You and Me (Plus Everyone In Between Us)

The Warehouse

The day after the graduation another celebration commenced.

It was Maria's birthday and all of her newly teenage friends filled our house and I stood awkwardly in the corner like some lame-ass statue. Everyone sang 'Happy Birthday' grinning from ear to ear in front of our supermarket cake that sat on our dining table. The workers have haphazardly written in red gel "Happy Birthday & Graduation to Maria & Ezra" over the white icing of the vanilla cake.

It's not the best cake I've ever seen. That prize goes to Hermela's Sweet Sixteen, where I saw a seven-tiered cake laced with delicate frosting and fondant. But it's enough, especially from Mom and Dad. First, we sang "Happy Birthday" to Maria, who gushed at all the attention and then ate cake, and then Maria hung out with her friends, and I—

It was over as quickly as it started and soon we were cleaning up. I didn't remember much of it. I must have zoned out and Emmett must have left already. I don't remember him being there. But suddenly I'm cleaning up plates and papers and Mom and Dad have returned to work.

"Ezra!" Maria called from the hallway, wearing her birthday dress. "Did I ever tell you how much I love you?"

Not really. We weren't the family that said that frequently. But I guess everyone caught the vibe and agreed. Maria had her "up to something I'm going to drag you into" face.

"I guess," I played along.

"Well, I love you so much!" She gushed again. "And since it's my birthday, I think you should show some of that love back."

"What do you want?" I sigh.

"I want to go to the mall," she said. "You want to take me?"

I hissed. "Not really. You just had a birthday party."

"I just want to spend my birthday money and you seem bored," Maria said suddenly. "I want you to come with me, but I don't need you to. I can do things on my own."

"And I never said that," I corrected back. "It's Mom and Dad who are like that. But since you are fourteen now, I guess I'll come with you."

That would cut deeply into my songwriting time today. Maria said she wanted to go to a new mall down in East It took an hour to get to North York, and knowing Maria we would be there for a while.

"Sure!" I said enthusiastically. Maria wrapped me into a deep hug, squeezing yet another sigh out of me.

Maria was lucky she was my only friend.

♩

The bus ride was uneventful again. Luckily, no one was here to cause a ruckus. I never expected more buses, anyway.

Maria seemed to be really excited about this new mall. Like not just Maria kind of excited. It was like she snorted a whole cup of sugar. Her eyes were alight, and a smile crept its way onto her face and didn't leave.

The bus signalled it was going to stop, and Maria turned to me. "This is our stop."

We left the bus as soon as it stopped and into the hot summer Toronto sun.

"I think this mall is going to be different," Maria giggled, as we began to stroll down the street.

I raised an eyebrow at her at her, before we turned down the street.

Instead of what should look like a mall, we find ourselves in front of a big grey warehouse area with what looks like hundreds of people lined up behind it.

"Keep going forward," Maria said, accelerating her wheelchair forward.

"Um, Maria, what is this?" I asked nervously, as we slowly moved up to the line.

Her smile only got wider as she turned back to me. "Promise you won't get mad?"

Whenever Maria said that I already knew she had messed up, and my eyes narrowed at her. The last time she asked me this, it was to ask for forgiveness for secretly using my twenty-dollar leave-in conditioner. She was lucky Dad and Emmett held me back.

"Fine," I said, clearly not fine.

"I signed you up for an audition to be on Finding Solstice."