Chapter Twenty Six: Ezra
A loud knock on my door woke me from blissful slumber, and I rolled out of bed to answer without even realizing that the other side of the mattress was cold and empty.
“Jesus, Ezra, it’s almost noon,” my brother said, shouldering past me to slip into the room. I was naked aside from a pair of boxer shorts, but he didn’t care. “Lacey is already packed and downstairs. What in the hell are you doing?”
I glanced over my shoulder, noticing for the first time that not only was Lacey not still wrapped in my arms, but her stuff was gone, too.
“Sorry,” I said with a yawn. “Usually, she wakes me.”
“What in the hell happened last night?” Elijah asked. “You two disappeared after the reception, and we didn’t see you again.”
“Do you really want to know?” I asked, and my brother shook his head.
“Scratch that. But get dressed. Mother and Father want to have brunch before everyone flies home this afternoon.”
“Brunch with mom and dad? Hard pass.”
“Don’t argue with me, little brother. Just do it.”
Knowing damn well I didn’t really have a choice, I let Elijah help me pack up my shit to leave, saying a silent goodbye to the room that had given me so much time with Lacey. So many nights that, even if I tried, would never entirely fade away as beautiful memories.
“Okay, brother,” I said as Elijah and I got into the elevator to head downstairs. “You have that look on your face. The disappointed brother look. Do you have something to say?”
Elijah said nothing for a long moment, just stared at me as if debating silently with himself whether or not to say what I knew he wanted to say.
“I think you’re an idiot,” he said finally, slapping me on the back as the elevator came to a halt and opened for us.
“You’ve always thought that,” I said with an eye roll. “What’s your reasoning this time?”
“Lacey is the best thing to ever happen to you,” my brother said, stepping into the lobby. I was surprised to hear him bring up Lacey at all. Since when had we been talking about her?
“What are you talking about, Elijah?” I asked, feeling irritated, but my brother ignored my tone.
“Since the day you met her when we were kids, Ezra, you two have been inseparable. And yet, after all these years, you couldn’t see what was right in front of you.”
“I did see it,” I murmured. “I just didn’t believe it. I—I was scared. Of rejection. Of failure. I was scared of losing her, Elijah.”
“That’s a petty excuse,” he said, shaking his head. “Instead, you spent all those years stringing her along while you fucked every woman with an IQ of fifty. How would you feel if you were Lacey, Ezra? Last night at the reception, she danced with a guy, and you hit the fucking roof. Now imagine that, but almost every day for the last fifteen or so years that she’s had to endure watching you do the same.”
“What makes you think that she even shares the same feelings?” I asked. “She was ready and willing to hook up with your pal Matt.”
“She was ready to move on after you told her that you two were just having fun,” Elijah reminded me. “What did you expect?”
“I thought that’s how she felt, too,” I admitted. “She never told me otherwise, Elijah.”
“I think she’s been telling you all along,” he said. “You just haven’t been listening.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop, forcing me to slow down and think about it. I sighed and nodded, leaning up against the marble wall of the lobby for support.
“So,” I said, disheartened. “What in the hell do I do?”
“You give love a chance,” my brother said, rounding on me. “You fight for what you want.”
“Easy for you to say,” I grumbled. “Ava is, like, your soulmate. But—don’t you worry about ending up like mom and dad? Resenting each other? Hating each other?”
“Sometimes that’s a risk you have to take if you want the good stuff,” Elijah said with a shrug. “All I know now is that I love Ava, and she loves me. And I will cherish that and love her until the end of my days.” Elijah winked and slapped me on the back again, harder than what I felt was necessary. “Now, let’s go,” he said. “Mother will have a fit if we’re late for brunch.”
Along with Ava and Lacey, we found my parents down at the beachside diner. It was a beautiful day in Hawaii, the perfect send-off weather, and I felt pretty damn good about things as I took the empty chair next to Lacey. She then gave me the cold shoulder for the next ten minutes as my mother and Ava gushed about how well everything had gone at the wedding last night.
“We’ll definitely be coming back here,” Ava said. “At least once a year. It’s been absolutely magical.”
“It’s been lovely,” Lacey said finally, poking at her eggs benedict with her fork. “Thank you again for the wonderful week, you two. It was so nice to see everyone.”
“You’re family, darling,” my mother said, eyes shining with dramatic tears. “You always will be.”
As long as she doesn’t decide to hate my guts instead, I thought solemnly, wishing I could take Lacey aside and lay it all out on the table. I wanted to hash this out with her like I wanted a hole in my head, but I knew it was necessary. Maybe the conversation better wait until we were home, at least, and back to reality.
As the conversation shifted a bit, giving me some leeway to speak to Lacey without being overheard, I touched her leg, surprised when she jerked it away, glaring at me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you angry with me?”
“No, Ezra,” she said, her voice low. “I’m not angry with you. I just don’t want to play these games anymore. Playtime is over, okay? Let’s focus on getting home and back into our routine.”
I was shocked by this revelation, as I’d somehow expected something else, something more, from her. How could I have a decent conversation with her about true feelings when she wouldn’t even give me the opportunity to talk to her without judgment? We’d had a wonderful time last night, and she was shutting down again, icing me out.
Feeling annoyed with the situation, I gave her some space and focused on finishing the food in front of me. Time went quickly that morning, too quickly, and before I even knew what was happening, Lacey and I had said our goodbyes to my family, and we were back in the cab, headed to the airport for our flight home. She said nothing to me here, merely kept her eyes trained on anything that wasn’t me. I didn’t push her, only because I didn’t want to make things worse, but I wish I would have because Lacey didn’t mutter a single word to me for the entire flight home, even after we landed in Seattle. She was silent the whole time, focusing on her book more than anything else, and only responding to me with short, one-word answers. I tried to give her space, but I hated it. I couldn’t stand that she was so angry with me, and I still wasn’t sure why. Would this be how it was from here on out?
“Should we go to the club for a drink?” I asked Lacey as we walked outside to catch an Uber from the airport. She was still dressed in the flowing, flowery skirt that she’d worn in Hawaii, but she looked tired. Desperately tired.
“I’m just going to go home,” she said, speaking more words to me in that sentence than she had all day long. “I need some sleep.”
“Do you want me to come with you? Help you unpack, or anything?”
“No, Ezra,” said Lacey, and her robotic tone and answers set me on edge. This wasn’t the Lacey I knew. This wasn’t my best friend. Things had changed in Hawaii, and not for the better. As she hailed down a separate taxi to take, avoiding my gaze, I desperately wanted to pull her back and into me, force her to look at me, speak to me, and hash this out with me.
But I didn’t.
“Sleep well,” I said instead, watching from the curb as my best friend slid into the back of a cab, her focus on anything and everything that wasn’t me. “See you tomorrow?”
“Sure,” she said quietly, and then that was that. The door closed and the cab pulled away, leaving me standing there at the edge of the road, watching after her, my heart feeling like it had been strangled from the inside, pulverized into ground meat, never to be whole again.