  “I’m saying look at you. You worked harder for that than I ever worked for anything.”

  “Like you didn’t kill yourself at two-a-days.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “But I never loved football like you love this. Like you love creating things. I was never hungry for it. You are.”

  Tears sting my eyes again. “Doesn’t mean it’s not lazy of me to do what I’ve done all through school. Just throw everything away. My potential.”

  He laughs, like straight up guffaws. I blink.

  “Your potential. God, what are you, a mom?”

  I narrow my eyes. “Don’t be a butt.”

  “I’m serious! I’ve heard Mom and Dad use that shit on you so many times. You know how many fights I’ve gotten in with them over it?”

  “Over . . . over me?”

  “Yeah, over you, you twerp.” He shoves me. “You’re not lazy, you’re just a smart kid.”

  That stings and I actually recoil. I don’t want to hear that I’m smart; I’m so sick of hearing that I’m smart. It only makes me feel more like trash.

  “I had to work my butt off to stay on the team all through school; you know that. Even as a kid. You remember they almost held me back in the second grade?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “So like, I get to real school and I know what I’m supposed to do. I get Cs busting my ass and that’s fine. ’Cause I’m not smart.”

  I sigh. “Ben, you’re smar—”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Molls.” He holds his hand out to stop me. “You, though, you’re like the wunderkind, reading big books at four and five and whatever, probably in utero. YOUR FETUS CAN READ.”

  I laugh again, this time a little less watery.

  “And you get the same grades I do, but you never had to put in the h
ours I did. Neither of us is useless, okay? Or lazy or whatever. You just . . . never had to do that shit like the rest of us and everyone told you you were gonna be the valedictorian and you were so damn brilliant and when you realized you could get what you wanted without giving up your social life like I had to just to play effing football, you did. But you’re just so smart that when you get grades like me, like everyone else, you think you’re a screw-up.”

  “I am a screw-up,” I whisper.

  “Molls.”

  “The only thing I ever really worked for. The only thing, Ben, you basically just said it. I didn’t get.”

  “What else do you want?” he says.

  “What?”

  “What else. Do you want?”

  I blink and sniff. I’ve never . . . I’ve never even really thought about it. I was so sure, so positive, wanted it so bad, that I just . . . I never even considered a Plan B. That I really could want anything else.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “Well,” he says, “figure it out.”

  I swallow and look down at my stained, calloused, turpentine hands.

  Ben takes a deep breath through his nose. “Jesus, you haven’t even painted in the house today and you still smell like art. Figure it out in the bathroom or something; I can’t even watch Bojack over that and my shirt is all wet.”

  “You are such a jerk,” I say, shoving him hard enough that it should hurt but it probably doesn’t what with all the natural muscle padding he’s got going on in his pecs and everywhere. Benjamin Yaabez does not neglect his core.

  “Yep,” he says. He turns on the TV and I hop back over the couch, feeling light for some reason. Not like anything’s changed.

  It’s just that . . . I don’t know. I have a question. I have a problem to solve. I can stop wallowing, because I can’t stand that for more than a few hours.

  I just . . . have to figure out what I want, if what I can have isn’t art school.

  What do you want to do with your whole life, Amalia?

  I just need one little answer.

  Simple.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Hypothesis: If I want to start regaining some sense of control in my life, then I should consider starting with the tallest thing standing in my way.

  Ezra Holtz is 6'1".

  Ezra approaches me first thing Tuesday morning and, before he can speak, I hold out my hand and say, “Shut up.”

  He raises his eyebrows and blows out a breath, like he can’t decide whether to be pissed or to listen to me or to be pissed but also listen to me.

  “You were a jerk to me the other day and you made me cry and that’s bad and you should feel bad.” I almost regret telling him I cried the second it leaves my mouth. But also, screw him for making me cry; he should know.

  He says, “Oh. Shit, Amalia, I’m honestly really sorr—”

  “No,” I say. “No, be quiet. Just continue being quiet.”

  He purses his lips and I see the telltale tick of annoyance in his mouth. The tiniest twitch in his upper lip. If he wasn’t folding his arms over his chest, he would be adjusting his glasses at me.

  “You don’t get to tell me I’m lazy. I’ll stop telling you that you’re the most boring boy alive. We can think whatever we want about each other, but you are not going to be wrecking my grade with your assholiness.”

  “Excuse me? Me wreck your grade.” His eyebrows are about even with his hairline, but to his credit, he stops himself. He runs his hand over his jaw and says. “Sorry. Go on.”

  “No, that’s it. If you’re done interrupting, we should get to work.”

  Ezra’s face is stone. His jaw is clenched and his arms are frozen over his chest and his eyes are granite. He’s processing, I guess.

  Fine.

  I sit at the desk and pull out my notebooks as though nothing out of the ordinary is happening, brush my absolute mop of hair out of my eyes and off my neck so it hangs over one of my shoulders. Then I primly start writing.

  Cross out a line, adjust.

  Cross, adjust.

  Cross.

  After I’ve ignored him for a solid thirty seconds, Ezra snorts.

  I glance up.

  He snorts again, stern mouth curling up in something that looks against his will. Then he halfway collapses into laughter.

  A couple other kids are looking up from their desks and eventually even the teacher looks up and says, “Mr. Holtz.”

