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E Z R A
EVERYTHING IN EZRA Atkinson's life is both the headache and its sedation. The hour, one in the morning; his Marlboro Reds, by the lamp on his nightstand. Val Bianchi, awake and between them.
"Because that's what happens when you get high on campus before first period," she is saying. He tries to remember what this is all about and finds that he doesn't care enough to know this time. "The one nerve she had in her head? All those substances have dissolved its ends. It's disconnected from the rest of her body, she's lost all sense, any grip she ever had on reality to begin with. She's become a bit... deranged, don't you think?"
Her scarlet talon is tapping her temple, tracing around its pulse point. Their eyes meet over the bedsheets as he returns her sharp emerald gaze with one of his own—softer, pleading, pale in comparison. "Now, it's not fair to judge her for needing something to do that. Not everyone has the privilege of being born deranged."
"Hm." Val purses the faded, rubbed-out crimson of her lips. Under the covers, she stirs, so her bare legs slip out of the twisted duvet and curve over his shins, her painted toes running themselves over them. Her breath fans his face; she smells like him, all over that scented moisturizer she'd slathered on before he kissed it into nothingness. "Well, I'll bet you anything you want she doesn't even need tutoring. Or wasn't allowed into that classroom in the first place. She's just desperate for your attention."
"Desperate for my attention," Ezra repeats, lifting his hand from around her to massage the nape behind her hair. His pillows are covered in proof of her, drenched in her perfume and alive with her strawberry shampoo, a wicked combination that never leaves and never brings sleep with it. "Which is, of course, not why we are having this conversation right now."
"Come on, baby." Val clutches the duvet to her collarbones, the expanse of her pallid throat disappearing behind the only thing in the room whiter than it. She shifts under the covers—so does her palm, slipping from his clavicle to his chest to his navel, going lower still. "I don't need to do all that to get your attention."
Ezra's grip on her neck tightens. A breath leaves him, jagged and guttural and just as slow as she is. He exhales the only profanity the moment is sacred enough to allow.
Normally, this is where he would turn his bedside lamp off. Her beauty is less dangerous in the dark when she is just a supple silhouette, but here, under this rich, focused halo of light, her every feature is enhanced so she stings. Looking too much at the details of her (here, upturned green eyes hooded after being pried open all day. There, a small cluster of freckles dotting the space below her shoulder) warp the bigger picture, as details often do. In the same way illumination betrays the grit between tiles and Persian carpets have frayed edges so they don't unravel in their entirety.
The lamp is on her side of the bed. Too drained to lean over her and grope for the switch, he closes his eyes to cup her jaw and kiss her instead, biting down on her lip. His shallow breathing is deceptive; in his head, he is wondering how many chemicals are in her matte cherry lipstick for her to still taste like it. Most of it is now everywhere but on her mouth.
