Ezra blows out a breath. He looks out at the sky, too. In a second, it will be streaked with pink and orange. Right now, it’s just . . . waiting.
He says, to the sky, “Sure.”
And then I realize: I do not want him to go.
It’s not him who has things to say.
It’s me.
I say, too fast, “You’ll never make it home before sunset. Light candles with me.”
Ezra furrows his brow and stares at me. Then says, “Okay.”
I strike the match I brought, light the Shabbat candles and set them in the treehouse window. I cover my eyes and say the blessing—I try to sing it, jury’s out as to whether I’m successful.
The sun sets.
The sky streaks with celestial paint.
We are both quiet again, left with sundown and candlelight and . . . a number of memories we have from this treehouse.
The air is thick with them.
I say, finally, because if we are quiet for too long, he’ll leave and I—I can’t have him leave. I don’t want him to go.
I say, “Holtz?”
“Yeah?”
“When you told me you loved me.”
He hisses out air through his teeth. “Jesus.” He’s embarrassed. I mean, yeah. Sure.
“I said I had to go.”
“I recall.”
I’m shaking? Yeah. I’m shaking. “I don’t know how the hell this happened but I guess—” I can barely say it because how did it happen? And what if I ruined everything with my freak out? “Ezra. I don’t . . .” I rub my hand over my forehead.
I wanted to control this whole thing so bad and now I can’t. Now the words are sticking in my throat.
Ezra cuts in: “Amalia, do you know that I’ve been in love with you forever?”
I choke. “What?”
“Forever.”
“I thought—” I can barely breathe. He’s staring straight at me, not even nervous anymore, just sure. Intent. Focused, like he always is. Maybe there really is something to those mirroring neurons, because something is happening to me at the chemical level. “I thought you thought I was irritating.”
He laughs. A real smile. My insides light up.
“Yeah. Of course I did. You irritate the shit out of me.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh and I don’t know if it’s a release of tension or the coiling of it.
“We’ve known each other since we were kids and I just . . . I was always fascinated by you. Even when you were making me nuts. You had all these maddening ideas and were this . . . just totally wild, weird person and you were interesting. But then after . . . after Moshe.”
I nod.
His voice cracks on it.
“That night. At youth group. You were there and no one else was. I knew you half-hated me and you just sat there with me and touched me and you cared. I think . . . I don’t know. I don’t know if I fell for you then or if it was before or after or what. But I know that I’ve been in love with you for years.”
My throat constricts. I legit cannot breathe. My palms are sweating and I just—how. How. I say, “I haven’t been in love with you forever. You really did make me crazy, Ezra.”
“Well, don’t sugarcoat things to spare my feelings.”
“But I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“About wringing my neck?”
“About kissing it.”
His eyes go dark.
“I feel like . . . like I don’t know anyone as well as I know you. It freaks me out, like maybe I’ll fall head over heels for you and then you’ll realize I’m not who you th—”
“Your favorite food is chocolate-covered raisins. You freak.”
I close my mouth.
He says, “You love the darkest nature docs, and you love the bassoon. LOVE. The freaking bassoon. Who loves the bassoon?”
I laugh. I can’t stop laughing.
He’s naming all the oddest things about me and that makes me nervous until he says: “Your favorite color is blue. You love pumpkin spice lattes. Nothing makes you madder than cowardice. You’re a Scorpio. I lied. I don’t know that because of the Chanukah thing; I know because I love you. That’s it. I know you.”
I breathe out. Low and slow. “You . . . yeah. Yeah, you really do.”
He just waits.
Looks at me.
I say, into the quiet: “God, what the shit. I love you, too.”
Ezra laughs.
He laughs harder.
He reaches for my neck and pulls me toward him and laughs into my mouth, and I thread my fingers through his hair.
The candles burn behind us as the sunset gives way to nighttime.
He doesn’t leave until long after the candles have burned out.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Kissing Ezra Holtz is, to date, the most difficult story I have ever written. While I was drafting it, I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder (and let me just tell you, as it turns out, brains and their functionality are KIND OF important to, you know. Functioning. Look, we’ve all learned something today). It was absolutely the most intense episode of depression I’ve ever dealt with, and what that means is that finishing a story like this, a story that is a huge part of my heart, when it was a real struggle every single day, is something I am so intensely proud of. And that is part of what makes this story, specifically, such a huge team effort.
To all of you who helped yank me into life when it seemed . . . more than difficult, in a hundred different ways, THANK YOU. To Sara Taylor Woods, ~*~wife~*~, for about a million things, not the least of which was the sukkah scene, you utter perv. To Colleen Oakes, I miss the *heck* out of you; thank you for giving me the idea to tell the story of an artist who is told no in the first place. To Tabitha Martin, for phone call after phone call and talking writing with me and over a decade of friendship. And to Rae Loverde, for hours and hours of talking about books and life and everything else under the sun, and talking about characters like they’re real people because DANGIT to US they are. To my therapist, Meghan Gordon—without you stepping in and helping me change the entire course of my life, I never would have been able to tell this story.
My agent, Steven Salpeter, for believing in me and in my work sometimes more than I do. You have no idea how grateful I am for our partnership. Holly Frederick and Maddie Tavis, thank you so much for everything above and beyond that you do. My editor, Nicole Frail, you always have incredible insight and every story we get to work on together only makes me happier that we get to partner in this. To the entire team at Sky Pony—artists, editors at every stage, publicity, production, everything. Thank you for making this dream of mine continually possible.
Bookish community, YA Twitter, Jewish!Twitter, book bloggers, and readers who make this all real, ALL ALL ALL of my love.
And last, to my boys. My kids, you make everything worth it. Harry, thank you, as always, for being the reason I tell love stories.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Taylor Whitrock
Brianna R. Shrum has been writing since she could scrawl letters. She digs all things bookish, geeky, superhero-y, gamer-y, magical, and strange. You can usually find her writing under her Harry Potter tree and drinking chai (which she holds as proof of magic in the world). She is also the author of How to Make Out, The Art of French Kissing, and Never Never. She lives in South Carolina with her high-school-sweetheart-turned-husband and her two little boys.
Kissing Ezra Holtz (and Other Things I Did for Science) Page 21