Across The Pier
Wednesday, August 23rd.
My last day.
My last day.
That was all that flashed through Wednesday's mind that morning, the morning of her third and final day. The morning of the day that would change everything.
It was strange, all that had happened to her in two days. From the second she walked to that front door and saw Ezekiel, and those hurricane eyes of his, something happened to her. Something she couldn't name, wouldn't explain - something she'd only heard about. Something she had only thought existed in Shakespeare literature, none of which she'd bothered to read even when assigned to her.
Anyway, Wednesday couldn't be sure; but maybe, possibly, perhaps by some stretch of the imagination, if she closed her eyes and thought back on that kiss, and the sunset, and the grocery store, and the doorstep meeting, what she had felt all of those times could almost be categorized as love.
She didn't find that a plausible explanation, though: because everyone knows you can't fall in love in three days.
Which she hadn't. She had fallen in love in a matter of seconds.
What had happened after that, after the initial "falling" for the boy on her doorstep, was simply a manifestation of what she'd known the minute she'd seen his face.
It was just that he made her feel differently. He made her feel like she was someone worth talking to, worth listening to, someone who could hold conversations that weren't about women's sports tournaments. Someone that mattered enough to take seriously.
He made her feel like an individual; like a human being and not like a robot, and that was something Wednesday hadn't had in what felt like forever.
But maybe she was wrong. Maybe it wasn't love - maybe it was just a really strong... like?
Deep down Wednesday knew that wasn't true. Deep down, Wednesday Cheronette knew she was totally, utterly, and completely in love with Ezekiel Fenton.
She didn't tell anyone about this. How could she? Her parents would think she was insane, and her brothers would probably give her a good punch even for suggesting the idea of a three-day romance.
Really, her brothers would give her a good punch no matter what she ever did or said.
But then, who was she supposed to take this little epiphany to, if not her own family?
Something like this back home would most definitely be shared only with Nate, the only person she could ever trust herself to be Wednesday around. To everyone else,
Wednesday was just too Wednesday, too loud and too outspoken, too strange and too imaginative, too random and a little too quirky. To everyone else besides Nate, even her tennis and hockey trainers, Wednesday was a little bit too much of an oddity.
But maybe Ezekiel would help change that statistic - just maybe, he'd like her (even love her) simply because she was an oddity; a rare and precious gem found nowhere else on earth.
That's not how she saw herself, but maybe that's how Ezekiel would.
Wednesday found it hard that day to drag herself out of bed. Her logic appeared to be that, if she refused to start her day, it could therefore never end, and she wouldn't have to leave this boy who she so desperately wished she could hold on to forever.
"Wednesday!"
She jolted up in her bed at the sound of one of her brothers screaming her name, and then started again when the door flew open.
"Get your ass downstairs," Ry, the eldest of her two pain-in-the-ass devil siblings, shouted unnecessarily loudly. "Mom and Dad are leaving for their game and they want you up."
"Why?"
"I don't know, Wednesday, just do it!"
With that, and a quick slam of her door, Ryan disappeared and Wednesday threw herself back on her bed, groaning.
Ugh. She was in no mood to get up; and more than anything, she couldn't believe her parents came all the way out here to play golf. It figures, she thought, that of all the things they could be doing at the beach, they chose golf. She didn't understand it.
In all honesty, she just didn't understand her parents.
But she got up eventually, threw on a t shirt and shorts, and went downstairs, not surprised to find her parents gone and her brothers pigging out in the kitchen.
"All you ever do is eat," Wednesday said, shoving past Simeon to grab the orange juice from the fridge, and receiving a stinging smack on the thigh for it. "Ow, god!"
Walking around her to put his dishes in the sink, Simeon gave her leg another hit, laughing when she shrieked in pain."At least we get up before noon."
"It's noon?" Wednesday stopped pouring her juice and gaped at her older brother in horror. It couldn't be noon; it couldn't, because she just couldn't have wasted a whole half of her very last day with Ezekiel.
Simeon stared at her in surprise, slamming the fridge shut. "Jesus, no, calm down, it's only like nine. What's your problem?"
Nine. Wednesday was okay with nine. It left her a good amount of time to enjoy the day with him, plus an adequate amount for goodbyes.
Which she was still deciding on whether or not to say.
"Nothing," She finally responded, blushing, and taking a sip from her glass. Involuntarily her face twisted into an expression of clear disgust, and both her brothers laughed. It must have expired, judging by the bitter, burning taste. "I don't have a problem, just somewhere to be."
"Oh, with that kid across the pier?" Ryan asked, leaning over the counter. "Saw you two yesterday. Getting kinda scandalous for a first date, wasn't it?"
Wednesday stiffened as she poured the sour juice down the kitchen sink. "Shut up, Ryan."
"So what's next? Third base? Or do you already have that covered?"
God, he was an idiot. "Shut up, Ry," She said, turning around and glaring at her brothers, but they were busy laughing at their own jokes.
"Think this is gonna be the night, Wednesday? Gonna lose your v-card to a scrawny, dead-eyed little faggot-"
"I'm going to kill you!" Wednesday screamed, shoving Simeon's chest angrily, evoking more laughs. "I'm going to kill you if you don't shut the hell up right now."
Her oldest brother smiled, proud he'd gotten her so angry. "Why, you don't like us picking on your little sassy gay friend?"
