oh my god, they were neighbors

a man with a gun - part two

It was clear in the morning that life was, as was true for most days, different now. Mateo finally called his sister back, assuring her that he was fine, and back in Santa Monica, and understanding of their father's outburst. Ezra was asleep for the call, but Mateo recounted it to him nonetheless.

"You know, I'm proud of you for standing up to him last night," Ezra said, when Mateo was finished telling his story.

"I told you, I drew the line when he brought you into it," Mateo replied, smiling. "I'm feeling better about things today. As if I'm free."

"Yeah?"

"Mmhmm. No more weight on my shoulders."

Mateo went to the kitchen with a smile on his face and a raspy song in his voice, and he began to cook breakfast. Ezra, still sitting comfortably in bed and feeling otherwise entirely contented in life, was struck with an epiphany. The man he could now call his 'boyfriend', who was, at seemingly every moment, enveloped in worry and anxiety and reservation, had broken free of the one thing that had truly weighed down on him in his life: the approval of his father. And Ezra was jealous. He wanted to navigate his own issues, which were roughly similar to those that afflicted Mateo, and yet he didn't know how.

That was, until his phone buzzed.

It was a notification from the news app on his phone. Another societal collapse or another celebrity baby or another goddamn tragedy. But this time, it wasn't the content that counted. It was the notification itself, a reminder that a world existed outside of the one Ezra had built up around him. There was still an Atchison, Kansas, and two parents that didn't love him but at least knew he existed, and a rusted double-barrel shotgun under his father's bed that was fired once on Christmas Eve over a year ago.

He was going to encounter this world, and the issue it had posed for him:

His father.

Ezra's apartment was unfamiliar to him now, so empty and beige and desolate that it hardly felt like his anymore. But a light cast into his apartment from the windows, a sort of golden hue that normally wouldn't pour into his place on account of the fact that he usually liked his blinds closed. His windows were open. It was still observably sad, but in a light kind of way, now.

He hoped his father hadn't changed his number.

Ringing.

Ringing.

Ringing.

Through.

"Hello?" asked the voice, deep and gritty and wary, but nicer than Ezra expected him to sound. Nicer when he didn't know who was calling him.

"Dad, it's Ezra," Ezra said, assertively. He took a seat on the floor by the window and laid his head on its sill, feeling a lukewarm breeze course through his hair. He wondered if the weather was like this in Kansas. He even imagined being there, saying this in person. "I'm gonna say a few things, and I need you to listen."

His father began anyway. "First I'm gonna get a word in. The way you treated your mother over the phone is unacceptable. No son of mine-."

"You son of a bitch, listen to me," Ezra spat out. He breathed deep and curtly. "I'm sorry. Sorry, I told myself I wouldn't be a dick. But I'm talking. I'm going to say shit, Dad, and you're going to listen and process it. Can you do that?"

"Fine."

"I'm in Santa Monica and I work at a 7-Eleven. I live in a shitty little apartment building in an okay neighborhood, except for when the 7-Eleven got robbed that one time, and I was reminded of when you pulled out a shotgun and chased me out of the house with it. There's this girl I'm sort of friends with that fucked her teacher, but it's complicated, I guess. And I'm in love with the guy who lives next door to me. His dad is coincidentally also an asshole. I think you'd get along."

"You're a disappointment, Ezra," his father said.

But Ezra did not falter. "I know I am. I'm kinda glad I am. If you loved me, I might not be in Santa Monica right now. And I don't know, Dad. I'm happy here."

"You're really happy with the life you've chosen? To fail your mother and me, your community, your church? Everyone?"

"I didn't fail everyone, Dad," Ezra contested. "I couldn't fail Jessie or Mateo if I tried."

"A good life can't be lived as a 7-Eleven worker in Santa Monica."

"Maybe not. But it sure-as-shit can't be lived in Atchison, Kansas, either." Ezra took a deep, reassuring breath. "The two greatest people on the planet live here. I'd say thank you for raising me and putting food on the table when I was a kid, but I'd rather thank you for nearly killing me. Jessie and Mateo were worth it."

"This is your greatest mistake, Ezra."

"I know."

"You'll never come home again."

"I expected that," Ezra sighed. "I love you, Dad. I just also hate you."

Bitter silence for a moment. "Don't call me anymore."

"Okay."

Ezra took that for goodbye and hung up the phone, looking out the window at the city below. It had once seemed so small to him, a constricted, orderly grid of concrete and brick and tar, a form of walls keeping him inside his own little space; a perimeter locking him into a cage. But that was unfair to Santa Monica. Kansas was flat and bare, and yet it was more claustrophobic than anywhere Ezra had ever been. This city was free, an invitation to become the person he wanted to be. All he had to do was allow himself to make choices.

With a sigh, Ezra stood and approached his guitar. He sat and played it as if it was a habit, some deep inclination in his blood guiding his fingers across the strings. It was mindless, and it was conscious, and it was the greatest damn feeling in the world. No, second greatest. A kiss with Mateo would always win out.