Broken Carts ✔️

Aisle 29: Supernova

The garbage bag incident was the breaking point.

My mind, which had dulled since my days of being able to talk my way out of anything, couldn't scrape together the right lie in time to appease my livid parents. They demanded to know when I'd thrown a party, they reprimanded me for putting my life in danger by binge drinking, they withdrew their offer to pay for half my car. After a while of being chewed out by my red-faced father and teary-eyed mother, I'd finally had enough of their verbal assault and stomped over to the front door to make my dramatic exit.

"Go take a good look at your choices, Milo," Dad growled at me before I could run away. "'Cause the next stupid thing you do will get you kicked out of this house."

I slammed the door behind me, using aggression to mask how terrified I was of that threat.

As soon as I'd set off in any direction that lead me away from my parents' house, I texted Skeeter a cold message, questioning why he and the other rugby guys hadn't taken the garbage bag of beer like they promised they would. I was seething behind the phone screen, angry that my so-called friends had let me down again.

If I got kicked out, where would I go? Ezra and Lynette's couch, more than likely— but the thought put a pit in my stomach. I would never get my shit together for Brighton if I stayed there. I'd be drunk every night, and I wouldn't do anything to stop it.

As soon as I had the thought, I stopped trudging down the street to mentally double-check that I'd just admitted I'd rather work on something productive than be drunk. I'm not sure if I'd ever had that thought before.

I didn't understand how much I wanted to go back to school for music production until that moment. Somewhere deep inside me, I genuinely had the desire to get my shit together— so much so that I was willing to forgo drinking and laziness— just for a chance to get into Brighton's program. I was more passionate than I'd known, and the realization put everything in perspective.

My dread lightened its pull on me for a moment. I started a mental to-do list for how to make my move to Brighton a reality: I'd need to request my transcripts, submit an application, apply for financial aid, take out loans, find an apartment near campus, maybe a roommate, definitely a job or two...

My phone buzzed, halting my train of thought.

SKEETER
Before we went to the bar I realized the bag was too big to fit in my car with all the guys and all our shit. Ezra told us to leave it because he'd take care of it. I think he put it in your shed or something.

I read the text message. Then I read it again. By the third time, it began to sink in.

Ezra put the bag in the shed. Ezra didn't tell me. Ezra was the reason I wasn't getting a car and I was in danger of getting kicked out. Ezra was the one who had let me down. It was his fault.

But why would he do that? Why wouldn't he have left it somewhere where we could see it and remember to dispose of it? Why would he put it in a weird spot and not tell me, leaving it in the precarious position of being discovered and ruining my life—

He must really want you to stick around.

Vinny's words, dripping with disguised intent, came to me, sparking a fire in the back of my brain— a fire that only burned hotter and more vicious as Vinny's statement took hold in the center of my chest, uprooting everything that I'd been pushing down, down, down, so I wouldn't piece together the fragments of a sentiment that was too malicious to grasp.

Ezra's always been trying to make me stay.

The pavement beneath my feet became a blur.