1. Apparently
Darlene put down her fork and leaned against the window. "Your stalker's back again."
Courtney glanced up from her spaghetti. "Hmm?"
"Your stalker. The feral kid."
Of course he was. She lived an hour and seventeen minutes' drive from his farm. And apparently, even though he always walked, it wasn't far enough. Though World Tour had been over for four months, apparently he hadn't grown any closer to regaining his sanity, either.
Her twin drummed her knuckles against the glass. "Why do you keep putting that milk out for him anyway? You know it just encourages him to come back."
"Well, if he wants to act like some kind of stupid animal, I may as well treat him like one."
2. Inevitable
"Besides, the milk is for Brittany."
She squinted through the window. Yes, he was out there, wearing that gross snotty hoody the way he always did, no matter what new clothes his father bought him. He had the raccoon's dish in his hands, his head tilted back as he sipped the liquid. Brittany was perched on the porch railing. She washed her ringed tail with her tongue and fared very well at acting like she wasn't bothered by him at all. Courtney wished she could say the same for herself.
Well. No use delaying the inevitable. Not when she wanted to be back in time to catch tonight's airing of "Can't Help Falling in Louvre". Courtney stood, briefly rinsed off her dinner plate, and then said, "I'm heading out to the farm again. When Mom comes home, tell her I just ran down to the store."
"I don't want to lie to her again," Darlene mumbled back, but with a little more prompting, she agreed. "Don't let him claw your eyes out."
"Of course not." She snatched up the car keys from the counter and pulled open the front door. At Courtney's approach, however, he dropped the milk dish with a clatter and fled away into the shadowed bushes.
"Oh, give it up already. I know you're there, Zeke."
3. Normopathy
Silence at first, but he would come. He always did. Courtney headed along the front walkway and over to the small silver car. Ezekiel followed her from a distance, and Brittany dove upon her milk.
She opened up the passenger door and, without a word or mumble or the slightest growl, Ezekiel jumped in. He must have been in a good mood today - if he even had moods anymore - because he actually allowed Courtney to buckle his seatbelt. He slumped against the door as she closed it, and then she walked around to the other side of the car and climbed in the driver's seat.
The clinking of the keys. The rumbling of the engine. She withdrew the parking brake, shifted into reverse, and checked over her shoulder as she backed the car down the driveway.
"Ezekiel, I can't keep doing this."
He made a soft growl in the back of his throat. It could have meant anything: 'What time is it?', 'Your raccoon is ugly', 'Guys are stronger and better at sports than girls are'…
… Or, 'Then why do you?'
"B-because… I have to. I can't just let you roam around forever, especially around my neighborhood. You have your own home. You should be there, with your mom and dad. You're a human being, not some kind of stupid animal."
Dangit.
4. Refund
She clanged the bell, gripping him by the hood, and then clanged it again when Mr. Foster wasn't fast enough. As soon as the door squeaked opened, she pointed down at the freak, who now sat kicking an itch from behind his ear with one foot.
"Did somebody lose this?"
Mr. Foster groaned and bent down to embrace his son. Ezekiel mumbled a possible apology, nuzzling his father's neck. Then Mr. Foster stood up again, with Ezekiel clinging to his shoulder like an infant. Courtney sniffed. Her work here was done.
"And if it happens again, I will be forced to call animal control. Don't you give me that look, Ezekiel- The instant our contracts expire, I'm getting a restraining order against you."
Never mind the fact that he probably wouldn't care even if he did understand. With a final, "Just see if I don't," she spun on her heels.
"Ms. Ross?"
Pause. She turned. He sighed, both arms still clamped around Ezekiel who, for his part, blinked back at Courtney with his typical glaze-eyed curiosity.
"Thank you, Ms. Ross. Soo much. You've been a real angel 'bout this whoole awful deal, eh."
5. Realization
"Ya, are either of you listening to me?" Staci rocked on her heels by the bus stop as Courtney sipped her coffee and scrolled through the messages on her PDA, and Cody struggled into his heavy purple jacket. "Remember Great-Great-Great Aunt Lauren? She invented ears. Before her, nobody could ever listen to anything anyone else said to them, ever, and they were all super rude. Ya."
"We don't need to listen, Staci, because we know." Cody blew a frosty breath into the September air. "You were accepted as the newest contestant onto Revenge of the Island - dear heaven knows why Chris thought this was a good idea in any way, shape, or form - and you're going to join the rest of us next summer for our final season. Seriously, it's been two weeks. We know already."
Staci snorted. Folding her arms, she continued with, "Ya, okay, that is not even remotely what I said. I was just saying that if I go the same way that Zeke guy did, I want there to be a plan in place to bring me back, ya. Our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather Adam, ya, he invented domestic life. Before him, people would go feral all the time, ya. Heartbreak."
She stared down at her boots. "How is Zeke now- do you guys keep in touch? You took Foster's class last year, ya, Cody? Ya. So, do his parents have to reinvent him completely? Ya, I'm going to invent reinventing things, ya. And is he going to chew my face off when I show up?"