"He's not-"
"Well, you have fun," Simeon teased, folding his arms in front of him. "Mani-pedis are always a fabulous idea."
Groaning in frustration, Wednesday shoved herself past her brothers, giving them both hard, twisting pinches on the necks before leaving, just barely escaping the hands that threatened to smack her in return.
As soon as she was out the door Wednesday exhaled a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. Finally, she could see Ezekiel - and finally, nobody would stop her.
* * *
But of course, it was raining.
Of course. On her last day here, it just had to start thundering and storming as soon as she left the house. She hadn't even left her own yard yet when she had felt the first few drops, which gradually transformed into one hell of a thunderstorm.
God, she had terrible luck. Where was the warm, sunny air from yesterday? The clear skies? Where was that? Why couldn't she, on her last day here, her last day with Ezekiel, have at least that?
But anyway- she wasn't going to let this storm keep her from Ezekiel. So, she ran, ran across the pier as fast as she could, but couldn't avoid the storm as the rain soaked her in a matter of minutes.
By the time she reached his front door, Wednesday was breathing as if she'd run a mile, and shivering with an agitated ferocity.
"I've got it Mom," Ezekiel said as he swung the door open, then froze at the sight of Wednesday, a soggy, dripping mess, on his doorstep.
"It's raining," Wednesday said, quite needlessly. But she felt she owed him some sort of an explanation for this. "A lot."
"Yeah..." Ezekiel's eyes ran over her body, over her sodden shirt that now hung loose with the weight of the water, her shorts that threatened to slide right off because they were so waterlogged. Her hair, a curling, dripping
near- tragedy that clung to her small face in several unflattering ways, and her eyes, her runny makeup giving the impression that she was either doing an imitation of a raccoon or that she'd been punched in both eyes.
And it was odd - very, very odd - but even now, standing in the rain, a disaster and a half: to Ezekiel, Wednesday Cheronette was still the most beautiful thing on earth.
And especially now, now that she was in front of him like this, looking so fantastically awful, all he wanted to do was hold her and never, ever let her go.
"Do you - you should come in," Ezekiel finally said, and she laughed.
"No, that's okay. I was hoping you'd come down to the pier with me."
"In this weather?" He stared at her in disbelief, and she sighed.
"Ezekiel. It's my last day, remember?" She stared up at him, grey eyes wide and pleading.
She had to be insane. There was no way he was going to stand on a pier above the ocean in the middle of a thunderstorm, no matter whom he was doing it with. Ezekiel, like most people, wasn't big on pneumonia.
Oh, but she was looking at him with those eyes... those obnoxiously, wonderfully large grey eyes.
Damn, how could anyone say no to that?
"Fine," He finally huffed, not happy that she'd roped him into this. Immediately her face lit up, much like a child's at the mention of cake or Christmas or birthday parties. "But I still think you're insane-"
"I know I'm insane," She said, smiling and tugging at Ezekiel's hand. "But come on! You're wasting time, which we haven't got much of."
Reluctantly, Ezekiel did what he was asked, grabbing two of his old sweatshirts, one for Wednesday, and leaving behind his umbrella at her command. She wanted them not to care about the rain, or the storm, or anything except the two of them.
So they left, and began walking down the pier slowly, hands wandering, fingers intertwined. The dock's old, wooden legs wobbled at their wieght - something that made Ezekiel nervous - but Wednesday didn't care, as always. All she cared about was having Ezekiel here with her.
"God, look at the waves," She said, squeezing his hand, and pointing with her other. "They're, like, massive."
It was true. The sea seemed to be having a temper tantrum of sorts; the waves, a furious sapphire color that dissolved into grey as the cusps kissed the shore, were rising and falling with a majestic but angry vigor that Ezekiel hadn't seen from them in a long time.
But, he hadn't been this wet in a long time, so he could understand the abnormality of the ocean's situation.
"It's kinda strange," Ezekiel said, pulling Wednesday in closer, halfway romantically, but more just for warmth, "How this thunderstorm is happening in the middle of August. We haven't had rain like this since I don't even know when, and now it's flooding?"
Wednesday smiled. "You don't have to understand. You just appreciate it, and don't ask any questions."
"Well, not to be rude, but I'm pretty sure this isn't one of those 'gift horse' situations." He looked down at her, expecting at least a giggle, but got nothing.
Wednesday was a little dissapointed by Ezekiel's lack of enthusiasm for this whole thing. She herself was enjoying it; she was enthralled by the pounding waves, exhilarated by the rain that melted into her skin, becoming, in some essence, a part of her, and awestruck by the display of magnifigance that the earth had put on through those cloudy, violet skies that flashed with lightning and shook with thunder.
It was a shame, she thought, that Ezekiel didn't feel the same way - but she would teach him to.
"Let's go swimming."
Ezekiel stared at her, pulling away from the sideways embrace she had him in. "What?"
"You heard me," Wednesday said, grinning. "Let's go swimming."
"Why on earth would anyone in their right mind want to go swimming in that?" He looked at this girl in horror; truly believing, for the first time, that she had gone crazy. "The waves would kill you!"
"But that's just it, Ezekiel," She said, pulling his hand and taking him to look over the side of the dock. "I'm not in my right mind, and neither are you. We can either keep denying it, or, just maybe, we can enjoy it." She looked up at him, an insane smile on her childlike face, her eyes glowing with a prospective madness.
