A Boy Called Trevor: A Faultlines Companion Novel

Ezra Cruz Audition Sample At minute six, Travis had blamed the radiator, the weather, and New York City, like all three had coordinated the attack. The radiator was guilty of plenty—banging awake at four in the morning, roasting Ezra’s good face dry, heating one corner of the room while the window leaked December down the other wall—but it had not put this much blood in the trash. Ezra’s phone counted upward on Travis’s desk: six minutes, twelve seconds; six thirteen; six fourteen. Travis sat bent over the trash can with one hand pinching his nose and the other reaching for the trackpad. “Travis, suelta eso.” “The file isn’t saved.” Ezra’s regular voice hit the walls and came back bigger. Travis glanced toward the closed door. Ezra wasn’t yelling. This room was just too damn small for his regular voice. He reached past Travis, hit Command-S, and pushed the MacBook to the far side of the desk. “Saved. Lean forward.” Travis opened his mouth. The tissue under his nose went red through the center, and whatever he had planned to say stayed there. The room was too small for pacing. Ezra did it anyway—three steps down the aisle between the beds, a sideways turn around Travis’s chair, and three steps back. He had moved his trumpet to his own bed after the first tissue, then the water glasses, then the pizza box they had both stopped pretending either of them would finish. Nothing else needed moving. His hands disagreed. “No te eches para atrás.” “I’m not.” “You’re trying to see the screen.” Travis looked at him over the tissue. His glasses had slid down his nose. Blood, offended dignity, one lens catching the ruler-straight Christmas lights behind Ezra—on any other night, the whole thing would have been funny. Tonight the skin around Travis’s mouth had gone gray again. Ezra stopped long enough to push the glasses back into place with one finger. Travis went still for it, then turned his eyes toward the MacBook. “No. Mírame.” “I’m looking.” “At me.” Travis’s eyes came up properly—tired, irritated, and present. Ezra held them there until the timer reached seven minutes. “How often does this happen?” “Sometimes.” “That’s not a number.” Travis replaced the tissue and said nothing. “Once a month? Once a week?” “I don’t know.” “You made a spreadsheet for pizza.” “That was a budget.” “It had toppings color-coded by person.” “It made ordering faster.” Another tissue soaked through before Ezra could answer. He took it from Travis, dropped it into the trash, and handed him a clean one. No more pizza. Eight minutes. Ezra crouched beside the chair because standing over Travis had started feeling too much like waiting for something to happen. From here he could see the tremor in Travis’s free hand, small enough that the tissue packet only whispered against his fingers. That same hand had shaken over pizza last Friday. That night his snoring had changed. The shadows under his eyes had stopped belonging to one bad night, and his hands stayed cold even when this stupid room turned tropical. Too many things. Every one had an excuse. Every excuse was starting to sound like the same bullshit. “Travis, no me jodas con el radiador. How often?” “It happens when the air gets dry.” “That is still not a number.” “Ezra.” One word, conversation over. Ezra had used I’m fine for the same job enough times to recognize it. He stood too fast and cracked his knee on the desk. Pain shot up his thigh. The desk jumped; the MacBook skidded toward the wall. “Careful,” Travis said. Ezra stared at him. “You’ve been bleeding for nine minutes.” “The MacBook—” “I’ll buy you another one.” Travis closed his eyes. His fingers tightened once around the edge of the chair. No answer. Nine minutes. By eleven, Ezra had stopped talking. Travis kept looking up from the trash as if he was waiting for Ezra to fill the room again. Fine. Let him wait. Ezra stood close enough to replace each tissue before Travis had to reach and watched the timer because somebody was going to admit that eleven minutes was eleven minutes. At twelve fifty-eight, Travis pulled the tissue away. They both waited. No fresh red came. Ezra looked at the phone. Thirteen minutes, four seconds. “That is not normal.” “It stopped.” “Thirteen minutes doesn’t become normal because it finally stopped.” Travis reached for the hem