"Hey, Mom," I answered the phone the third time she called me.

"Ezra, why haven't you haven't called me or answered any of my messages?" She skipped all the pleasantries to scold me.

"You know I hate talking on the phone," I said, tucking it between my shoulder and ear so I could continue plucking a few guitar strings.

I was warming my fingers up before band practice while I waited for the guys to all get home.  My hands felt stiffer than normal today. They were like cold clay, inflexible and unforgiving.

"I have been calling you non-stop for two days."

"I know. I'm sorry." I apologized.

"How's Ohio? I heard it has been hot." She asked.

Mom wasn't really asking me how the state was or if the weather was nice. She called to find out if I had been staying clean and out of trouble.  The question was hidden in the subtext of the words. She habitually danced around my problems in conversation like she was afraid she would set me off. It made it a lot easier to avoid supplying her with the details of my life because I could pretend I didn't understand what she was trying to do.

I would like to think she did it because of how my dad treated her and his reaction whenever she tried to help him. But, unfortunately, I knew it was because of who I was and had nothing to do with him. It didn't take much to get me angry and I would shut her down the second she offered to get me help.

Either I did something myself or it didn't happen at all. I didn't need my mom or some know-it-all doctor telling me how to behave.

"Everything is fine," I grumbled into the phone at her.

For the last few days, I was in a bad mood over what happened with Riley, but I had stayed strong enough to avoid getting into the stash of pills in my room.

It had been extremely difficult to not give in. I had only resorted to drinking twice to take the edge off.

"Is there something wrong?" She probed.

There was no way I was going to talk to my mom about the situation with Riley. She would start asking too many questions that I didn't have answers for. She would get excited for no reason and want to meet her.

I wasn't even sure how Riley would act around me the next time I saw her.  She made it pretty clear that she wasn't interested in keeping our little fling going any longer.

"Nothing's wrong." I bit the side of my cheek hard as my frustration started spinning in my head. 

"Ezra, you sound a little...off." She paused like she was afraid to say it. 

"I'm fine. I promise. Stop worrying." I huffed in annoyance.

"I'm your Mom. I'm supposed to worry about you. Plus, I miss you. So does Mandy and your Uncle Charlie. They ask about you all the time. I don't even know what to tell them." She rattled on.  I could hear her running water in the background.  She was probably making something in the kitchen.  She was always in the kitchen baking when she didn't know what to do with herself.

My stomach started growling.  I was hungry for something real and not purchased through a drive-thru window.  Dinner at the Davis house wasn't until tomorrow and I was craving two things like a starved man—a homecooked meal and the taste of Riley's skin on my tongue.

One of them was on the menu. The other was far out of my reach.

"Ezra! Mark's back. Band practice." JD hollered from somewhere downstairs.

"Hey Mom, I have to go now.  The guys are ready to start practice." I was itching to get off the phone before she tried to pull any more information out of me.

"Oh." She said softly. "Well, please call me if you need me."

She sounded sad and lonely. I felt guilty again for being such a terrible son.  She should have sold me off like livestock when she had the chance. Her life would have been so different if she didn't have me. She would have never settled for my prick of a father for my sake. She could have gotten out of Indiana and found her happiness.

She had dreams once and they all came crashing down the second she knew I existed. 

I will never understand why people choose to have children when they only ruin you. If they were like me, they would just screw up all the time and leave one day without looking back.

"I will call you in a few days to check-in." I paused and then added. "Love you, Momma."

"I love you too, bug.  Stay safe." She sniffled into the speaker.

I clicked the red button to hang up the phone before she burst into tears on me.  My head was too heavy to handle any kind of emotional assault. I tossed the phone on the bed to give it a rest for the night.

I placed the acoustic guitar face down on the bed next to the phone and leaned down to run my hand through my tangled hair. I sat for a long time in silence, looking at the floor, thinking about nothing in particular and everything all at once.

"Ezra, you coming?" Aiden bellowed. 

"Yeah," I yelled back and got up off the bed.

I walked over to my dresser and grabbed two of the new guitar picks I just bought this morning. I jogged down the hall and headed downstairs to join the guys.

They were already fiddling around with their equipment before I even hit the kitchen.  The sound of distortion and feedback echoed off the walls.

The noise made the hair on the back of my neck stand up in a good way.

I was jonesing for the more aggressive songs tonight—the adrenaline rush from the deafening roar needed to overtake my thoughts quickly.

I snuck in a few gulps out of the bottle of whiskey on the counter before going down to the basement.

I just wanted a little bit of peace and mindlessness.

I didn't get it. Not one fucking bit.

Band practice was excruciatingly slow and pointless. Elevator music would have been a better distraction than the debacle in the basement. 

Practice turned into a writing session after Mark decided that the full moon outside meant that it was time for him to become a werediva.  He refused to play any song suggested because it didn't stimulate him artistically and nobody gave him the proper appreciation he deserved.

His whole mood started when Aiden yelled at him for not paying attention. We all warned him multiple times to put his phone down before Aiden lost it and the screaming match began.

Once the name calling and finger pointing was finished, Mark played on his phone for two straight hours. He refused to acknowledge Aiden anytime he spoke to him. The whole time he was thumbing some brightly colored dots on the screen while the rest of us attempted to salvage the night so it wasn't a complete waste of time. 

Aiden danced around the mic and sung garbled gibberish into it until he gave up on practice too. I was becoming so desperate to get them all focused that I almost whipped out the song I had started writing about Riley. 

It wasn't good enough for her, but it was different from the stuff I usually pitched to them. 

That song would have gotten their attention. 

"My mom texted me earlier. She invited us all to dinner. Some jackass forgot to tell the rest of us." JD gave me a sideways glance and started striking the same bass strings over and over again. 

Mark stood up and slammed his phone on the ground.  He picked up his drumsticks and twirled them in the air. He started bashing his cymbals nonsensically. 

"Please tell me she is going to have garlic bread." Mark sang like a dying cat as he filled the room with unnecessary chaos.

"No clue." JD shrugged and slapped his bass a few times to make the noise that much worse.

Mark started yapping in the corner and wouldn't shut up about how perfectly Mrs. Davis always burnt the garlic bread edges. He threatened to lick the whole loaf so no one else could have any.

It was official; band practice had careened off the rails and was headed straight into a cement wall.

I needed another fucking drink.

I set my guitar down and went back upstairs to go to bed. I grabbed the half-empty whiskey bottle and took it upstairs with me. When I got to there, I stripped down to my boxers and guzzled down the rest of the bottle.

After climbing into bed, I spent hours tossing and turning while thinking about seeing Riley again tomorrow night. It didn't get any better once the sun started peeking up over the horizon and the alcohol wore off.

I was so drained from my lack of sleep that I was a walking zombie on my feet. 

Work didn't help distract me either; we didn't even have one customer walk through the door. I said less than ten words to anyone since the end of band practice last night.

By the time Aiden, Mark, and I pulled up to the Davis' house Wednesday evening, I was a complete unstable disaster. 

I had gone back and forth all day, mulling over how I was going to handle the whole Riley ordeal. I covered every option from pretending she didn't exist to kidnapping her. 

I was going fucking insane.

Mark and I followed Aiden up to the house. He reached up to knock on the door. As soon as he touched the wood, the door handle began turning.

My pulse quickened, ready to see the girl I had been chasing around in my head for days. I was so anxious that I almost knocked Aiden down to the ground so I could get to her first.

The door opened wide and on the other side stood a girl in a thin, skin-tight top and miniature black skirt that barely reached her legs. 

"Hey, boys. Hope you're ready for some fun." The girl smiled as she looked directly at me.