Cody shrugged. "The last anyone told me, Zeke was still pretty much a blank slate, heh heh."
Courtney's coffee plunged from her hand and spilled across the snow.
6. Scheme
Courtney let the mouse pointer hover for an agonizing moment. Then she opened the file and spent three hours poring over every letter of the document. She tapped in a few more words, deleted others. A final, somehow more-agonizing moment was spent staring at the button before she clicked. Page after page churned from the printer at her side. She tied them in a stack, packed that into her car, and she headed for the countryside.
She met Mr. Foster at the outskirts of the snow-dusted apple orchard, and they talked for a long time, and he was more than a little surprised by her request, but he gave her permission to try what she would and led her to the barn.
Ezekiel made a grab for her, of course, but Mr. Foster had a big squirt bottle that he held up but didn't have to use, and Ezekiel flopped into a stack of hay with a snort.
Courtney moved very carefully. He murmured as she drew close, but he didn't swipe at her again as she knelt beside him in the straw and dust. Very, very carefully, she patted his dirty sleeve.
"Well, Zeke, and so it begins. Starting today, we are going to make you perfect."
7. Hat
"There. You're already looking more human."
8. Puzzle
Okay, you take a whack at it: Which was more important- his speech or his stature?
Round two: Was it for the best that he slept out in the barn until he himself decided that it was silly, or would he adjust more quickly if moved inside where the surroundings were familiar?
Would he ever be able to make minute movements again, or should she focus her attention on trimming back his claws instead? When his body realized there was no need for such heavy focus on his sharp fingernails and stopped sending all the dead cells that way, that would allow his hair to grow back, right?
Next, should he be rewarded or punished for those vocal noises and throaty snarls? And how did one break a teen who acted more like a lynx out of an awful nose-picking habit?
Ugh. Of all the ways to spend- Honestly, there were so many things to fix about him, Courtney didn't even know where to start.
And she loved it.
9. Nose
"Oh, no. You did not just turn up your nose at my blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes to go chasing rats in that filthy barn again. Don't you dare walk out on me, Zeke; I am trying to have a conversation with you. No, get off the counter. If you set one claw outside that window- Hey, get back here, you ungrateful little mongrel!"
10. Fluent
Sadie's sigh came through the phone in a static firework. "Okay, but are you, like, sure you want me to try this? I haven't really spoken Mandarin since I was like, nine, except when I was flirting with that really cute intern at the Casa."
"You'll do fine." Courtney kept most of the receiver covered with her palm. Ezekiel was next door in the kitchen, tearing through a plate of porkchops while his father supervised, one rough hand on his cheek. "I just want to see if he'll respond, that's all. Mr. Foster says he could speak eight languages when he was human. Well, six or seven. He never did get Russian. Or English slang, for that matter."
… It kind of sort of stung an awful lot that she'd never realized he had that little gift when they'd spent so many days together at Playa Des Losers. And she couldn't help but be super offended that he had been fluent in Spanish once when she supposed to be the Hispanic one. She could say 'Hola'.
11. Snap
"Okay. Here I go." There was a pause, broken by an encouraging word from Katie, and then Sadie erupted into full-on Mandarin.
"Zeke, quick!" Courtney held the phone towards the kitchen, trying to look and sound and be the picture of distress. "I can't understand what this lady's saying. I need your help."
There was still one porkchop on the plate. He picked it up in his teeth, jumped from the table, and loped over to join her in the living room. Then he threw himself on the floor and started to gnaw the meat to bits. Courtney held the receiver to his ear as Ezekiel chewed on, blissful as a sparrow on a sunny day.
And all of a sudden he sat bolt upright. He snarled horribly, swiping for the phone with his claws outstretched. Courtney shrieked out of instinct, and Mr. Foster, who had been standing in the doorway, lunged forward to tackle his son to the ground. Ezekiel writhed once, then gave up and lay still, glaring at the floor.
"… S-Sadie? What did you tell him?"
She could practically see the other girl turn pink.
"That he was lucky he had you, like, fawning over him all the time because that's the closest he'll ever get to having any girl like him? And that he's still, like, a totally misogynistic pig and I didn't really mean it when I said I forgave him for what he said to me that time he got his arm completely like, stuck in the pool filter at the Playa. Why does he even know how to translate that?"
12. Accent
In the end, he pronounced her name the same way he had before his incident.
13. Future
Nestled in a heap of straw in the barn, watching him struggle to order the plasticware and paper cups like a dinner setting the way she'd taught him, Courtney could resist no longer.
"What do you want to be when you grow up, Ezekiel?"
He used a gentle fist (He never showed her his nails if he could help it) to edge a cup to the right side of the plate. He grunted without looking up.
"Hey beetle-brain, I asked you a question. A question deserves an answer."
