Again it seemed things had not changed. Bitterness seeped
through his thoughts as he tossed back another drink. Changed;
his friends had no idea how much he had changed. Doubts followed
closely on the heels of bitterness and he was forced to wonder
if they were truly his friends after all.
Ezra sighed and rubbed his hands across tired eyes. Friends
would not act the way they had. Gambler or not, they should know
better than to judge his actions based only on what they could
see. He inevitably had unseen motivations and, more often than
not, they were altruistic. Instead, they always thought the
worst of him.
Jeopardizing his position here in Four Corners was not something
he would willingly do, not now when he had finally found
something that felt like family. Kin they were not. Most times
that did not matter, they were a family of his choosing, and
that was better than blood kin. Never had he felt a connection
with a group of people like he had with the Seven. Obviously
they did not feel the same of him.
Perhaps it was his manner of speaking. Quite often he used words
to keep the others from getting too close. Raising him, his
mother had impressed upon him the need for self-reliance, and he
was finding it difficult to overcome the lessons he had learned
over a lifetime.
Saluting the saloon doors and his absent companions, Ezra raised
his glass and swallowed another shot of whiskey. Tonight was for
getting drunk; tomorrow he would deal with the consequences of a
lifetime of emotional suppression. Unless he got completely
inebriated, he didn't think he was going to be able to face the
others and explain all of this to them. Valid reason or not,
they would still probably prefer to believe he had an ulterior
motive for imparting any personal information to them. Would
they be willing to listen to him? Xanadu this place might not
be, but it was a home to him, and that was something he'd never
had before. Years spent on the road with his mother had made him
yearn for a stable place to call home, and now he had found it.
Zealous his friends were in their belief in his
self-centeredness; Ezra only hoped he could convince them
otherwise.