Ezekiel sighed. "Wednesday, you may be crazy, but that doesn't mean I am-"
"Yes you are. No sane person could fall in love with a girl in three days, could they?"
Suddenly, there was silence between them, the only sounds those of the thunderstorm as Ezekiel stared at her in shock, wondering if she'd really just said that and why exactly she had.
Wondering, really, just how she'd known.
He didn't say anything - couldn't, really. Couldn't do anything but look at those hopeful, silvery eyes and think how, incredibly, she was right - and the oddest thing was, he hadn't even realized it. But now, now that she'd pointed it out, it was as if he'd known all along. In some sense, his blinders had been taken off, and now he could see - he could see that, yes, he was without a doubt in love with this strange girl called Wednesday.
The storm now raged louder and more powerfully than ever, but neither Wednesday not Ezekiel noticed. For the wind was whipping around them, forming an invisible kind of cyclone that seemed to entrap the two of them inside their own little world, causing the rest of everything to fade away slowly. Suddenly the waves disappeared, along with the sound of them crashing upon the shore. The rainclouds, billowing and shaking with the thunder and lightning, began to dissolve - and even the rain seemed to come to a halt.
Now, it was just them - just Wednesday and Ezekiel, and their own little island above the water: two people, two insanely in love people, from opposite sides of the pier brought together by nothing more than life.
Nothing else mattered - nothing else existed except the two of them and their pier, the only thing that had ever separated them from each other.
"You are, aren't you?" Wednesday finally said, her smoky eyes gleaming. "In love with me?"
Ezekiel smiled. "Yeah."
A grin lit up Wednesday's small face, as the wind sent her dark locks spiraling through the air enchantingly. She looked up at him, up at those green-blue eyes, those thin red lips, and those cheeks sprinkled in a light, freckled varnish, and just smiled. "That's good."
And so they kissed, a kiss that felt like their first in its fiery vigor and foggy lust, but different in the way that, although they didn't know it, it would be their last.
"So, come on," Wednesday said, hoisting herself up on the ledge of the dock. She was shivering with the cold, but it didn't matter anymore - because she was here with a boy that loved her. "Let's go swimming."
Ezekiel laughed, a wholehearted, whole-embodying kind of laugh that he'd never really experienced before. It was a laugh that only Wednesday could, and that only she would, evoke from him. "You're crazy, you know?"
"I know," Wednesday said, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a light peck on the cheek. "God, Ezekiel, I don't know what I'm going to do without you."
Ezekiel's breath caught in his chest as the words left her mouth. Suddenly the storm seemed louder than ever, angrier than ever, as the rain pounded down on him furiously.
"I don't know either," He replied. It was true. He had no clue what he would do without her - he didn't care that they'd only known each other for three days; didn't care that it was a ridiculously absurd prospect for two people to fall in love in only seventy-two hours. He just didn't care, at that moment, about anything but Wednesday.
Wednesday looked at him through glistening eyes, brimming with cold rainwater and salty tears, and sighed. She'd never felt like this before in her life - and now it was all just going to disappear, as easily as if it had never even happened.
And then what?
What would happen after that, when everything reverted back to how it was before? When she went home, and he stayed here, and everything that had happened just sort of faded in between the blurs of everyday life?
She couldn't - she just wouldn't let that happen. She couldn't lose him, not now, not ever. Because somehow, someway, she'd escape fate - she'd cheat life - and figure out a way to keep Ezekiel as hers, forever.
But in reality, she knew she couldn't do that, and she knew she never would. It was a fact - a fact that sent piercing stabs through her heart like glittering, skin-splitting daggers, but it was a fact.
And now, the thunderstorm, once a beautiful and captivating phenomenon of nature, seemed, somehow, to mock them - the pretty rain now contemptuous spits of indignity, the thunder and lightning only purposeful reminders of the lives they'd have to endure without each other. It was as if the entire world had become angry with them; suddenly deciding that, at this moment, all beauty displayed by the earth previously was to be ripped away to reveal its skeletal, lifeless core as a dying omen to Ezekiel and Wednesday's departure.
Now, as the water from the clouds continued to pour and the mighty wind continued to gust - they saw, even through the rain, even through the tears that threatened to reveal themselves, that it had all been a facade. It had all been simply of their imagination: that from the very beginning, from the moment Ezekiel knocked on her door, it was never supposed to have been a happy ending.
It was just supposed to end.
And it did. It ended like the storm, almost instantaneously, yet leaving behind a disaster for its people to sweep up. It ended in a way nobody would have wanted - but it ended.
But before it could, Wednesday knew it would. She knew, somewhere inside of her, in that same place she had reserved for Ezekiel, that it was over, and she couldn't stop it, not if her life depended on it.
"It's all over," Is what she told him, seeing the confusion flash in his eyes. She said this with a deep and biting sorrow, her tongue flaming with bitterness as soon as the words left her mouth. "It's all over."
"No it's not," Ezekiel protested, his hands grabbing at her cheeks, forcing her to look at him. "It's not, Wednesday, it's not-"
"It is!" Tears streamed down her pale, already soaked face as she finally broke down, the emotion overpowering her. She couldn't stop crying, she couldn't, and it was only making things worse, only making her heart hurt harder and the storm rage faster. It only made the wind pierce her skin angrier and the rain slap her face sharper. It made her feel as if her entire world would just come collapsing down around her like the walls of Jericho, a spiraling, tumbling earthquake of pent up emotion and suppressed feelings. It was over, and she knew it.