"W-w-w-wuh c-c-c-c-c-ccaaaaaaaarrrrrrrre?"
"I care because I'm fixing you. I'm giving you a second chance, and I want to be sure we do it right."
Ezekiel made the scratchy, high-pitched throat noise that he always used to mean 'No', then added some mumbled 'P' sounds and bits of sign language as he tried to grasp the fork.
"No point?" Courtney jerked upright, combing straw from her hair with her fingertips. "Excuse me? What do you mean 'no point'?"
He shrugged and made some more noises, and Courtney realized, with a bitter stab between her ribs, that he was trying to say 'No future'.
14. Selfish
She wanted him to wear his hat and stand proudly slouched beside her on two legs, but he wanted to sit at the prow of the yacht with his tongue hanging out like a mangy little dog.
"That is insensitive and selfish of you. And are you seriously planning to wear that hoody for the entire Season 4? You realize I packed you a suitcase. I'm going to wriggle that disgusting scrap off you one of these days if it kills me. Yes, I'm aware that Chef chained you to the rail, but that's not an excuse to act so much like an animal- Duncan and Gwen are right there."
15. Desperate
"Aw, Courtney." Heather leaned against the railing, a fist on either cheek. "I knew you were still stiffed for a boyfriend, but even I didn't think you were this desperate. Looks like I was mistaken. There's a first time for everything after all. Acting like a psycho on camera really wasn't the best move for your future love life."
Courtney dug her fingernails into her hips as the yacht sped out into open water. "You're mistaken, Heather. I am not the least bit desperate. I spend my time with Ezekiel by choice. You could say we've made… an alliance."
She drank up the panicked realization that flashed across Heather's face then- a look that intensified when that creepy robot rattled over and plucked her into its cold arms. But still…
Courtney curled her lip as Ezekiel's tongue flapped and his drool splashed against the deck just inches from her feet. Okay. Maybe she was a little desperate.
16. Heartbreak
The yacht didn't stop at the dock. It kept going for three long minutes until it hit the next beach. And then, because this was Chris, it exploded.
Nothing made sense as she lay in the sand. But at the same time, everything did. Why Chris had chuckled that they should pack lightly. Why he hadn't answered her question of whether there was anything special that needed to be done about Ezekiel. Why Staci hadn't joined them on the boat or in the mainland hotel, even though the interns had welcomed her at the pier. Who that weirdo with the curly hair and all the video games had been.
"Zeke?" She took him by the shoulders and forced herself to meet his bloodshot eyes. "It was another one of Chris's tricks. He… he brought in an entirely new cast this year. You don't get to be in the fourth season. None of us do."
There was a reason she'd done this while he was still chained to a piece of the rail.
17. Confidentiality
"Aw man."
As Courtney briefly glanced away from the undergrowth, she thought that DJ looked like there were a lot of things he wanted to say besides 'Aw man'. He scratched the back of his neck.
"I'm real sorry about this, Courtney. But it's getting late. And if we don't get back to the mainland before we run into the eliminated contestants, Chris is pro'lly gonna make us stay here the whole season just like he did Seasons 2 and 3. You know our contracts. Confidentiality."
"Wait!" she screamed as DJ scooped her into his arms. "You can't do this! Ezekiel's still out there somewhere! He's lost! He could get himself killed! All my hard work for nothing! Wasted! Ugh- Hold on, you fumbling ox- Put me down!"
18. Nerves
Spending hours perched beside Trent and Sierra on the hotel couch, her hands pressed eternally to her temples, staring at the live camera feed and slowly watching what became of Dakota after delving into those same mines for a mere forty minutes so did not help.
19. Embrace
"Radioactive doesn't mean broken, Zeke."
20. Double-Take
"Wait, you spit acid now?"
Hearing her even voice such a question, Lucas Foster did what any good father would do. He threw his hands in the air, marched out to his pick-up truck, trundled off down the road, and came back three hours later with about a hundred gloves, several dozen boxes of plasticware, and the kindly animal control officer who usually accompanied him home in situations of this nature.
Of course, Ross had already taken care of the situation. She'd politely quarantined Ezekiel in the steel-braced saddle shed until he could be examined thoroughly. He'd asked for a drink of milk for his scalding throat and, upon finding none in the fridge, she'd taken matters into her own hands and hunted down a freshening cow. She'd deliberately turned the horses loose to roam out in their field so their hooves and whinnies wouldn't be within his earshot and send him panicking again. Water and dirt had been thrown over the singed spot in the living room rug. The windows opened in case of possible fumes. The fire extinguisher and a bucket at the ready nearby.
She had even taken the liberty of transferring Rachel from her sick bay of a room and onto the porch, where even now the girl was braving a ferocious scolding about invasive, bossy little brats who didn't know their place and thought they could just show up and destroy feng shui, and don't tell her that she'd brought Michael back to sanity because that was no excuse- Michael was the sweetest angel and what exactly did she mean by that anyway, and Ezekiel had been dead for years and when the man of the house came home then her high-and-mighty ego would really be in for it, and just what did she think about that?
