Page 68 of The Sin Eater
And if he doesn’t message me, I don’t know what the fuck I’ll do.
With that in mind, I’m not surprised when he doesn’t answer the door or respond to my text. I’m startled, though, the next day when I get a text from him.
You’re 2 good we can’t talk anymore. Blocking you. Sorry.
But startled’s not the right word. Angry? Worried? Hurt? I go through all of them while standing there with my phone in my hand.
They keep cycling over the next few days, the predominant emotion shifting randomly. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that Thursday is Thanksgiving. I’m off work so I can avoid the Brew. I don’t want Jett’s sympathy or to risk running into that Micah dude. He and his friends exceeded my limit for bullshit.
Besides, my hands are full dodging Dorinda’s questions.
After making a serious dent in our traditional Thanksgiving roast beef, I do a quick Google search on the term “sin eater”, learning very little since a lot of what’s there is nonsense. The gist of it is that Ezra apparently believes he can take on a person’s sins after they die. Assuming “sin eater” is the correct term for what he is—or thinks he is.
The way he freaked out when the SPAM dudes said those words made it obvious they triggered him. There’s gotta be something more, though, for a guy who doesn’t believe in the prayers he says to shut down so completely in response to being linked to a crazy folk belief.
No one named Cat responds to my Reddit post, so on Friday I track down MacCready’s Pub to see if I can find them there. It’s a shitty hole-in-the-wall with poor lighting and sticky tabletops and a crew at the bar that have probably been sitting there since the ’70s. Cat’s not around, though they all know them, which turns out to be a her. The bartender, who looks like he probably starred in gay porn movies back in the day, says she’s on walkabout and he’ll let her know I’m looking for her.
I tell him she can DM me on Reddit and leave it at that.
As much as I want to wait till Ezra reaches out to me, I only last until I get back to work. I haven’t heard from him at all, and for the first time, I head for the morgue without my standard cappuccino excuse. Just me and my messed-up head, stepping up to the plate.
One glance tells me Ezra’s not working. Geneva’s there, along with an older man who doesn’t bother to turn around when I come through the door. “Hi,” I say to Geneva. “I was wondering if Ezra’s around.”
For some reason, that brings her to her feet, her eyes wide with something that could be surprise or confusion. “Outside,” she says quietly, and leads me through the door into the hall. “We don’t want to get ol’ Bob spun up again.”
“Do I want to know what that means?”
“Not as bad as I want to know what you’re doing here.”
I shove my hands in my pants pockets. “Like I said, I’m looking for Ezra.”
She speaks slowly and carefully. “Z took a leave of absence.”
Now my eyes go wide. “A leave?”
“Well, he tried to quit, except Dr. Chen talked him out of it. He hasn’t been here since, I don’t know, last Monday or so.”
And don’t I just feel like an asshole. “Cool. Well, I guess, uh, if you see him, tell him I came by, or something.”
“You didn’t know anything about this, did you? And you’re, like, his only friend.” She crosses her arms, the lines in her face hardening. “He’s got a lot of apologizing to do.”
“Probably, but, uh—” My thoughts run smack into a wall of anger. “I’ll see you.”
I clear out as fast as possible without actually running. Geneva calls after me but I’m too pissed off to do more than wave in her direction. I hit the stairs, taking two at a time until I reach the third floor, and go all the way to the eighth at a jog.Blocking you. Sorry. Fucking asshole. I don’t understand any of this shit; why he freaked out that night at SPAM, why he blocked me, or why he left his goddamn job.
I’m not a dick. We could have talked about his weird-ass beliefs and I wouldn’t have laughed at him. I swear to god I would have listened, at least, and I’d have tried to understand. Now, though, I don’t know. I grew up with someone I couldn’t rely on, and I sure as hell don’t need that in a boyfriend.
Boyfriend? Fuck me.
I’m wheezing by the time I get to the top floor and my empty stomach is curdling. So of course, my hospital phone rings at the same time as an overhead page announces a Code Grey on the third floor. Setting aside my physical and emotional turmoil, I run back down the stairs.
I’d rather deal with someone else’s trauma than figure out my own.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ezra
There’s whiskey, and then there’s whiskey. My usual, Jack Daniels, is fine for every day Extreme situations, however, require extreme measures. Midleton, Devil’s Keep, something that’s Irish and more sweet than peat. I’m a throwback to an earlier generation—highball glasses and one ice cube—and I’m doing what I can to stay expensively drunk while me and Dorothy May are hiding out.