Miracle (boyxboy)

Chapter Two

Ezra.

It was such a great name. Powerful. Old enough to be trendy. A little mystical... very Biblical... mega sexy. It was definitely the name of a superhero, someone larger than life trying to seem like an average joe. It fit him perfectly. The name kept running through my brain, like when a line of song gets stuck in your head. Ezra. Ezra. His name is Ezra.

I laid in my bunk in the early morning, with Maddy still snoring softly below me. Our room was already hot and the sun hadn't even been up that long. I was gazing at the fancy watch that I hadn't taken out of its box. I hadn't charged it yet either, but then, it hadn't come with a charging cord. When I tapped the screen, the time and date appeared in glowing green numbers at the top, with a 3-D red circle in the middle like a button. It was labeled "S.O.S." in white text. The screen stayed on a few seconds, then went dark.

In my other hand I held the shed's broken padlock, fiddling with its useless, swinging hook. I clicked it closed and let it bounce open in my fingers, again and again.

I couldn't get over the fact that he'd told me his name. And given me something, a physical, tangible thing, that was undeniable evidence that we'd met. My first impulse had been to grab my sister and inundate her with every last detail about the encounter. But the more I composed the narration in my head, the more I realized how insane it would sound.

True, there was no plausible way I could have scrounged up the cash to buy a watch like this on my own. But I hadn't gotten a picture of him. I had the watch and lock, but those just added to the bizarreness of it all. The fact that some mysterious, enormous, unaging stalker had broken into our garden shed so he could give this to me was so ludicrous that if I were Maddy I'd be either A), freaked out and wanting to call the cops, or B), convinced I was lying to cover up whatever criminal activity had brought the watch into my possession.

Oh, or C), thinking of ways to check me into a crazy house. Because every time I'd tried to tell her about Ezra, she'd insisted I was making him up.

So I'd kept it to myself all week. And despite Ezra's order to wear the thing, I couldn't without having to explain it to Mom and Maddy and pretty much every other person I ran into. Prickly Pear was a small town. I didn't even want to think about what Tyler and his neanderthal friends would do if they heard I was walking around with an expensive smartwatch strapped to my wrist.

Not to mention, I'd replayed the conversation with Ezra in my head about a thousand times and kept coming up with more questions. Why had he been following me for so long? What was he talking about, saying I was going to need him? Apparently he was so sure about it that he'd given me a way to summon him, when he'd barely ever spoken to me before and was usually a good hundred yards away when he did show up. So why was he letting me get close now? What was with the super personal questions?! And what the fuck did he mean by "half human?"

Was he being sarcastic? Metaphorical, maybe?

At seven, I'd taken him at his word about the guardian angel thing. I guess it hadn't occurred to me to ask myself what I thought now. Of course there was no such thing, no matter how awed by him I was. But if Ezra wasn't a metaphysical being, that meant he was just... a guy. That didn't sit right either, he was too extraordinary. Hadn't he disappeared right in front of my eyes? What about how he'd gotten us up into that attic crawl space in a single jump? Or the fact that none of us had ever seen that drugged up loser Felix again after the night Ezra saved me from him. I was sure he had something to do with that.

Yet he'd said I wasn't normal. Or wasn't going to be normal when I grew up, or something along those lines. Was it utterly pathetic that what I'd taken away from his cryptic message was hope, that maybe I wouldn't be a scrawny shrimp forever? I'd been so overcome with excitement being in his presence, I hadn't listened as carefully as I should have. I wished he'd come back and explain himself. Actually, I just wished I could see him again. If I tapped this S.O.S. button would he really come? I was tempted to try it.