Ross was very wisely (and perhaps for the first time) keeping her head bent and her mouth zipped shut as she scrubbed horse dirt from her palms onto the hem of her shirt, and man oh man oh man did he ever want her as a daughter-in-law for swallowing that sort of pill and still asking if she could come back and visit Ezekiel the next day, should the farmhouse not have melted to the ground before her return.
21. Reading
They both wanted to quit- he for his raspy tongue and she for the sake of her ears, not to mention the sting of boredom. But, day after day, week after week, they were faithful, and it worked.
22. Letter
She set down the letter and buried her face in her hands.
"C-C-C-C-Coourt… ney?"
"Chris wants me to participate on Season 5. For real this time. It's called All-Stars."
He shot her a look of terror, urging Courtney from the chair and to her knees on the ground beside him. She put one arm around his shoulders.
"Of course I won't leave you. I won't let anything come between us. No boyfriends. No gal pals. Not even revenge schemes against that stupid Gwen. And especially not the million dollars."
When he knew she wasn't watching, Ezekiel rolled his eyes. And, unbeknownst to him, Courtney rolled hers as well.
23. Service
"My lawyers said you have to let him come. They had him registered as a service animal last week."
She heard Chris tapping his fingernails against his teeth. "Hmm… I think we might could arrange something along those lines. Question: Will this involve mayhem and, completely theoretically, what do you suppose might happen if he were to get loose on the island?"
24. Grapes
"He's not competing," Courtney reassured Heather for what was probably the sixth time by now. They were at the hotel on the tip of the mainland, staring out the ballroom windows and over the great blue lake where Wawanakwa lay tucked away. "But he's more or less imprinted himself on me by this point and he'll freak if we're separated for too long."
Heather didn't put down the lamp as Ezekiel padded over to her with the ceramic bowl of purple grapes in his mouth. He dropped them at her feet and sat there, looking insanely smug about something or other.
"It's a peace offering," Courtney guessed, but Heather's grip on the lamp only cinched tighter.
"Trust me- If Homeschool's still in there, that's a declaration of war. He never did come to see the light over those."
25. Rub
The door on the other side of the ballroom swung open. Zoey came in, laughing about something fluffy and stupid with Mike. Then her eyes landed on Ezekiel. She slowly backed out again. Perfectly as planned. Now the newbies knew exactly who they were trifling with this year. Time to rub it in their faces.
They left Heather seething something about the color green and crossed to the door. On the other side, Courtney found Zoey lying on the ground, her arms wrapped around her knees. Mike looked half a second away from tearing off his shirt and letting that tough guy alternate personality of his ('Frito', wasn't it?) deal with the situation. Little Cameron had pulled his glasses down to his chin and was repeatedly slapping his palms against his eyelids and cursing himself for packing his belongings in a silver suitcase.
"Hello, second-choice cast." Courtney patted Ezekiel on the toque. "Have I introduced you to my service animal, Ezekiel Foster?"
Mike let go of his shirt in favor of shielding his face. "Um, by any chance, does 'service' mean the same thing as 'trained', 'attack', or 'murder'?"
"I'm awfully allergic to being digested," Cameron whimpered.
Ezekiel let out an offended growl. Zoey uncurled halfway from her ball. "Yeah. We've met a few times."
26. Tickle
Sam was the next one to walk in. His face was turned down towards his Game Guy, but he actually tore his gaze from it when he heard the growl, and actually lit up when he caught sight of Ezekiel. "Sweet! You're the plane dude!"
Before anyone could stop him, he'd swept Ezekiel up into a spine-splintering hug. Ezekiel shrieked, and so did everybody else.
"Um!" Courtney wrapped her arms around Ezekiel's stomach and yanked back as he pounded his fists against Sam's shoulders. "Maybe you shouldn't… His saliva is acid now, so…"
"Is that what's tickling my neck?" Reluctantly, Sam untangled his arms from the writhing Ezekiel and touched a hand to his throat. "Huh huh huh, that's awesome."
Zoey turned white. "We have to get you some water for that."
27. DNA
Mike narrowly ducked a blob of blue. "Holy- Uh, did he just project a beam of spit fifteen feet down the hall?"
Courtney set Ezekiel on all fours and scrubbed furiously at the place just behind his right ear. After a few seconds, she triggered the nerve and he shut down in a silent heap on the floor. "Yeah," she said, "the doctors said he can flip his stomach inside out now."
Cameron had his fists over his mouth, looking like his hearing that comment had finally scarred him for life. "Only sharks are supposed to be able to do that! Is that what the radiation did to his DNA? If he hasn't begun to already, will he sprout another few rows of teeth? Oh, please, please tell me he doesn't get bloodlust over papercuts."
"Sure does."
"Why? Why would you tell me that?"
28. Vengeance
The last word wasn't even out of his mouth when who should show up but the very people Courtney most wanted to see in the world. This was it. This was her moment.