Ezekiel hated this. He hated seeing her cry, in the middle of this storm, when she'd been laughing moments ago. He wanted to tell her she was wrong; that they'd see each other again, that it would work, that they'd make it work - but he couldn't do that, because, like Wednesday, Ezekiel realized that life was going to move on, with or without them. "Don't cry, Wednesday, don't cry-"
"Don't tell me not to cry!" She screamed, pushing away from him angrily, throwing herself towards the ledge of the pier. She was suddenly insane, mad with the unbearable pain that raged inside her as the rainwater melted with her tears on her cheeks. "Don't fucking tell me that because I feel like my life is ending, and I know I shouldn't, but I do and I can't help it and I fucking love you so fucking much, and I don't - I just don't -" She couldn't finish her sentence, the ache inside her chest just too much, too much for one person to handle.
Ezekiel joined her by the edge, wrapping his arms around her soaked body from behind. He no longer cared that he was numb with cold and probably wouldn't dry off for weeks; because everything was falling apart, the pieces of the puzzle falling from the dark sky shattering like glass. "I know, Wednesday. I know."
Furiously Wednesday whipped around, her face a raging mess of smeared makeup and angry tears, displaying the fury that was aflame in her stomach. "Ezekiel," She said, the tears flowing endlessly, pouring everlastingly with enough fiery conviction and burning passion to fuel a second sun. Her wide eyes searched his face, the famous Wednesday gleam nowhere to be found, a fact Ezekiel found more saddening than anything else. He was dying, now, as she looked at him with such raw pain, and he wished, he yearned for a way to just make it all better.
"Wednesday, it's going to be okay," He told her, not believing a single word. How could he, when this storm was practically trying to kill them, and there was a hole in his heart as massive as the earth itself? How could he, when he felt as if his body were being ripped to pieces bit by bit, limb by limb, every new tear in his skin a symbol of what he felt for Wednesday? How could he possibly believe it was going to be okay, when he was so completely in love with this girl who was about to be ripped from his life forever?
"But it's not, Ezekiel! It's not okay, and it never will be, because if you're not with me, it's never okay!" Her hands flew to her face as she sobbed into them, sobbed with all of the strength she had left as Ezekiel held her to him tightly.
"Its all right, we'll survive -"
She screamed then, a raucous, heart-wrenching sound that felt like a punch in the gut to Ezekiel. She screamed as loud as her lungs would let her, and everything she was feeling, the rage, the pain, the unbearable sadness - it all just began to surge out through that maniacal sound she was making.
And then, suddenly, she scrambled to the ledge of the pier, hoisting herself to her feet.
"Woah-hey!" Ezekiel shouted, now fighting to be heard above the roaring thunder and the crashing waves. "What are you doing?"
"I'm making it better," Wednesday replied, a biting tone to her voice. "Don't you understand? I love you, and I don't give a single fuck that we've only known each other for three days, but I want you, I need you, to be with me forever, and I don't ever want to open my hand because I'm afraid you'll slip through my fingers."
Ezekiel didn't say anything - he couldn't. She had taken his exact feelings and put words to them, but all he could do, for some reason, was stare at the crazy girl screaming her lungs out on the edge of the pier, watch as the wind shook her entire body and the waves wobbled the wooden dock.
"I can't lose you," Wednesday said, struggling to speak through her tears, barely audible above the storm. "I can't - and this way, I don't have to. This way, I can be with you forever - I won't ever have to go through the heartache of leaving you." And then she smiled - a weird, strangely peaceful sort of smile. A smile of anticipation, of hopeful anxiety of what was to come. A smile that made Ezekiel's stomach twist into knots.
"Wednesday, you can't be seriously thinking about this," He told her, his eyes shining with prospective tears - he couldn't let her do it.
Wednesday laughed. "Oh, I'm not just thinking about it. I'm doing it, and so are you."
"What?" He couldn't believe what she was suggesting, couldn't believe what he was hearing from this absolutely insane girl. "No! You're coming down from there right now-"
"I'm not." Those two words were all that it took; she said them, and Ezekiel realized: she was serious. She was going to do it, with or without him.
So many things were happening at once that he couldn't think straight. All the water must have been clogging up his brain; he tried to rationalize, tried to make sense of the situation, but, although he didn't want to admit it, he'd gone crazy with feeling as well. He was just like her, now - out of his mind.
And so, he decided.
"I'm coming."
Smiling, Wesnesday watched as Ezekiel climbed up to where she stood, grasping her palms frantically.
They looked at each other. They looked, each seeing themselves in the other's glassy eyes, and each seeing the reflection of someone who had literally gone mad with love. They saw themselves as newer, more passionate versions of themselves, different people with different priorities and different viewpoints and different feelings than they had three days ago. In those gazes, in those crystal, tell-all terras of blue and green and grey, they saw someone who was in the deepest, most unrelenting love they'd ever known.
And so they jumped.
They jumped into the roaring, curling, crashing sapphire chasm below, the rain still pounding and the thunder still rolling with every last beat of their hearts. They jumped, hands intertwined and held high in the sky above them, hearts still bleeding on that little wooden pier, bodies joined by that simple act of dedication, and names - yes, their names - forever linked together in that inseverable pairing: Ezekiel and Wednesday, Wednesday and Ezekiel, forever known as the boy and the girl swallowed by the sea.