of his hoodie instead of answering. A dark streak ran from the cuff almost to his elbow, dried brown at one edge and bright red through the middle. “Sit still. I’ll get you another—” “I need to take this off.” He pulled the hoodie over his head. The thermal underneath dragged up with it, its sleeves catching high on his forearms. Ezra forgot the clean hoodie in his own closet. Forgot the phone. Forgot the blood until he smelled it again. Bruises crowded Travis’s arms. Some were dark purple through the middle. Others had gone green and yellow around the edges. New ones sat on top of old ones before the old ones had finished leaving. Not one hit against the desk in this shoebox. Not two. Travis grabbed for his sleeves. As he twisted, his pant leg dragged above his left sock. Another bruise covered half his shin. “¿Qué carajo?” Travis froze. Ezra caught his wrist before he could hide his arm, his grip barely there. Travis’s skin was cold under his fingers, his pulse too quick beneath Ezra’s thumb. “Travis. Mírame.” This time Ezra’s voice fell instead of rising. Travis had to lean closer to hear him. His eyes came up. Confused. Actually confused. “¿Quién te hizo esto?” “What?” “Who put their hands on you?” “No one—” “Who the fuck did that to you?” “No one,” Travis said again. No one was not a fucking answer. Somebody had to have been doing this while Travis sat three feet away every night, working on his scores and ordering pizza and pretending he wasn’t too tired to hold his own goddamn hands steady. Some of the bruises had already gone yellow at the edges. Whoever did it had been getting away with it long enough for the first marks to fade beneath the new ones, counting on Travis to cover them and Ezra not to look. Worse, they’d been right. “Don’t lie to me.” Travis’s eyebrows pulled together behind his crooked glasses, confusion giving way to something tighter. “I’m not.” “Then give me a fucking name.” “There isn’t one.” His pulse kept jumping under Ezra’s thumb. Fear. There it was. It had to be proof that Travis knew exactly who had done this and was scared enough to protect them. “¿Quién fue?” Ezra demanded. “Dime. Tell me their fucking name.” “Nobody did anything.” “Bullshit.” “I’m not lying to you.” “Then who the fuck was it?” “I don’t know what you want me to say.” “The truth, Travis. I want you to tell me the fucking truth.” Ezra’s hand stayed careful around the bruised wrist. That was the only part of him still being careful. Everything else had gone too fast and too hard—his heart slamming, his jaw aching, every muscle in his body already preparing to get Travis out of this room and go find whoever had believed they could put their hands on him without somebody answering for it. Travis pulled his arm toward his chest. Ezra released him, only to plant both palms on the desk and lean closer. “Was it here?” he demanded. “In the practice rooms? At the house? Somebody on the train? Did some asshole follow you into the building?” “No.” “Then where?” “Nowhere.” “Stop fucking saying that.” “Because you’re not listening.” “I’m listening. I’m asking you who the fuck did this.” Travis shoved his chair backward. The wheels struck the bedframe and stopped. Ezra stepped into the space automatically, following him because retreat looked like another refusal, another inch of room for Travis to disappear behind that same quiet fucking voice he used whenever he wanted everybody to accept less than the truth. “Look at your arms.” Ezra pointed, one sharp movement that made Travis’s shoulders pull inward. “Look at your fucking leg. You expect me to believe you just woke up like that?” “Yes.” “No.” “It’s what happened.” “No, it fucking isn’t.” His own voice crowded his ears now, louder than the radiator, louder than the blood still beating behind them. Travis had nowhere left to move, but Ezra couldn’t stop moving toward the answer. He bent over him, broad shoulders blocking the Christmas lights, both hands gripping the edge of the desk hard enough to hurt. “Whoever it is, I don’t give a fuck who they are. I don’t care if they go here, if they’re your friend, if you think you did something—” “There is no one.” “Don’t protect them.” “I’m not protecting anyone.” “Then give me a name!” “I don’t fucking know, Ezra! Please... just...” The words tore out of Travis so loudly that Ezra stopped hearing his