Chapter 4: Ezra - Entities to Lovers

I got used to trekking home in my smudged makeup and costume after a few weeks.

Boston is an eclectic city. On any given day, I might ride the train with a finance guy, a theater kid, or a still-drunk college student struggling as the train screeches around corners. A guy in half-removed ghost makeup and eyeliner will never be the strangest thing the T sees.

I board the Green Line at Haymarket and fortunately find a seat. It’s been a hell of a night, and despite worrying about breaking the bottle, I’m more worried about Rory throwing me under the bus and getting me fired from the first job in a long time I truly love. God, she was acting so weird at the end of the tour.

I can’t deny Rory is a spectacular tour guide. However, an unflappable actress, she is not.

Before I stress too much about the local snitching witch, my phone dings. I have several notifications from my students—some handing in homework assignments or responding to discussion questions. Another student asks if using the phrase “I thought about it” counts as a “thoughtful” discussion point. Honestly, after the day I’ve had, sure, whatever. Why the hell not?

As I hit send, my phone slips right through my hands and lands on the grimy tiles with a harsh thunk.

I peel up the phone and take the faintest peek at it.

Ah, fuck.

The top left corner is cracked, branching down to the middle of the screen. Rainbow pixels and black spots bleed from the edges of the cracks. Thankfully, it still recognizes my face, and most functions appear to be working. They’d better because my tips were good, but not buy-a-new-phone good.

The theme tonight is clearly “Ezra breaks everything he touches.”

The train lets me off in Allston. The locals call it “Rat City.” Yes, it is most definitely ratty, but it has its charm, and most restaurants are open super late, which provides great sustenance when I’m up grading papers. Allston is mostly for college kids and parties that I attended my fair share of in school. It’s right for my semi-recent college graduate little brother, but for me at twenty-nine and as a college professor? I feel like a narc ’round these parts.

Allston was a good midpoint between school and his job, and beat moving back in with our parents and making the hellish commute from the suburbs. I still see plenty of walks of shame and boys getting the mail in their underwear, looking at me like Who let the elderly in here? Thankfully, absolutely none of them are my students.

I trudge up the front steps to our building and slip the key in. I jiggle it once, twice, and yank it out. Then I try again. As I pull the key out, it fights me all the way. Now the metal’s bent out of shape and when I try to fit it back into the lock—no dice.

I fish my broken phone out of my pocket and dial Micah’s number. He answers after two rings.

“Hello?”

“My key’s not working. Can you let me in?”

He sighs. “All right, let me put pants back on.”

A minute later, Micah arrives and pushes the front door open. He’s bundled up in his Northeastern hoodie and sweats. While he looks ready for bed, he’s about to settle in for a few hours of late-night gaming. Oh, to be twenty-four and not need much sleep.

“What happened?” he asks.

I raise my key. “We’re going to owe Dawn another forty-eight dollars.”

Micah scoffs. “A key should not be that expensive.”

“Yes, well, we’re all cogs in the overpriced Boston real estate machine.”

Unlike me, Micah had a job in his field before he even graduated. Six figures right out of the gate as a concept artist at a major game developer here in Boston. It was an easy decision to live together, but I’m sure he’d love to get his own place eventually—or at least give his gaming PC setup its own bedroom. To do so would put me out, though. I simply cannot afford to live on my own with my student loans and my flimsy salary. I think Micah enjoys having me around, mostly because he’s coming off a nasty breakup, but one day? He probably won’t find it very cool to have his flop older brother holding him back forever.

As we cross the threshold to our second-floor apartment, the light in the entryway flickers and pops.

“Oh no,” he murmurs. “We’re going to have to call Walt, too.”

Walt is the resident handyman our landlord, Dawn, contracts for maintenance. He fixes stuff, sure, but he has to watch YouTube videos about how to do it, which is not great when things like my plumbing and electrical wiring are at risk.

“Thankfully, it’s just a lightbulb.”

Meanwhile, I’m wondering if I need to be put in a little storage unit until my bad luck washes off. I am far from a master athlete or arbiter of hand-eye coordination, but I’m not usually this prone to disaster.

By the looks of it, Micah got home from work not long ago. His backpack’s on the couch and the apartment smells like a freshly microwaved dinner. There’s an open sketchbook on the counter and the early stages of a figure drawing wielding a sword on the page.

Our parents both worked middling jobs, but it was worth it to always provide for us and give us everything we needed so we’d never have to work jobs we hated. They encouraged me to study hard and go into academia if that brought me joy and they always supported Micah’s exceptional art skills. While both of us technically ended up where we wanted, Micah’s the only one thriving. Micah has exciting promotions and raises to talk about, with shipped video games under his belt. Meanwhile, my most thrilling accomplishments consist of only three kids falling asleep in class instead of five. No one in my family tries to make me feel bad, but we all know the truth. I’m not even close to measuring up.

“What’d you do to your phone?”

“I…dropped it.” I flop onto the couch and pull off my boots. “This has not been my day.”

He grabs the PlayStation controller off the coffee table and leans back on the couch. Whatever he’s playing, we haven’t even left the character creator yet. Micah goes through game hyperfixations every few months, usually some kind of fantasy RPG he explores for hundreds of hours. He’ll turn over every rock and search every crate to make sure he hasn’t missed anything. As an artist, he’s constantly pestering me with important demands like “Please look at the shading on this potato I just picked up.”

“Make decent tip money at least?”