My last day.
That was all that flashed through Wednesday's mind that morning, the morning of her third and final day. The morning of the day that would change everything.
It was strange, all that had happened to her in two days. From the second she walked to that front door and saw Ezekiel, and those hurricane eyes of his, something happened to her. Something she couldn't name, wouldn't explain - something she'd only heard about. Something she had only thought existed in Shakespeare literature, none of which she'd bothered to read even when assigned to her.
Anyway, Wednesday couldn't be sure; but maybe, possibly, perhaps by some stretch of the imagination, if she closed her eyes and thought back on that kiss, and the sunset, and the grocery store, and the doorstep meeting, what she had felt all of those times could almost be categorized as love.
She didn't find that a plausible explanation, though: because everyone knows you can't fall in love in three days.
Which she hadn't. She had fallen in love in a matter of seconds.
What had happened after that, after the initial "falling" for the boy on her doorstep, was simply a manifestation of what she'd known the minute she'd seen his face.
It was just that he made her feel differently. He made her feel like she was someone worth talking to, worth listening to, someone who could hold conversations that weren't about women's sports tournaments. Someone that mattered enough to take seriously.
He made her feel like an individual; like a human being and not like a robot, and that was something Wednesday hadn't had in what felt like forever.
But maybe she was wrong. Maybe it wasn't love - maybe it was just a really strong... like?
Deep down Wednesday knew that wasn't true. Deep down, Wednesday Cheronette knew she was totally, utterly, and completely in love with Ezekiel Fenton.
She didn't tell anyone about this. How could she? Her parents would think she was insane, and her brothers would probably give her a good punch even for suggesting the idea of a three-day romance.
Really, her brothers would give her a good punch no matter what she ever did or said.
But then, who was she supposed to take this little epiphany to, if not her own family?
Something like this back home would most definitely be shared only with Nate, the only person she could ever trust herself to be Wednesday around. To everyone else,
Wednesday was just too Wednesday, too loud and too outspoken, too strange and too imaginative, too random and a little too quirky. To everyone else besides Nate, even her tennis and hockey trainers, Wednesday was a little bit too much of an oddity.
But maybe Ezekiel would help change that statistic - just maybe, he'd like her (even love her) simply because she was an oddity; a rare and precious gem found nowhere else on earth.
That's not how she saw herself, but maybe that's how Ezekiel would.
Wednesday found it hard that day to drag herself out of bed. Her logic appeared to be that, if she refused to start her day, it could therefore never end, and she wouldn't have to leave this boy who she so desperately wished she could hold on to forever.
"Wednesday!"
She jolted up in her bed at the sound of one of her brothers screaming her name, and then started again when the door flew open.
"Get your ass downstairs," Ry, the eldest of her two pain-in-the-ass devil siblings, shouted unnecessarily loudly. "Mom and Dad are leaving for their game and they want you up."
"Why?"
"I don't know, Wednesday, just do it!"
With that, and a quick slam of her door, Ryan disappeared and Wednesday threw herself back on her bed, groaning.
Ugh. She was in no mood to get up; and more than anything, she couldn't believe her parents came all the way out here to play golf. It figures, she thought, that of all the things they could be doing at the beach, they chose golf. She didn't understand it.
In all honesty, she just didn't understand her parents.
But she got up eventually, threw on a t shirt and shorts, and went downstairs, not surprised to find her parents gone and her brothers pigging out in the kitchen.
"All you ever do is eat," Wednesday said, shoving past Simeon to grab the orange juice from the fridge, and receiving a stinging smack on the thigh for it. "Ow, god!"
Walking around her to put his dishes in the sink, Simeon gave her leg another hit, laughing when she shrieked in pain."At least we get up before noon."
"It's noon?" Wednesday stopped pouring her juice and gaped at her older brother in horror. It couldn't be noon; it couldn't, because she just couldn't have wasted a whole half of her very last day with Ezekiel.
Simeon stared at her in surprise, slamming the fridge shut. "Jesus, no, calm down, it's only like nine. What's your problem?"
Nine. Wednesday was okay with nine. It left her a good amount of time to enjoy the day with him, plus an adequate amount for goodbyes.
Which she was still deciding on whether or not to say.
"Nothing," She finally responded, blushing, and taking a sip from her glass. Involuntarily her face twisted into an expression of clear disgust, and both her brothers laughed. It must have expired, judging by the bitter, burning taste. "I don't have a problem, just somewhere to be."
"Oh, with that kid across the pier?" Ryan asked, leaning over the counter. "Saw you two yesterday. Getting kinda scandalous for a first date, wasn't it?"
Wednesday stiffened as she poured the sour juice down the kitchen sink. "Shut up, Ryan."
"So what's next? Third base? Or do you already have that covered?"
God, he was an idiot. "Shut up, Ry," She said, turning around and glaring at her brothers, but they were busy laughing at their own jokes.
"Think this is gonna be the night, Wednesday? Gonna lose your v-card to a scrawny, dead-eyed little faggot-"
"I'm going to kill you!" Wednesday screamed, shoving Simeon's chest angrily, evoking more laughs. "I'm going to kill you if you don't shut the hell up right now."
Her oldest brother smiled, proud he'd gotten her so angry. "Why, you don't like us picking on your little sassy gay friend?"
"He's not-"
"Well, you have fun," Simeon teased, folding his arms in front of him. "Mani-pedis are always a fabulous idea."