"Courtney!" Gwen dropped her boyfriend's hand and rushed to her side. "Duncan and I watched World Tour again last month, and I just wanted to make sure you realized that-"
Courtney folded her arms. "Ezekiel? Sic 'em."
29. Priorities
"And… feral freak-show, Ezekiel!"
High in the helicopter, Chef clutched a flailing Ezekiel by his hood. He'd lost his hat (again), and Chef was now sporting several dozen bloody scratches all over his body. Served him right, Courtney figured, for forcing Ezekiel to whine and struggle against his seatbelt while Chef had tossed her out the door. Karma certainly hadn't waited around.
And then, against his earlier promise, Chef let him plunge towards the lake.
Courtney's mouth dropped open, filling with water as Cameron frantically tried to backpedal away from the drop zone.
Um, hello? Hadn't Chris listened to a word she'd spat over the phone? Didn't he know Ezekiel couldn't swim?
She coughed up a few mouthfuls of water and shoved Cameron away. But before she could think to blink, the stupid drama robot on the dock decided to intervene. It caught her two-year project mid-fall and launched him halfway across the island she had pretty much just dragged him from.
Oh, come on! What… what…?
Okay, you know what? That was the last time she asked Chris and Chef to get their grubby paws anywhere near him. She'd just get Ezekiel back on her own time, in her own way.
Well, you know. Right after the challenge (Hello, million dollars kind of on the line here). And anyway, what was the worst a little fresh air and personal space could do to him?
30. Hundred
Zoey didn't come out of her corner of the cage, or unpeel herself from her ball of arms and legs. "Um, Courtney? I can see that you and Scott are not on very good terms right now, but we're going to have to put that aside for a moment and think about our plan. Zeke may not listen to Chris, but if he'll answer to anyone, it's going to be you. You should talk to him."
Scott made a "Pfft", but looked like what he wanted to say was "She's always up for running her big mouth."
Courtney shrugged. Honestly? She'd just been grossly kissed against her will by a stringy little nerdling who was what, twelve? and broken up with her actual boyfriend (who had only been such for the past two hours, but had been her boyfriend nonetheless). At the moment, she had bigger things on her mind- namely how best to pulverize Cameron, how badly she could get away with maiming him while the cameras were rolling, and what would happen to the million dollars this season if Ezekiel really did drop Chris into that acid pool.
"Pretty please?" Zoey squeaked. "I mean, you're his best friend, right?"
"Okay, listen." Courtney put up her palms. "Taking a step back and trying to see the situation from his point of view, it's not like I can blame him for this. In fact, of anyone here, I'm the last one here who should be pointing fingers. When someone who doted on me for a year went sickeningly sappy over some new flame, I was pretty ticked off too." She placed her fingers on her chest. "He's handling this the same way I would in his place: with constructive venting. I have raised him so well."
"Constructive?" sputtered Zoey. She pulled her legs in tighter.
"Sickeningly sappy?" Scott spun away, crossing his arms. "Well, if I'm so sickeningly sappy, why did you ever agree to be my boyfriend?"
She shot him a glare, arguing with herself over how much she actually liked him and how much she'd been using him to propel herself further in the game. "I can't believe I was ever dense enough to think you and your pathetic compliments were sweet."
The cage door let out a rattle then. Ezekiel yanked it open just long enough to shove a startled Alejandro inside and snarl something in her direction. Courtney rolled her eyes and looked away.
Okay. Maybe he wasn't handling this nearly as well as she would in his place after all.
31. Happy
"Happy?" Courtney sunk four of her nails into the table, and four others into her PDA. "No, you listen to me, Chef. You tell your producers that I don't care how 'happy' Chris's sick, twisted brain has convinced itself that he is- I want Zeke out of that stupid Fun Zone and brought safely back to the film lot by Friday. I know you have a fully-operational motorboat."
"Uh… That's gonna be a problem, girl. 'Cuz we lost all our interns in the flood, and I sure as heck ain't goin' in there again." Chef lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "That's Josh and Izzy's half of the island."
"That's not really your decision to make, now is it? You see, Chef, according to Section 5, Paragraph 14 of his contract, which states that barring the interference of powers beyond your control, parentheses natural disasters; military intervention; escaping the aforementioned designated filming area; abduction by local flora or fauna, otherworldly aliens, or furious parents; or suffering a gruesome but hilarious death either on or off camera; et cetera, close parentheses, no contestant may be cut off completely from the show's host and/or interns (who, may I remind you, are all acting in loco parentis) for a period lasting longer than thirty-six hours. You've pushed the envelope far enough. Clock's ticking now, Cheffy. You are legally obligated to fetch him back."
He groaned as she kissed the receiver.
"Film lot, Friday, ten 'til noon. Don't keep me waiting, Hatchet."
32. Forgiven
"Ow! C-C-C-C-Coourt! N-ney!"
