Page 75 of Inevitable
“You look happy,” Drew said. “Good day?”
“Sort of.” Ezra couldn’t stop smiling.
Bas lifted his brows expectantly. “Yeah? What happened?”
“I got my test back. Perfect score. And my professor thinks I should transfer to a university after I’m done with community college.” Words rushed out in a nearly unintelligible stream.
Both Bas and Drew looked at Ezra like he’d delivered the greatest news either of them had ever heard.
“University?” Drew asked, practically beaming. “Is that something you’ve been considering?”
Ezra shook his head.
“Not for lack of want. I just didn’t think I’d have a chance in hell to actually go, but my professor seems to think I should try.”
“Well, of course you should go.” Bas said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re brilliant.”
“I don’t want to get too excited,” Ezra admitted. “I haven’t done any research, so I don’t even know what the scholarship situation is, and I’d need a full ride, otherwise there’s no way I can afford it.”
“I can—” Bas started, but Ezra sent him a stern look.
“Don’t. I’m not going to take money from you.”
Bas crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at him.
“Why not? Isn’t that what people in relationships do? Support each other?”
“And you can do that,” Ezra said, “by listening to me when I don’t know what I’m doing. By reading me my textbooks when I get a migraine. By being there for me. That’s what I want. I’m already taking advan—”
“Taking advantage?” Bas sounded outraged. “You’re not taking advantage.”
“Yeah, well, we have an imbalance when it comes to money, so I’m not going to make the gap even steeper while I’m not even sure if I could ever repay you what I already owe.”
“But—” Bas started, looking almost offended by the idea of anybody owing anybody anything, when Drew stepped forward.
“We’re here,” he said. “Whatever you need.”
Ezra tried to control the surge of emotions inside him. He’d never had anybody in his corner before, but now there were two people who were whole-heartedly rooting for him and looking so proud while at it.
The lightness inside his chest spread through his body, chasing the fear away until it was nothing but a tiny dot somewhere in the tip of his little toe. Easy to ignore. Irrelevant.
“When do you have to apply to transfer?” Drew asked as he and Bas went back to making dinner.
“I… have no idea,” Ezra said with a frown. “I’ve never considered it, so I don’t know about the timeline. It might be too late already.”
For somebody who’d only considered transferring for a few hours, the thought of missing the deadline seemed very bleak all of a sudden.
“Let’s finish dinner,” Drew proposed calmly. “And then we’ll do some research and jot down some dates and figure out the basics of what you need to do.”
Ezra nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
Drew’s palm on his shoulder was strong and sure, and for once, Ezra didn’t feel the need to do everything by himself. He didn’t feel like he had to prove something to somebody. He just sat back and relaxed and listened to Bas and Drew laugh and talk as they finished making dinner.
Later, they all curled up on the couch together and came up with a plan, so by the end of the night, Ezra had a spreadsheet with color-coded tabs, detailing everything he needed to do to start his fall semester at a university. He had lists of all universities that taught biomedical engineering in Massachusetts.
And he didn’t have to do any of it alone.
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