  “Yeah?” says Ezra, wiping tears from his eyes. “Yes. I mean, yes?”

  “Something you’d like to share with the class?”

  “No.” He blows out a breath with tone so it comes out like an intentional, Whew. “It’s nothing. I’m just—” And he loses it again.

  I am dumbfounded.

  “Honestly, Ezra,” says Mr. Yeun, and Ezra just grabs the hall pass, doubled over laughing. Yanks it off the wall and leaves. Mr. Yeun looks at me from his desk at the front of the class and says, “Have you broken him?”

  I say, “Well, I’m trying.”

  A couple snickers, and Mr. Yeun’s mouth tips up, then he says, “No more outbursts. Get back to work. I need silence to grade these papers.” He’s not even making an effort to pretend he’s grading; Mr. Yeun is reading what I’m pretty sure is a graphic novel.

  I am working.

  I have—because I worked on it Monday, Ezra—a whole application drawn up, ready to be critiqued, to let us create couples. It’s this whole questionnaire based on compatibility from stuff like gender and sexual and romantic orientations to the littlest things like . . . like, “Who is your OTP? Who is your NOTP? Least favorite sandwich topping? If you were to be killed by a dinosaur in Jurassic Park, which one would you choose?” It’s beautifully organized, if I do say so myself, and I go over it with a fine-toothed comb twice before Ezra walks back in, polished and confident and condescending once again.

  “Ezra,” I say when he sits beside me.

  “Amalia.”

  “Have you recovered?”

  “Yes,” he says. “Thank you.”

  Mr. Yeun is looking at us with a wary eye, but we are being perfectly civil and Ezra doesn’t seem to be in danger of imploding again, so soon enough, he goes back to Ant-Man or whatever it is he’s reading.

  “Am I just that hysterical?” I say.

  “What?”

  “Earlier. What the hell was that?”

  “I, uh,” he says. He glances down at the desk and rolls his palm over a pencil. It makes kind of a soothing noise when its edges hit the wood—one way, then the other. “Honestly, I have no idea.”

  I cock my eyebrow.

  “This whole thing,” he says. “It’s got me a little out of my element and you just coming in here all hard ass and take-no-prisoners and the way you’re like, verbally manhandling me. I don’t know, it just, for some reason, struck me as funny.”

  My nose wrinkles and I glare up at him. “That seems a little sexist.”

  “No,” he says. “No, not like that. Not that you’re ridiculous. Just the look on your face, it was so completely dismissive. And I’ve—well, people don’t talk to me that way and I think you know that and . . . you’re funny, Amalia. I don’t know. You’re just—you’re really funny. As it turns out.”

  Huh.

  I say, “Oh.” And suddenly I’m nervous. I’m nervous and a little unsteady and I don’t know what to do with that. Or with the funny feeling in my throat and the hyper-sense in my skin so when Ezra’s bare upper arm brushes mine, I literally jump. “Okay.” That’s all I can make my mouth do. Good lord, why am I so off-kilter?

  “So,” Ezra says. “What do you have there?”

  “Compatibility.”

  He pulls it out from under my hands without asking, presumptuous, and gives it a once-over. “This looks good,” he says.

  “It does?” I mean to say, It does. But that’s not how it comes out. I don’t know what to do with this Ezra, the one giving me compliments and outright approval. It’s wei
rd. I don’t know if I like it, but I do know it’s weird.

  “Yes,” he says. “But I think asking faith and then religion is redundant.”

  “Oh crap,” I say. “Yeah, that was an accident; I meant to only ask one of those.”

  “And you have some bizarre questions on here, but everything we talked about stayed so I think that’s fine.”

  I furrow my brow a little, unsure if that was an insult or a neutral statement of fact, but I don’t say anything.

  Ezra says, “Velociraptor, by the way.”

  “What?”

  “Velociraptor.” He taps the page where I asked about which dinosaur you’d want to kill you.

  “Ezra,” I say. “Velociraptor? You’re ALIVE when they start to EAT YOU. Have you not seen the film?”

  He chuckles, then his lips twist a little and he laughs exactly like Ian Malcolm—that totally weird cackle. And I snort, and Mr. Yeun gives us a death glare.

  Ezra says, “It wouldn’t be a clean death. But if I’m going to be killed by an animal, I want it to be one that could reasonably outsmart me. That I can look back at as a ghost and not be ashamed that I was trampled by a stegosaurus or something.”

  “A worthy enemy is important to you.”

  “Yes,” he says.

  “Well,” I say. “I go T-rex. At least you die in one bite.”

  “To each their own,” he says. He mutters, “T-rex. You wuss.”

  I shove him and his pencil slips on his paper, so there’s a lead line from the top to the bottom corner.

  He narrows his eyes.

  When we get back to work, I’m smiling.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Observation: There is a psychological phenomenon in which you write down anything enough times, or say it enough times, and it starts to look totally ridiculous to you. Even a completely normal, boring word. Plaid. Plaid. P-l-a-i-d. Plaid. Plaiiidddd. Plaid. Plaid. Plaid. It’s the best pattern and now it looks bizarre.

  Do something enough times, and it’s ridiculous, but even if you know exactly what psychological trap you’re falling into, well. Plaid is weird now. There’s nothing you can do to immediately change it.