We Didn't Make It After All

Chapter Fourteen

There was stillness. For a fleeting moment, it was as if there was no time. "Clara," Ezra murmured. It may have been a hum.

Tears pooled down Clara's porcelain cheeks, her cries interrupted only by fragments of her own laughter. She held onto him with every fiber of her being, fear incarcerating her eyes at the thought of letting go. It was as if she thought he would disappear if she did.

Underneath it all, Ezra's soft fingertips trailed across my thumb: his unspoken gratitude.

"Ezra," she whispered over and over again. A soft succession of hums.

"Narnie," he murmured later that night. The city lay below us, its movements a silhouette under Clara's dilapidating fire escape. The illuminating red of headlights glowed on the damp pavements that cried hope and despair. As the honking of the vehicles disrupted his raspy breaths, I saw in his eyes the reflection of the cityscape I had cherished for all of these months—and those very same eyes, once lamenting the past, now held a promise of the future. He pulled me into kisses that lingered for a little longer than they should have, his gestures stifled only by his sobbing. "How could you do it, Narnie? How could you keep everything from me?"

I was the least bit interested in his words. I was far away, somewhere in cloud nine, coming to terms with the fact that I had fallen incoherently and quite foolishly in love with Ezra Parker. With every passing moment, I was plunging further into a cliff with no end in sight. I was falling in love with him, hoping that his affection would shield me as I collided with the ground, but no one gets by with just a minor scrape after falling from such great heights. I was bound to a catastrophe.

"Come in for dinner, you two," Clara said, opening her window for us.

"I'm sorry, Ezra," I began, but he looked directly ahead, plastering his eyes on the silhouette of a moving man.

"It's like the universe is giving me a second chance."

"Maybe it is."

"I hope so. I really hope so."

"Ezra, Narnie—dinner!" Clara called out again.

We slipped back in through the windows. As I washed my hands and helped Clara set the table, Ezra disappeared behind us to freshen up. A clandestine smile gracing her face, a face that looked more and more like Ezra with each passing moment, she handed me a stack of plates for the dining table. "You know, Narnie, I thought I was losing my mind when I saw Ezra coming out of that terminal with a girl. I wondered for a moment if I was hallucinating—if it was really him."

"I'm actually Alex," I said in the most Alex voice I could conjure. I placed the plates on the table and met her eyes. "I've been meaning to tell you, Clara...I got a sex change."

She burst out in laughter, removing her spinach pies from the oven. "God, please no. You're too beautiful to be that dirtbag."

"I guess hatred for Alex runs in the family."

"Oh, I don't hate him. I love him. But that's our problem, isn't it? We always end up falling for the dirtbags."

"All of us except me," I said softly.

"Maybe you are the only exception," Clara said with another laugh.

"Exception to what?" Ezra said, walking into the room.

Clara placed our individual spanakopitas on our plates. "We were just about to discuss if you're a dirtbag, before you so rudely interrupted, little brother."

He sat down on the chair closest to me, pouting. "Am I?"

"Of course you're not," I said. I squeezed his nose before helping Clara gather the dirty oven trays in the sink.