Groaning in frustration, Wednesday shoved herself past her brothers, giving them both hard, twisting pinches on the necks before leaving, just barely escaping the hands that threatened to smack her in return.
As soon as she was out the door Wednesday exhaled a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. Finally, she could see Ezekiel - and finally, nobody would stop her.
* * *
But of course, it was raining.
Of course. On her last day here, it just had to start thundering and storming as soon as she left the house. She hadn't even left her own yard yet when she had felt the first few drops, which gradually transformed into one hell of a thunderstorm.
God, she had terrible luck. Where was the warm, sunny air from yesterday? The clear skies? Where was that? Why couldn't she, on her last day here, her last day with Ezekiel, have at least that?
But anyway- she wasn't going to let this storm keep her from Ezekiel. So, she ran, ran across the pier as fast as she could, but couldn't avoid the storm as the rain soaked her in a matter of minutes.
By the time she reached his front door, Wednesday was breathing as if she'd run a mile, and shivering with an agitated ferocity.
"I've got it Mom," Ezekiel said as he swung the door open, then froze at the sight of Wednesday, a soggy, dripping mess, on his doorstep.
"It's raining," Wednesday said, quite needlessly. But she felt she owed him some sort of an explanation for this. "A lot."
"Yeah..." Ezekiel's eyes ran over her body, over her sodden shirt that now hung loose with the weight of the water, her shorts that threatened to slide right off because they were so waterlogged. Her hair, a curling, dripping
near- tragedy that clung to her small face in several unflattering ways, and her eyes, her runny makeup giving the impression that she was either doing an imitation of a raccoon or that she'd been punched in both eyes.
And it was odd - very, very odd - but even now, standing in the rain, a disaster and a half: to Ezekiel, Wednesday Cheronette was still the most beautiful thing on earth.
And especially now, now that she was in front of him like this, looking so fantastically awful, all he wanted to do was hold her and never, ever let her go.
"Do you - you should come in," Ezekiel finally said, and she laughed.
"No, that's okay. I was hoping you'd come down to the pier with me."
"In this weather?" He stared at her in disbelief, and she sighed.
"Ezekiel. It's my last day, remember?" She stared up at him, grey eyes wide and pleading.
She had to be insane. There was no way he was going to stand on a pier above the ocean in the middle of a thunderstorm, no matter whom he was doing it with. Ezekiel, like most people, wasn't big on pneumonia.
Oh, but she was looking at him with those eyes... those obnoxiously, wonderfully large grey eyes.
Damn, how could anyone say no to that?
"Fine," He finally huffed, not happy that she'd roped him into this. Immediately her face lit up, much like a child's at the mention of cake or Christmas or birthday parties. "But I still think you're insane-"
"I know I'm insane," She said, smiling and tugging at Ezekiel's hand. "But come on! You're wasting time, which we haven't got much of."
Reluctantly, Ezekiel did what he was asked, grabbing two of his old sweatshirts, one for Wednesday, and leaving behind his umbrella at her command. She wanted them not to care about the rain, or the storm, or anything except the two of them.
So they left, and began walking down the pier slowly, hands wandering, fingers intertwined. The dock's old, wooden legs wobbled at their wieght - something that made Ezekiel nervous - but Wednesday didn't care, as always. All she cared about was having Ezekiel here with her.
"God, look at the waves," She said, squeezing his hand, and pointing with her other. "They're, like, massive."
It was true. The sea seemed to be having a temper tantrum of sorts; the waves, a furious sapphire color that dissolved into grey as the cusps kissed the shore, were rising and falling with a majestic but angry vigor that Ezekiel hadn't seen from them in a long time.
But, he hadn't been this wet in a long time, so he could understand the abnormality of the ocean's situation.
"It's kinda strange," Ezekiel said, pulling Wednesday in closer, halfway romantically, but more just for warmth, "How this thunderstorm is happening in the middle of August. We haven't had rain like this since I don't even know when, and now it's flooding?"
Wednesday smiled. "You don't have to understand. You just appreciate it, and don't ask any questions."
"Well, not to be rude, but I'm pretty sure this isn't one of those 'gift horse' situations." He looked down at her, expecting at least a giggle, but got nothing.
Wednesday was a little dissapointed by Ezekiel's lack of enthusiasm for this whole thing. She herself was enjoying it; she was enthralled by the pounding waves, exhilarated by the rain that melted into her skin, becoming, in some essence, a part of her, and awestruck by the display of magnifigance that the earth had put on through those cloudy, violet skies that flashed with lightning and shook with thunder.
It was a shame, she thought, that Ezekiel didn't feel the same way - but she would teach him to.
"Let's go swimming."
Ezekiel stared at her, pulling away from the sideways embrace she had him in. "What?"
"You heard me," Wednesday said, grinning. "Let's go swimming."
"Why on earth would anyone in their right mind want to go swimming in that?" He looked at this girl in horror; truly believing, for the first time, that she had gone crazy. "The waves would kill you!"
"But that's just it, Ezekiel," She said, pulling his hand and taking him to look over the side of the dock. "I'm not in my right mind, and neither are you. We can either keep denying it, or, just maybe, we can enjoy it." She looked up at him, an insane smile on her childlike face, her eyes glowing with a prospective madness.
