Ezra
“So how do I pretend to be you?” Josh asked. I fidgeted with my hands while the realisation set in that ‘hey, Ezra, you have to take your makeup off to be a jock, hun’.
“I…” I paused, standing from where we were both on my bed. “Let me look through my closet.”
I rifled through my clothing, tossing items out onto the bed: a pair of black ripped jeans, a My Chemical Romance t-shirt that I hadn’t realised I owned. I held onto my favourite oversized hoodie for a moment, coming close to not adding it in, and then I reluctantly tossed it with everything else. I finished it with a pair of platform boots that I didn’t wear often but would be fun to see Josh teetering around on. I gestured at it. “I’ll help you with makeup. Pick an outfit for me and get dressed.”
He chucked a pair of white paint splattered blue jeans and a red baseball tee on his bed, along with a well-loved pair of red sneakers, a Kansas City Royals baseball cap, and, after a moment of hesitation, his letterman jacket.
I got dressed in the bathroom, and I was surprised at how well everything fit on me. It seemed that even though Josh was much more muscular than I was, we wore the same sizes.
I had to help him lace the boots, because they were a little tall and a lot complicated, but once he was standing, he was pretty okay. It was weird to see someone else in my clothing-- foreign, almost.
There’s something oddly intimate about sharing clothes, I thought. It’s something you only do with siblings and loved ones…
I pushed the thought aside. “Makeup,” I stated matter-of-factly, dragging Josh after me into the bathroom.
“You have to take yours off,” Josh said, somewhat boredly.
“I know,” I muttered. I made him sit on the counter. “I’ll do it, I just… don’t like to.”
“I can’t judge you for being normal any more than I can judge you for being goth,” he reasoned. “Oh, and the piercings need to come out too.”
I nodded. “I know, I know.”
I started with the ear piercings, two on each side. I couldn’t remember when I’d gotten any of my piercings, because it had all just been to achieve my main goal: getting all of the piercings I wanted to have. I went for the lip studs next, then the cheek ones.
“These ones too.” Josh tapped one of my microdermals. “Under your eyes?”
I pushed his hand away. “They’re embedded into my skin. I’ll cover them up with concealer or something.”
“Why would you embed something into your skin?”
“No reason. I wanted to. Come here.”
I carefully applied eyeliner and lipstick, making fancy designs like I usually did for special events. Then I helped him attach some fake piercings where I had them, both in clippy and sticker form.
When I was done, I pulled the hood of my hoodie up so that it cast half of his face in shadow. “Now you look like me.”
“You still have makeup on,” he noticed quietly.
“Yeah…” I turned to the mirror. I was trying to avoid this. Avoid being ‘normal’ around him.
But it had to be done, and so I wiped off my lipstick and eyeliner with makeup wipes, revealing my pale lips, which hadn’t seen sun in (probably) years, and the true brown colour of my eyes, which my mother claimed made me look like a puppy dog.
I scowled at my reflection. You’re ugly without makeup. You should give up here, shouldn’t you? Ditch the jacket, get your hoodie back. Makeup on. Don’t go to the party. Just be Ezra, on another completely normal day.
Josh gently grabbed my chin, turning my face towards him. “You don’t look half the freak you normally do, when you’re not trying to scare people off. You know that?”
“Let me go.” I got my concealer out and covered up my microdermals the best that I could, then tentatively turned back to Josh. “I look okay? Enough like you?”
He picked up the baseball cap from where I’d discarded it on the counter, and used it to push my hair back, settling it backwards on my head. “Enough. Let’s go do this, Josh.”
“Okay.” I paused. “Ezra.”
-+-+-+-+-+-
The party wasn’t terrible, at least on a first glance. The music was modern, the lighting was colourful, and the snack table boasted a variety of food and drinks, including something that purported to be ‘butterbeer’ and, upon closer inspection, revealed itself to be cream soda.
Josh stumbled and caught himself on my shoulder. “God, I hate your shoes.”
“Ah ah ah,” I chided. “Tonight they’re your shoes, Ezra. I wear sneakers.”
He scowled. “Come on, freak, a little sympathy--”
“I’m a preppy jock,” I interrupted, having too much fun. “You’re the freak.”
I reveled in the way he knit his brows at that, somehow managing to put even more frustration behind his scowl. “All right, jock boy, I hate my boots.”
“Better. But you can’t hate them, you wear them often.” I shot him a cheeky smile. Something about the hat gave me confidence. That or the coffee-and-wet-grass smell of his jacket, which shouldn’t have been nearly as nice as it was, especially with the undertone of sweat.
I found myself wondering what my own jacket smelled like to Josh, whether he liked it as much as I (albeit with much shame) liked his.
I turned away and scanned the room before I spotted Ian, taller than most people there by at least a few inches. I turned back to Josh just long enough to tell him, “Go find my group of losers,” before I headed towards Ian and (I hoped) some of the other football players.
As I approached, Kieran raised an eyebrow. “Jeez, Josh, you couldn’t even try to dress up?”
“You’re one to talk,” I responded, gesturing at his devil horns. “That’s barely a costume.”
“It’s better than whatever you’ve got going on, goth boy.” He stole the hat to ruffle my hair, then put it back on. “You’re a convincing Josh, though. Picking fights.”
“Thanks. Can’t wait to see how he deals with the gay losers that are my friends.” I paused. “And only I’m allowed to call them gay losers, okay?” I ask-commanded, pointing around at all of the people in this group.
There was a chorus of ‘okay’s and chuckles.
I saw Mark and Tommy with Josh across the room. He looked somewhat uncomfortable, and I didn’t blame him, what with the way Tommy was hanging on Mark’s waist, and Mark was carding his fingers through Tommy’s hair. I’d gotten used to the two of them being so oddly close, but outsiders tended to think it was ‘weird or unnatural’, as Mark once told me.
Josh shot me a ‘help me’ look from where he was attempting to converse with my friends, and it was just pathetic enough to get my sympathy. I headed over to rescue him from his doom.
“Sorry, I need to borrow my roommate for a massage,” I said casually, grabbing Josh by the arm and beginning to drag him away.
“Have fun!” Mark called.
Meanwhile, Josh hissed, “You told them?”
“Of course,” I said, as though it were obvious. “They’re my friends.”
“I thought that was going to be… an us thing.”
“Did you want it to be an ‘us thing’?” I asked, skeptical.
“I-- I mean, no, of course not…” He avoided my eyes.
I laughed. “Oh my god, you did! I love that you assumed I wouldn’t tell my friends about it. If you want me to keep secrets, Joshua, you’re going to have to be a little more persuasive than that.”
He pulled his arm out of my grip. “Whatever. God, you’re obnoxious sometimes.”
“It’s a talent.”
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