"That's for shoving me in a cage, you dolt."
But then she embraced him. Briefly.
"Now, I brought the Dr. Seuss books. You're going to read them when we get back to the Casa. Don't you roll your eyes at me- You slacked off enough when you were running wild. We have a lot of catching up to do, and we're starting with your speech again. That blue harvest moon must have done something for your intelligence. I don't care how scratchy your voice is- you still have one, and you're going to learn to put it to good use like any self-respecting human. I won't tolerate any more of this grabbing and pointing and whining. Stand up straight. There you go. And move faster, or we'll miss our ride back to the hotel."
33. Slip
Until she let the 'b' word slip that night, Ezekiel had never quite wrapped his head around the idea that Courtney, of all people, seemed to have completely dedicated herself to dragging him back into normalcy.
Her soon-to-be-perfect boyfriend.
Of all the stupid-
As if he wanted-
And this after what had happened between her and-
Sigh.
Okay. What Courtney worked for, Courtney deserved. He wouldn't use the 'g' word, but she could have her little fantasy. He owed her at least that much.
34. Pointless
He read all the books, first to her and then to Cameron, who was still nursing a broken arm, and then again to Alejandro and Sam, who were both doing an excellent job of pretending they cared even though Ezekiel could tell from the scent of their sweat that they felt just the opposite.
"St-st-st-stoopid C-Coourt," he said at one point, hurling "Fox in Socks" against the couch. He snarled several unflattering things about her in English, then slipped back into his feral noises.
"Oh tut, tut, niño." Alejandro stretched down to pat him on the cheek. "You know your little chica bonita's heart will shatter if she hears you tearing up your throat with such horrible growlings. And we don't want that, do we?"
Next to him on the couch, Sam stabbed Alejandro in the side with his elbow like, Dude, count your blessings that he finally stopped.
"I d-d-d-doon't can try c-care anym-more! W-w-why tr-ry b-b-b-b-both-th-ther?" Ezekiel grabbed two handfuls of his hair - that was all he had, anyway - and rocked back and forth there on the ground. "H-h-h-hate her, h-hate Coourt, hate C-Coourtney very lot, s-s-so lot…"
A coin was flipped, a side was called, and suddenly Alejandro was on the floor beside him with gentle eyes and tender arms. "Zemigo, you know you don't mean those nasty words. You're upset, that's all. As you have a right to be."
He let go of his hair to grab Alejandro's collar instead. "But y-y-y-y-yes, h-hate! O-o-over h-hate above w-w-world, eh! W-waste t-t-t-timing! Waste! W-waste! L-l-lies, eh! L-let Zeke f-f-f-f-f-free f-f-f-find a-an'mals!"
"Zeke. Zeke, you're burning my shirt. Ow. Ow. It's burning. Ow. Could you-?"
35. Heaven
As Heather hopped onto the arm of the chair beside him, she couldn't help but point out that no matter how far he had gone, there were some things about him that simply never changed. He still had next to no sense of hygiene. He still made that same heavy-lidded stare when told he couldn't have his way. He still hid behind the couch when he knew he'd done something wrong. He still rarely made it through a conversation without at least one inadvertent sexist comment popping up, and still flipped out if you breathed the word 'misogynist'. He still started talking in sign language whenever he got nervous. He still growled 'Purple' at her every other time he caught her scent.
And he was still that anxious little Christian boy who knew the answer to every theological question in existence, and would whip out his Bible to prove it. Well… every question except one.
"There, you see?" She jabbed the page with one long fingernail. "I told you. They didn't invite the older brother to the homecoming party. No wonder he's so ticked. I would be."
Ezekiel shut the Bible with a sigh. "M-m-maybe I… not pr-prod'gal son… a-after alls it. Maybe G-G-G-God not w-wants Zeke c-coming back?"
"I wouldn't be so concerned in your place." Heather twisted her ponytail into a quick braid. "I mean, you already have a free pass, right? All dogs go to heaven."
Oops.
36. Scars
He had pitted his claws against the kitchen, dissolved two bathtubs, and even put a dent in her PDA, but the first thing she did after dragging him from the bouncy castle was lay a finger on his left jaw.
"Zeke? Did you give these to yourself?"
The shameful tears pricked in the rims of his eyes.
"Don't you dare lie to me."
37. Taste
Her first-ever boyfriend now sat on a hard prison bench, dressed in orange. The second had spent two years as a giant robot (Well, one paralyzed in the hospital and then one as a giant robot). Her third boyfriend, however brief, was a grubby redneck who had gotten mauled by a shark, found himself paralyzed for eight months, tumbled over Niagra Falls, and gotten paralyzed again. And her fourth… Well, he was still a grubby redneck, but he was also bald, half-feral, and drooled acid when he got excited.
"Yep," she groaned, flinging herself back on the couch, "I pretty much have the greatest taste in men, ever."
