Ezra shook his head. “He didn’t have to get in the car. If he hadn’t, Nick would still be alive.”
Tragic deaths aren’t avoidable. That’s what Ezra said outside Sam’s wake, and even though—to use Foster’s phrasing—I didn’t know anything about anything, I felt in this moment that Ezra was wrong. What often makes something tragic is that it can be avoided.
“I saw a picture,” I said, “in the hall, at your house. You guys fishing. He looked … he looked like a good brother.” I had no rational proof for that assessment. I could barely recall what Ezra’s brother looked like in that picture, eclipsed in my mind by young Ezra’s grinning face. But it felt like something that needed to be said, some affirmation, some … recognition, of what was lost.
“He was,” Ezra said, nodding. “He was.” It was quiet for a moment and then, “It’s weird. Sometimes it feels like we’re still the ones in the pictures, and everything that happened after happened to other people. And then sometimes we’re the other people, and the strangers are in the frames.”
I nodded, even though I didn’t really understand. It was like Foster said: I could never really get it. I could never really understand. But I could strive for empathy. I could at least do that.
“So with Foster … was that the secret? He said you guys had a secret. Is it that you both … get it?”
“No.” Suddenly Ezra made a face, and when he spoke next, it came out rushed. “Dev, I was really, really stupid to go to Homecoming with Lindsay. I mean, that was just … dumb.”
I wasn’t expecting such an abrupt turn. Suddenly I couldn’t meet his gaze. I was too embarrassed. “I don’t know. If she had asked me, I probably would’ve said yes.”
He huffed a laugh, but when he spoke again, his tone was serious. “I kind of panicked. I thought you’d be there with Cas. From everything Lindsay said, I thought you and he were…” He trailed off.
“Yeah,” I said again, forcing more life into my voice. “I, uh … I was kind of convinced that you and she were, like, totally in love or something.”
“No. No way. I mean, we’re friends, and she’s really cool, but she’s not…”
His type? I flashed on Foster saying that in gym class, what his type was. Whose type was less like Lindsay Renshaw?
“What, you like ’em flawed?” I couldn’t help but say. “Wooden teeth and backward hands and stuff?”
“Backward hands?”
My face was red. “You know, when like the backs are where the palms are supposed to be, and … vice versa…”
“Yeah, I know loads of girls with backward hands. Those are the ones you gotta watch out for.”
“Shut up.”
He smiled, and I felt some circuit close inside me, some charge beginning to flow.
“Dev, you have to know by now … you were the secret.”
“What?”
“You want to know why I partnered with Foster, that first time in gym class? Because I knew he was your cousin. And partnering with you had been kind of disastrous, so I thought the next best thing would be to show you that I could at least be decent to him. Obviously afterward I realized how cool Foster is, and that we had stuff in common, but initially it was just … I just wanted you to like me.”
It was said in such a guileless manner, like one of those first-grade notes, DO YOU LIKE ME, CHECK YES OR NO. All I could do was stare at Ezra.
“You liked me since that first gym class?”
He nodded. “Since I said ‘get a ball’ and you said ‘get it yourself.’”
“That’s when the liking started?”
“The initial liking, yes.”
“You had a weird way of showing it.”
“Yeah, well, I tend to make a pretty shitty first impression. And second and third and fourth and fifth impression.” There was a pause. Ezra shifted back and forth for a moment. “So … did I ruin it?”
“Ruin what?”
He shrugged. “Any chance for … an attachment.”