Every Bright and Broken Thing

Chapter Twenty-Two - Ezra

"Checkmate, kid!" Papa Wilbur exclaims, knocking down my king with his queen. It rolls across the chess board and clatters to the floor. Mama Gracie grabs his face in both of her small, wrinkled hands and pulls him into a kiss. He doesn't fight it.

I shake my head, smiling. The crowd of people – young and old – who've gathered around us all disperse now that this exciting game of chess is over.

With a laugh, I pull myself to my feet, rubbing at my tired eyes. "You win this time, old man. But give it some time. One of these days, I'll figure out how to kick your–"

I hold my tongue when I see Elaine out of the corner of my eye, dragging two giant plastic bags behind her.

"Hey, Ezra?" she says, releasing them. They tumble to the floor beside her. She lets out an exasperated breath. Looking up at me with those chocolate eyes, she asks, "Can you take these to the dumpster out back for me? They're super heavy."

I smile. "Sure."

Grabbing the ends, I toss them over my shoulders and let Elaine lead the way. Side-by-side, we follow the alley behind The Sanctuary.

"How long have you been volunteering here?" I ask.

"About two years. I started during my senior year of college. At the time, I was just hoping for a little extra credit for school. But by the time I graduated, I fell in love with this place. And these people. And the vision – to help people. Whatever they need, whoever they are, to do whatever we can to help people."

With one swift motion, I toss the two bags into the dumpster as she holds the lid open for me. I clap my hands together to brush off the dust.

"It's weird seeing you like this. Back in college, you were Party Girl Pearson. You were a star. Everyone loved you. Everyone wanted to be you. Everyone wanted to sleep with you. Now, it's like you're a completely different person. And it's not that there's anything wrong with that, but you're just so impossibly different from the person I used to... well, you know. What changed?"

She folds her arms over her chest and considers my question for a moment. "I guess I just stopped caring about things that don't mean anything. When we were in college, I was in a bad place. Just before I left for art school, my father got laid off from his job. I watched him struggle for months to find a job. But Chicago isn't an easy place to find work and, eventually, my parents lost our house and ended up living on the streets. The streets of Chicago are already a cruel place, but especially for a black family like us." She looks down at the ground, where melted snow forms a puddle in a dip in the cracked bricks. "My parents ended up living with some relatives for a few months and one night, he decided to go out for a walk. The last time I saw him was at his funeral."

For the briefest moment, I think I see a flash of anger cross her face. But as soon as it's there, it's gone.

"The world isn't kind to desperate black men." She sniffs, moves to open the back door of The Sanctuary. She pauses and turns back to me. "The girl you knew in college was broken. She didn't know who she was or what she wanted. The parties, the sex, the drugs and alcohol... all of that was just a way to cover up the fact that I was angry at the world for hurting me – angry at God. That's why I'm here. It's why I do what I do. Because the people in this place? The world hasn't been kind to them either. And I can't control the rest of the world – I can't make people choose to be kind – but I can control myself. Even if I'm the only one, I will be kind."

Standing at the base of the stairs, I look up at her. Still. Quiet. Both in awe of this girl and heartbroken for her. All I can think to say is, "I'm so sorry."

Through tears, she smiles down at me. "I learned a long time ago that the world is full of hurting people, Ezra. I'm not the only one. But some of us are meant to hurt and some of us are meant to heal. I want to be one of the ones who heal."

All these people I've met in these last few days with all their wisdom and still I ache because I can't seem to figure out how to believe what they're saying. Everything they say stirs something inside of me, but just as soon as any impression of life begins to spring up inside of me, it's immediately overwhelmed. It's like there's no more room inside of me for the things that might bring me back to life. There's too much brokenness there – like a cracked and dry stretch of desert. Elaine, this beautiful girl I've only just begun to really know, makes it sound so easy to just choose healing, but maybe I'm not meant for that. Maybe I'm meant for hurt.

"Come on," she says. "It's cold out here."

I follow her into The Sanctuary and close the door behind us. And even inside this place with all these people who've fought the same battles I've fought, I still feel alone. I almost feel compelled to believe that this place should be preserved like some precious and valuable thing for people who deserve it. The problem is that I don't think I do.