38. Last
That stupid, pathetic, grating, irritating, infuriating little stutter. She didn't care how adorable it was- it got on her nerves, it made it impossible to have any real conversation with him for longer than two minutes without wishing you could twist his neck, and it would have to go.
E-eventually.
But maybe she'd put it last on the list…
39. Puddle
"W-w-wait," Ezekiel said, putting out a hand to stop her short on the sidewalk. "I kn-know this, eh?"
"What?" She followed his gaze to the mud puddle, then back again. "Oh. Seriously? Zeke, this is not the 1800s, and even if it were, I am not a fragile person. Don't you dare take off your shirt. Nobody wants to see your pale, scrawny, fuzzy little belly-button or your lack of- Oh my gosh, put me down, you cretin!"
40. Didn't
He did, but only after they pulled up at that little Mildred's diner. By then, Courtney's face had turned almost as green as the jelly she detested. He didn't even care. Ezekiel dropped beside her to curl up on the cement, chortling into his sleeves.
"Heh heh. Th-that made m-me f-f-funny."
"That was not funny!" Courtney pushed frazzled hair out of her eyes with both hands. "Ezekiel, you know your balance on two legs is awful enough without throwing my weight into the equation. What if while you were hurtling down the street at that speed you tripped straight into - oh, I don't know - oncoming traffic?"
Even though it meant he had to show off his jagged teeth, he couldn't help but give her an enormous smile.
"B-but n-n-not did, eh?"
41. Denied
To the surprise of both of them, they were met at the door by that Mike kid from the show, dressed in black and white. He'd gelled his hair spikes in all directions too, and there was a striped kerchief around his neck that twisted in six different colors. Courtney watched as Ezekiel, still grinning, greeted him with a friendly wave. Mike didn't wave back. He kept his fingers planted on the door handle, shifting his dark eyes back and forth between them.
"Um, sorry." He used his right hand to scratch the tip of his left ear. "I had this incident with my imaginary friends back in August, and now my boss says I'm not allowed to serve customers that aren't human anymore."
"W-what?" Ezekiel stammered out, flattening both palms to his chest.
Mike shrugged. "Well, you're green. And your spit is melting your shirt." For a moment more he stood there, just looking at them. Then he smiled a strained, gap-tooth grin and slowly closed the door in their faces.
"… Zeke? Zeke, are you-"
Ezekiel whipped around, eyes flashing silver. "W-why e'er try have b-brought me back, C-C-Coourtney? I b-better with been a-a-an'mal!"
42. Considerate
"Maybe you are a freak. But you're my freak. As it turns out, I like the boys who flash their primal instincts an awful lot more than the ones who perch atop a stack of rulebooks for all eternity. And you, my Zeke, have singlehandedly shattered more of society's expectations than any boy I've ever known."
Because that helped.
"Now, come on." Courtney intertwined her delicate fingers with the gnarled claws beneath his gloves and yanked him back to his feet. A glint of mischief sparked in her eyes. "You can accompany me to the grocery store, and we'll picnic in Allenmere Park. And if you don't tell my mom that I let you carry me across a puddle, I won't tell your dad if we stop for ice cream before we head back."
"S-secrets will can't k-keep. I t-talk sleepin'."
"I'm aware. You always did, even when you were feral. Which we both know you aren't. Not anymore. It's how I knew you could be saved."
He made his free hand into a fist. "N-not can hold c-cone. S-spoons either. F-fingers so many b-bad, eh."
"Then I'll feed you."
"D-drool maybe t-take your f-fingers."
"I'll get lots of napkins."
"You're l-l-lacky-to-tolerant."
She blinked like she'd forgotten. He waited, eyebrows drawn together in a scowl, arms crossed as best as he could manage so she wouldn't get any ideas about 'I don't need my stupid milk medicine'. She tapped her chin for a long while.
"… You wanna hide in the mall until closing time and race up the down escalators all night?"
43. City
He clung to her arm the whole way through the subway, cringing at every unfamiliar sound (of which there were a considerable amount) and eyeing the other train passengers with distaste. But that didn't stop her from somehow losing him at the entrance to the mall.
It took her four minutes to realize he was missing, and after she searched the food court and the pet store, she finally found him trapped back in the revolving door out front, his pleading face pressed against the glass as he made another loop around.
She couldn't help herself. As she freed Ezekiel from his spinning jail, Courtney didn't try to conceal her chuckle. "Oh, even after all I've done for you, you are still so-"
"Don't. S-say. H-homeschooled."
44. Nepotism
"I can't believe this family! Even though I single-handedly yanked you back from the brink of insanity, your dad outright refused to up my grade. It's a measly two percent away, and he'll offer me nothing! No deadline extension. No late passes. No alternative project." She dropped into the hay beside him, strangling her own chest with her crossed arms. "Aren't you going to do something about this?"
He swung his head around. "Aw, come, D-Dad. No h-h-high h-horses. C-Coourtney lifes-s-savin'. G-gotta have f-find worth extra c-c-credit of th-that, eh?"
