You look happiest when you’re outside, with your sheep. You taught me to drive a truck. You taught me to let in the sunlight, to let myself breathe again. You taught me to let go of the things I couldn’t change. You forgave me and accepted me without judging me. You have given me a reason to keep going. There can be no greater impact on a life than that. I thank you, Nyle. I thank you with all my heart.

Forever,
Ezra

I read the letter again, and then again. And then once more. I read it until it had become part of me, something I could carry with me always.

Forever Ezra.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Seven

The second week after Ezra started school, we had an early thaw. Snow began melting, leaving pockets around the trunks of trees. The dirt road that led to our house turned to mud each afternoon and froze in deep ruts each evening. Outside, during the day, a steady dripping signaled the thawing of snow banks. Inside, the sun warmed our house.

Ezra and I got off the bus one afternoon, heading home. Halfway up the muddy road, Muncie trailing behind us in her slow shuffle, we saw Ripley Powers emerge from the woods. Ripley had kept his distance from Ezra. He hadn’t really been in school that much lately.

“What’d you do, Nyle? Trade one mutant for another?”

I looked first at Ezra walking beside me, then back over my shoulder at Muncie, struggling alone up the lane.

“Ignore him,” I whispered to Ezra, but I slowed my pace, unwilling to leave Muncie behind unprotected.

“He’s a mutant!” Ripley glared at Ezra through his good eye, his bad one narrowed down to a slit. “You think I’m dumb, but I know an evacuee when I see one. All uppity looking. He’s one of them Boston types. Bet I know what you’re doing with him too. Making yourself some mutant babies, aren’t you?”

I saw black, suddenly black, everywhere around me.

“Enough!” I yelled.

I threw down my backpack and lunged at Ripley Powers.

Fury screamed like a dark and blinding steam inside me. My hands burned as they struck again and again against his hard bones.

Ripley towered over me. He extended his arm, holding me just out of reach. Staring down at me, he laughed.

That’s when I saw Ezra coming for him.

Ripley was built like a shell casing, hard and tapered and cold.

I remembered once thinking if Ezra and Muncie and I went up against Ripley, we could beat him. Now I saw the truth of it. Ezra wasn’t a fighter.

Even if Muncie joined in, we didn’t stand a prayer against Ripley Powers.

With Ezra’s approach, Ripley shoved me out of the way.

Seemed like he’d been waiting for Ezra all his life.