Ezekiel sighed. "Wednesday, you may be crazy, but that doesn't mean I am-"
"Yes you are. No sane person could fall in love with a girl in three days, could they?"
Suddenly, there was silence between them, the only sounds those of the thunderstorm as Ezekiel stared at her in shock, wondering if she'd really just said that and why exactly she had.
Wondering, really, just how she'd known.
He didn't say anything - couldn't, really. Couldn't do anything but look at those hopeful, silvery eyes and think how, incredibly, she was right - and the oddest thing was, he hadn't even realized it. But now, now that she'd pointed it out, it was as if he'd known all along. In some sense, his blinders had been taken off, and now he could see - he could see that, yes, he was without a doubt in love with this strange girl called Wednesday.
The storm now raged louder and more powerfully than ever, but neither Wednesday not Ezekiel noticed. For the wind was whipping around them, forming an invisible kind of cyclone that seemed to entrap the two of them inside their own little world, causing the rest of everything to fade away slowly. Suddenly the waves disappeared, along with the sound of them crashing upon the shore. The rainclouds, billowing and shaking with the thunder and lightning, began to dissolve - and even the rain seemed to come to a halt.
Now, it was just them - just Wednesday and Ezekiel, and their own little island above the water: two people, two insanely in love people, from opposite sides of the pier brought together by nothing more than life.
Nothing else mattered - nothing else existed except the two of them and their pier, the only thing that had ever separated them from each other.
"You are, aren't you?" Wednesday finally said, her smoky eyes gleaming. "In love with me?"
Ezekiel smiled. "Yeah."
A grin lit up Wednesday's small face, as the wind sent her dark locks spiraling through the air enchantingly. She looked up at him, up at those green-blue eyes, those thin red lips, and those cheeks sprinkled in a light, freckled varnish, and just smiled. "That's good."
And so they kissed, a kiss that felt like their first in its fiery vigor and foggy lust, but different in the way that, although they didn't know it, it would be their last.
"So, come on," Wednesday said, hoisting herself up on the ledge of the dock. She was shivering with the cold, but it didn't matter anymore - because she was here with a boy that loved her. "Let's go swimming."
Ezekiel laughed, a wholehearted, whole-embodying kind of laugh that he'd never really experienced before. It was a laugh that only Wednesday could, and that only she would, evoke from him. "You're crazy, you know?"
"I know," Wednesday said, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a light peck on the cheek. "God, Ezekiel, I don't know what I'm going to do without you."
Ezekiel's breath caught in his chest as the words left her mouth. Suddenly the storm seemed louder than ever, angrier than ever, as the rain pounded down on him furiously.
"I don't know either," He replied. It was true. He had no clue what he would do without her - he didn't care that they'd only known each other for three days; didn't care that it was a ridiculously absurd prospect for two people to fall in love in only seventy-two hours. He just didn't care, at that moment, about anything but Wednesday.
Wednesday looked at him through glistening eyes, brimming with cold rainwater and salty tears, and sighed. She'd never felt like this before in her life - and now it was all just going to disappear, as easily as if it had never even happened.
And then what?
What would happen after that, when everything reverted back to how it was before? When she went home, and he stayed here, and everything that had happened just sort of faded in between the blurs of everyday life?
She couldn't - she just wouldn't let that happen. She couldn't lose him, not now, not ever. Because somehow, someway, she'd escape fate - she'd cheat life - and figure out a way to keep Ezekiel as hers, forever.
But in reality, she knew she couldn't do that, and she knew she never would. It was a fact - a fact that sent piercing stabs through her heart like glittering, skin-splitting daggers, but it was a fact.
And now, the thunderstorm, once a beautiful and captivating phenomenon of nature, seemed, somehow, to mock them - the pretty rain now contemptuous spits of indignity, the thunder and lightning only purposeful reminders of the lives they'd have to endure without each other. It was as if the entire world had become angry with them; suddenly deciding that, at this moment, all beauty displayed by the earth previously was to be ripped away to reveal its skeletal, lifeless core as a dying omen to Ezekiel and Wednesday's departure.
Now, as the water from the clouds continued to pour and the mighty wind continued to gust - they saw, even through the rain, even through the tears that threatened to reveal themselves, that it had all been a facade. It had all been simply of their imagination: that from the very beginning, from the moment Ezekiel knocked on her door, it was never supposed to have been a happy ending.
It was just supposed to end.
And it did. It ended like the storm, almost instantaneously, yet leaving behind a disaster for its people to sweep up. It ended in a way nobody would have wanted - but it ended.
But before it could, Wednesday knew it would. She knew, somewhere inside of her, in that same place she had reserved for Ezekiel, that it was over, and she couldn't stop it, not if her life depended on it.
"It's all over," Is what she told him, seeing the confusion flash in his eyes. She said this with a deep and biting sorrow, her tongue flaming with bitterness as soon as the words left her mouth. "It's all over."
"No it's not," Ezekiel protested, his hands grabbing at her cheeks, forcing her to look at him. "It's not, Wednesday, it's not-"
"It is!" Tears streamed down her pale, already soaked face as she finally broke down, the emotion overpowering her. She couldn't stop crying, she couldn't, and it was only making things worse, only making her heart hurt harder and the storm rage faster. It only made the wind pierce her skin angrier and the rain slap her face sharper. It made her feel as if her entire world would just come collapsing down around her like the walls of Jericho, a spiraling, tumbling earthquake of pent up emotion and suppressed feelings. It was over, and she knew it.