“I got double-booked so I had to do the tour with someone,” I say, beating around the bush. Somewhere along the way, I drift off thinking about Rory reapplying her lipstick in a way that felt indecent and I doubt she even knew it.

“With who?” Before I answer, he puts the pieces together. “Ah.”

“What?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Micah laughs, raising his hands in jest, controller still gripped in one. “I can tell by the look in your eyes that you had to work with Ms. Hot Cottagecore.”

I tell Micah everything about work, but he’s banned from ever taking a tour. He’d undoubtedly be a distraction or ask not-safe-for-work questions. I reckon he’s Instagram-stalked everyone to know who I’m talking about. So he very much knows about the beautiful village witch who has it out for me.

I scowl. “I don’t have any kind of look in my eyes. Maybe some leftover eyeliner, but—”

But I probably do, some kind of far-off look that’s equal parts wistful and frustrated. Sexually and mentally.

“Right.”

“You do know she, like…hates me, right?”

Micah nods. “Of course. Hate and love are really similar. Horniness can coexist with most other emotions, my dude. The human spirit is unbreakable.”

“Sure, but I am fairly certain Rory Woods would rather jump into oncoming traffic than spend any time with me.”

She wouldn’t be the only woman to feel that way, either. My dating life isn’t the most documented history out there. If it were a textbook, it’d be full of unsubstantiated anecdotes or questionable footnotes. Flings and dates here and there, but few long-term relationships worth writing home about. Starting on date one, there’s always a clock ticking down to when they’ll lose interest and quit on me. It’s easier to just not try, and avoid the heartbreak altogether.

“If it makes you feel any better, I enjoy spending time with you,” Micah says, pressing his hand to his heart. As close as we are, one day the “cool older brother” veneer will wear off and he’ll realize he’s far outshined me already. He’s the one that’ll matter and be remembered.

“I’m honored to share space with your…uh, gnome? Is that Danny DeVito?”

Micah turns back to the TV screen.

“He’s not a gnome,” he asserts. “But yes, he is Danny DeVito. I think he’s going to be a bard. I feel like Danny would be a bard, right? Open to discussion.”

“You’re asking me? I think you know you’re just going to get some lecture about Norse skalds or the old Celtic origins, not a bold treatise on Danny DeVito’s chosen career—”

“Class. He does poetry so good, people die. Or get so distracted I can loot their chests.”

“We love a law-abiding citizen,” I conclude, unbuttoning my shirt as I migrate into my room. The most expressive part of the tiny bedroom is my desk—a basic wooden one, flanked by bookshelves on either side. I’ve filled the shelves with all my favorite books. It’s a cross between “for fun” reading and history books and biographies. I proudly display both degrees above the desk and keep a running whiteboard calendar in front of me to make sure I don’t miss any deadlines.

I jump back into grading online quizzes from last week. I read through the answers to the sounds of Micah getting his ass handed to him by an overwhelmingly large monster.

My kids did better on average this time around. After a couple of semesters, I’ve noticed there’s always a distinct uptick in grades when I give kids some liberty to explore and learn on their own, as opposed to vocab matching from the dull-as-hell textbook. We’ll see what local dream crusher Dr. Hugh Belmont has to say.

As a student, I always strived to be the best in class. I wanted to be involved and learn beyond the basics, especially in history. Ms. Drake always indulged my desire to learn more. While the guidance counselors cared about stats and SAT scores, rather than the depth of the education we got, Ms. Drake made sure I cared. If I make at least a couple kids care, I’ve done my job. I’m not sure I’m there yet.

Later, I brush my teeth, scrub the still remaining makeup off my face, and get ready for bed. My toothbrush falls into the toilet, I stub my toe trying to rescue it, and it’s clear my destructive reign of terror is not over. I know I’m far from having my shit together, but this is embarrassing.

I’ve got two more quizzes to go, but I can conquer those from my bed. I give a B+ on the short-answer portion of the final student’s quiz and hit submit. Except something goes awry. I watch in horror as the quiz pops up with a failing grade. I click out of the window and look at the full list of quizzes. Every single person in my class is getting an email right now telling them new quiz results are available to view, and they’ve all failed.

What the fuck? The system shouldn’t even do this. I submitted them one by one. There’s no Hey, Asshole, Fail Everyone button on the interface.

Will some of the students care? No, absolutely not. Mac Vincent, who sits in the back corner seat and sleeps, and a student named Dom, who insists I call him by his stage name, “Lil Tater,” will not care about a failing grade. Somebody like Allison Steward, who is always waiting early at the door by the time I arrive and raises her hand four times on average each class, will absolutely mind.

I try to undo the grades, but to no avail. God, I’m going to have to email Marty in IT. I hate Marty in IT. I bring him my tech issues and his first response is always “Huh, it shouldn’t be doing that,” as if I came to the help desk for fun and his cannabis-infused scent.

In my panic, I draft a blast email to the entire class to calm their panic.

Hey all,
I wanted to let you know I ran into an error when grading last wank’s quizzes, so you may see incorrect grades populated into Canvas. I’m reaching out to IT to see if there’s a fix. For now, nobody worry. These grades are not final and I’ll be giving you all 3 extra-credit points to make up for this mistake.
Thanks!

I hit send, feeling responsible as fuck, until a student reply comes in immediately.

LMAOOOOO professor b said wank

I read the email in a mad flurry to figure out where I made a dick-typo, and find it in the literal first sentence. Last wank. I drop my head to the desk and just…stay there awhile.

Seriously, fuck this day.