ezra clarkson 🌱 newt scamander (bowtruckles) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2019-07-25 16:34:00 |
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Ezra tapped his phone against his palm as he sat in his apartment that night surrounded by taped up boxes and uncertainty. It had barely been an hour since Finn had dropped the bomb on him and he was torn between needing to know the truth and dreading it in turn. Blowing out a breath from between his lips, he leaned back against the sofa and stared up at the vaulted ceiling. He felt like he was on a fast-moving train toward the dead end of his relationship with his brother that he'd boarded the moment his brother had married Liza and all he wanted was to get off at the next stop and ask for a refund for the ticket he'd never wanted to buy in the first place. Confrontation had never been Ezra's strong suit. It was why his first order of business had been to hire a management team that would handle the personnel side of the zoo. He hadn't come built with a filter, so he tended to be blunt, to say the first thing that came to mind when he didn't have the option of being able to consider his words before typing them. Knowing this conversation couldn't happen over text made it worse. Honestly, it may have even been easier in person. With a sigh, Ezra leaned forward and pinched the bridge of his nose. Avoiding the call wasn't going to slow the train, he knew. So maybe he just needed to get it over with. With only a few hesitations between dialing each number and pressing the call button, he bit the bullet and waited for his brother to pick up. Four rings. "Hello?" The world froze as Ezra's heart sank. Liza. "Hello?" She repeated and, startled from his thoughts, Ezra cleared his throat. "Is Jack there?' "Oh. Ez? I didn't know it was you. I-- did you get a new number?" Ezra swallowed, deciding that this call was definitely already worse than he'd built it up in his mind. "I-- yeah. I dropped it in a lake while I was working on a case a few weeks ago. When I went to get a new phone, they couldn't transfer my number to the new provider." He was rambling. Why was he rambling? He dug his palm into his forehead. "Again?" Liza asked, and he could hear the soft chuckle in her voice, the faint hint of the affection and familiarity that they'd once shared. He didn't want her to know him well enough to share laughs over the fact that he'd been through a dozen phones over the past five years. It still hurt to know that she did. But Ezra hated confrontation, hated making anyone else hurt even when he hurt. So he forced a smile and said, "Yeah. Again. I don't know why I don't just buy a stash of cheap burner phones for the rate I go through them. But, hey, is Jack there? I really need to talk to him." It was easier this way, letting them feel like he'd gotten over it, like it didn't still pull at his heart every time he was reminded of how differently his life was turning out from what he'd planned for it. He waited with bated breath while Liza went to find his brother and was only partly mollified when Jack sounded just as unsure on the other side of the line as he felt. "Hey, Ez," Jack started, hesitating a moment before continuing. "What's up?" Ezra didn't know how else to start, so he said, "A lot, actually. I bought a zoo? In Dunhaven. Remember Dunhaven? I'm, um, living there now." Silence met him on the other side and he knew. He knew what Jack's silence meant. He felt it in his bones as the dread settled into them. "Dunhaven? Why-- Why Dunhaven?" But Ezra didn't want to make small talk anymore. The walls of the train were closing in on each other as it sped down the tracks and it was everything in him to keep breathing. "Do you remember Grace Solomon, Jack?" Another pause. The silence was deafening in his ears. "You knew, didn't you?" Not accusatory. Resigned. Jack sighed. "I was sixteen, Ez." "So was she," he replied, feeling both sick and utterly exhausted, like the confirmation had siphoned the last of his energy from him. Before Jack could cut in again, Ezra interrupted. "Jack, this is it." "This is what?" "The end of the train ride." He could see the dead end looming fatally near beneath his closed lids. "What are you talking about, Ezra? Listen, I--" He hated confrontation. Hated it. But once again, he interrupted his brother. "No, I'm done listening, Jack. I could forgive you and Liza. Eventually, I could have. I would have because I've spent pretty much my whole life loving you both. But not this. Never this. So this is it, Jack. Please, just…don't call, don't write, don't randomly fly out to see me. And, for God's sake, unless he reaches out to you first, don't come back here and interrupt this kid's life." And before Jack could protest, Ezra hung up, feeling monumentally older than he had fifteen minutes before. He powered off his phone and let it fall helplessly to the seat cushions as he leaned forward and pressed his fingers against his tired eyes. He supposed a part of him had hoped, had even believed, that Finn had been wrong. There was no way that Jack could have kept this secret from him for twenty years. But Finn had been right and it was now abundantly clear that Ezra had been misjudging what he was to his brother long before Liza had ever come between them. With a shuddering breath, Ezra pulled himself to his feet and, without much of a second thought, went to the front door and let himself out. Fresh air would not solve decades of problems but he thought, perhaps, it could help. |