Ezekiel hated this. He hated seeing her cry, in the middle of this storm, when she'd been laughing moments ago. He wanted to tell her she was wrong; that they'd see each other again, that it would work, that they'd make it work - but he couldn't do that, because, like Wednesday, Ezekiel realized that life was going to move on, with or without them. "Don't cry, Wednesday, don't cry-"
"Don't tell me not to cry!" She screamed, pushing away from him angrily, throwing herself towards the ledge of the pier. She was suddenly insane, mad with the unbearable pain that raged inside her as the rainwater melted with her tears on her cheeks. "Don't fucking tell me that because I feel like my life is ending, and I know I shouldn't, but I do and I can't help it and I fucking love you so fucking much, and I don't - I just don't -" She couldn't finish her sentence, the ache inside her chest just too much, too much for one person to handle.
Ezekiel joined her by the edge, wrapping his arms around her soaked body from behind. He no longer cared that he was numb with cold and probably wouldn't dry off for weeks; because everything was falling apart, the pieces of the puzzle falling from the dark sky shattering like glass. "I know, Wednesday. I know."
Furiously Wednesday whipped around, her face a raging mess of smeared makeup and angry tears, displaying the fury that was aflame in her stomach. "Ezekiel," She said, the tears flowing endlessly, pouring everlastingly with enough fiery conviction and burning passion to fuel a second sun. Her wide eyes searched his face, the famous Wednesday gleam nowhere to be found, a fact Ezekiel found more saddening than anything else. He was dying, now, as she looked at him with such raw pain, and he wished, he yearned for a way to just make it all better.
"Wednesday, it's going to be okay," He told her, not believing a single word. How could he, when this storm was practically trying to kill them, and there was a hole in his heart as massive as the earth itself? How could he, when he felt as if his body were being ripped to pieces bit by bit, limb by limb, every new tear in his skin a symbol of what he felt for Wednesday? How could he possibly believe it was going to be okay, when he was so completely in love with this girl who was about to be ripped from his life forever?
"But it's not, Ezekiel! It's not okay, and it never will be, because if you're not with me, it's never okay!" Her hands flew to her face as she sobbed into them, sobbed with all of the strength she had left as Ezekiel held her to him tightly.
"Its all right, we'll survive -"
She screamed then, a raucous, heart-wrenching sound that felt like a punch in the gut to Ezekiel. She screamed as loud as her lungs would let her, and everything she was feeling, the rage, the pain, the unbearable sadness - it all just began to surge out through that maniacal sound she was making.
And then, suddenly, she scrambled to the ledge of the pier, hoisting herself to her feet.
"Woah-hey!" Ezekiel shouted, now fighting to be heard above the roaring thunder and the crashing waves. "What are you doing?"
"I'm making it better," Wednesday replied, a biting tone to her voice. "Don't you understand? I love you, and I don't give a single fuck that we've only known each other for three days, but I want you, I need you, to be with me forever, and I don't ever want to open my hand because I'm afraid you'll slip through my fingers."
Ezekiel didn't say anything - he couldn't. She had taken his exact feelings and put words to them, but all he could do, for some reason, was stare at the crazy girl screaming her lungs out on the edge of the pier, watch as the wind shook her entire body and the waves wobbled the wooden dock.
"I can't lose you," Wednesday said, struggling to speak through her tears, barely audible above the storm. "I can't - and this way, I don't have to. This way, I can be with you forever - I won't ever have to go through the heartache of leaving you." And then she smiled - a weird, strangely peaceful sort of smile. A smile of anticipation, of hopeful anxiety of what was to come. A smile that made Ezekiel's stomach twist into knots.
"Wednesday, you can't be seriously thinking about this," He told her, his eyes shining with prospective tears - he couldn't let her do it.
Wednesday laughed. "Oh, I'm not just thinking about it. I'm doing it, and so are you."
"What?" He couldn't believe what she was suggesting, couldn't believe what he was hearing from this absolutely insane girl. "No! You're coming down from there right now-"
"I'm not." Those two words were all that it took; she said them, and Ezekiel realized: she was serious. She was going to do it, with or without him.
So many things were happening at once that he couldn't think straight. All the water must have been clogging up his brain; he tried to rationalize, tried to make sense of the situation, but, although he didn't want to admit it, he'd gone crazy with feeling as well. He was just like her, now - out of his mind.
And so, he decided.
"I'm coming."
Smiling, Wesnesday watched as Ezekiel climbed up to where she stood, grasping her palms frantically.
They looked at each other. They looked, each seeing themselves in the other's glassy eyes, and each seeing the reflection of someone who had literally gone mad with love. They saw themselves as newer, more passionate versions of themselves, different people with different priorities and different viewpoints and different feelings than they had three days ago. In those gazes, in those crystal, tell-all terras of blue and green and grey, they saw someone who was in the deepest, most unrelenting love they'd ever known.
And so they jumped.
They jumped into the roaring, curling, crashing sapphire chasm below, the rain still pounding and the thunder still rolling with every last beat of their hearts. They jumped, hands intertwined and held high in the sky above them, hearts still bleeding on that little wooden pier, bodies joined by that simple act of dedication, and names - yes, their names - forever linked together in that inseverable pairing: Ezekiel and Wednesday, Wednesday and Ezekiel, forever known as the boy and the girl swallowed by the sea.