Page 96 of Inevitable

He was devoid of emotions. Not really hurting. Not really anything else either. He’d probably already grieved his griefs anyway. He expected it’d hit him all over again every now and then. On Ellie’s boys’ birthdays. Christmas. Sometimes it’d happen out of the blue because that was how those things went.

He took one more look at his parents’ house. This place hadn’t been his home in a long time.

He was done. It was strangely freeing.

He turned around and stopped short when he saw two people standing on the sidewalk. One tall and lanky, in a leather jacket and skinny jeans with the left knee torn open. The other slightly shorter, in a black Henley and black jeans and a gray beanie on his head.

His breath stuttered as he started moving again. Every step he took away from the house and toward Bas and Ezra made the hollowness fill up.

He stopped in front of them. It was difficult to speak with that lump in his throat pressing against the walls of his windpipe.

Bas threw his arm over Ezra’s shoulder and looked at Drew.

“College boy here wants to go day drinking. Gotta start priming that liver. Wanna come with?”

Ezra just rolled his eyes as he linked his pinkie with Drew’s and squeezed.

“All right?”

Drew nodded.

“I am now.” He licked his lips and swallowed. The lump went down. Breathing became easier.

He cleared his throat.

“So day drinking?” he asked. “I could use a beer.”

Bas pressed his palm against his chest.

“And now there’s two of them. No! No! Don’t compromise my innocence by dragging me into a bar at noon. Oh God. The peer pressure. I can’t handle it. A young lad led down the path of wickedness.” He pursed his lips and gave a dramatic sigh before he straightened himself and grinned at them. “Shall we?”

“Idiot,” Ezra muttered, lips twitching.

The two of them bickered the whole time they were driving back to the city, and against all odds, Drew laughed more than he had in weeks.

* * *

“To Ezra,” Drew said, lifting his glass.

Ezra and Bas both followed suit, Ezra looking a bit bashful at the attention. They both seemed to get that Drew needed this day to be associated with something positive.

In the future, when he looked back to that day, he didn’t want to remember it as the day his parents cut ties with him. He wanted to remember it as the day Ezra got accepted into BU, and they went to a bar at noon to celebrate.

“How does it feel?” Bas asked, nudging Ezra with his foot.

Ezra took a long, slow drink and shrugged. “I’m the king of the world,” he deadpanned.

“Yeah, you are.” Bas lifted his hand, and they high-fived.

“I was thinking,” Bas continued.

“A rare occurrence,” Drew and Ezra said at the exact same time and laughed out loud at Bas’s sour expression.

“I brought this onto myself,” Bas said to the ceiling. He made a thoughtful face. “Maybe I am an idiot.”

Ezra took pity on him. “What were you thinking?”

“Well, I made some plans. It’s summer soon,” Bas said. “Ez will graduate. I was thinking we could maybe take some time off and go somewhere? Maybe in July? Just… escape for a while and be together. We could take a road trip.”