45. Really
"You're dating him now? And then what, you're going to marry him? He's practically a zombie, no matter how you try to spin it. I can't have my twin marry a zombie!"
Courtney rolled her eyes. She stepped away from Darlene's accusatory image in the webcam so that she could change into her pajamas. "Apparently college makes you ridiculous. He's gross and a total slob. I wouldn't kneel across from him at an altar if it were the last way in the world to get tax benefits. Or whatever the redneck version of an altar even is."
A tree stump, she supposed. Or maybe a very pretty goat.
"Look Darlene, not everyone marries their high school sweetheart. He's my boyfriend now, but I don't plan to let him become anything more. Don't you worry about me."
"Then why are you making him 'perfect' if you don't plan to stay with him forever? If you're just going to let your 'perfect' boy go gallivanting off to some other girl?"
She froze, her pajama shirt pulled halfway over her head.
Well, when she phrased it like that …
46. Wait
Wait.
Okay, but how in the world had she become so obsessed with creating a perfect boyfriend to pick up where Duncan had left off that somehow, despite her love of planning, her need to prepare for the future, she hadn't… even thought…
… because she'd chosen not to. Somehow, she had chosen not to dwell on the inevitable question 'What for?' Not after Ezekiel had made that comment about his lack of future back in the barn. For once in her life (and without realizing it, no less), Courtney had let herself accept that she would simply cross that bridge when she came upon it. Until then, making Ezekiel perfect had been - and still was - the bigger priority.
Well, maybe that wasn't the whole truth, either. She'd always kind of thought that once he was perfect… he'd be her boyfriend forever, even as she pursued college and careers. He'd live at his place and she'd live at hers, and he'd bring her cinnamon rolls every Monday and take her to dinner and dances and plays on Saturday and listen to her rant over the phone about people and paperwork all the hours in between, and that would be enough to make her happy. Which it still would.
But maybe that wasn't what he wanted. He wasn't exactly the blank slate he used to be.
Courtney ground her teeth. Two years. Two. And a half. Freaking. Years. She wasn't looking forward to the day all her hard work would go to waste. The need to succeed did stupid things to one's head, apparently.
47. Couple
For all her use of the word "boyfriend", and for all the stories the tabloids ran, Courtney didn't consider them to be a true couple yet. After all, they never participated in any of the typical couple-y things (There were rules to this, you know). They didn't cuddle or kiss or even hold hands (Ew!).
In two years they'd never truly gone out on a date, either, unless one counted that stint at the mall (She didn't, and in her defense it was extremely late and they had both been really tired and she shouldn't be held responsible for any of her actions).
And it wasn't like she couldn't live without him, the way she'd once convinced herself she couldn't live without Duncan. Ezekiel actually brought stress into her life more than he relieved it (Number 84 on The List, that).
So it would be simple to cut him out of her thoughts forever and be done with him. By no stretch of the imagination was he the other half she'd spent her life searching for.
48. Backpedal
Okay. Something about the way his dull gray eyes turned that bright, hopeful silver whenever they exchanged their hellos made him impossible to abandon in the friend-zone forever.
Sure, he was adorable when she got him flustered with an innocent question of, "What was that you were mumbling in your sleep about slathering Staci's nose with 's'more sauce'?" and his ears turned Harold-red and his eyebrows tilted up and he tried to tug whichever toque he was wearing down over his face with fingers that couldn't grip quite right and his rusty-brown hair tufts stuck out like a bird's nest and he hunched into his shoulders and bit his upper lip gently so it wouldn't bleed a-and… What were we talking about again?
And yes, she had to admit that she'd grown fond of his quiet, careful conversation, the way he furrowed his brow and set his stubborn chin when she gave him instructions he didn't want to hear and complied with them anyway and mocked her in sign language because he thought she couldn't read it, and how he always flew into a panic when he counted all the sheep and ended up one short.
But that didn't mean she could ever marry him. Even pulling his freak side out of the equation, he was an inbred, awkward boy from the prairie who still picked his nose and had to spend a solid ten minutes puzzling over each new slang term and innuendo, and she a future politician and corporate lawyer who… well, who simply couldn't be seen alongside anyone like that, obviously. Even if he alone was proof of the difference she could make in the world.
49. Sailed
Besides that, 'Ezekourt' was a stupid shipping name to have been branded with. Personally, she preferred 'Courtkiel'- after all, it had her name first, as it should.
But no matter how much she threatened and bribed, she hadn't yet succeeded in forcing even one tabloid to change it around.
50. Invitation
No, she could never marry Zeke. Yeah right. Please. As if. Retch. I mean, if nothing else, just imagine how the kids would turn out. Nursing an acid-dripping zombie-lynx-shark-child sounded like a horror film.
But as she stared at the turtle-shaped invitation in her hand, Courtney nibbled on her lower lip and decided that maybe, just maybe, she'd ask him to accompany her to senior prom after all.