own. Travis had said fuck. Travis, who could end an argument by going quiet and waiting for everyone else to exhaust themselves, had spent the word like he had nothing cheaper left. His voice broke on Ezra’s name. The rest of the plea never came. A tear had caught beneath the lower rim of his glasses. Ezra stared at it. Another one slipped down Travis’s cheek, slow and unmistakable, and suddenly the whole room was visible again—Travis wedged between the desk and the bed with his bruised arms folded against his chest, the chair unable to roll any farther, Ezra standing over him and taking up every inch Travis might have used to get away. Not whoever had hurt him. Ezra. “Shit.” His hands flew off the desk. “No, no, no. I’m sorry, Travis, I’m sorry.” He backed up too fast and struck the frame of his own bed with the back of his leg. Travis flinched when Ezra reached toward him, and Ezra’s hand stopped in the air. “Fuck. Okay. I’m not—I’m not touching you.” Ezra hauled his hand back against his chest and kept retreating until the backs of his knees hit the mattress. “Mira, I’m backing up. I’m sorry. Shit, Trav, I’m so fucking sorry.” The anger hadn’t gone anywhere. It still demanded a face, a door to kick in, a name Ezra could keep saying while he went to find the person attached to it. But Travis was crying because Ezra had turned himself into one more thing Travis needed protection from, and now all that fury had nowhere to go except straight through Ezra’s ribs. He sat hard on the bed. Travis’s eyes followed him all the way down. “I thought somebody—” Ezra began. No. That didn’t make the tears less his fault. “Fuck. I scared you.” Travis took off his glasses and pressed the heel of one hand beneath his eyes. “Nobody touched me.” Every part of Ezra wanted to fight the sentence again. The argument had already formed—those bruises didn’t come from nowhere, and bodies didn’t just fucking do that—but Travis’s shoulders were still pulled up, waiting for the next explosion. Ezra shoved both hands beneath his thighs. “Okay,” he said, though nothing was okay. His right knee started hammering beneath his elbow. “Okay. I’m listening.” Travis drew a breath that shuddered at the end. “I bruise easily. I always have.” He wiped his face again, harder this time, which somehow made Ezra feel even worse. “My mom used to worry about it when I was little.” His mom used to worry. That was supposed to explain it. Instead, it opened a whole new fucking hole under Ezra’s feet. Travis had been bruising badly enough to scare his mother since he was a kid, and somehow that had become ordinary. Something he could hide under a hoodie. Something people were supposed to accept because it had happened before. “That’s not normal,” Ezra said. “I didn’t say it was.” “You said you bruise easily like that makes this fine.” “I said no one hurt me.” “And I heard you.” Ezra’s voice started climbing again. Travis’s fingers tightened around his glasses, and Ezra caught the volume by the throat before it could fill the room. He forced the next words out lower. “I heard you. I believe you.” The belief did not calm him. It only changed what he needed to fight. “Student health,” Ezra said. “We’re going.” “Not tonight.” “Tomorrow morning.” “My theory final is Thursday.” “I do not give a fuck about your theory final.” Travis’s face closed. “No—fuck.” Ezra dragged both hands from beneath his legs and immediately trapped them there again. “I do. Obviously, I do. I know you’ve been working on it. But you bled for thirteen fucking minutes, Travis. Your arms look like that, your leg looks like that, and you’re sitting here telling me it’s been happening since you were a kid. You can’t ask me to just leave it.” “I’m not asking you to leave it.” Travis put his glasses back on. His eyes were red behind them, and Ezra’s stomach turned over. “I’ll go after the final.” “The second it’s over.” “Yes.” “Not after lunch. Not after you fix one thing in your score. The second you’re done.” “Ezra.” “Say it.” Travis held his gaze. He was still crying a little, although he’d stopped wiping the tears away. “After theory, I’ll go to student health.” Ezra’s knee shook the mattress between them. Every part of him wanted Thursday to be now, wanted a doctor already in the room, wanted something he could do that wasn’t sitting on his own hands so Travis wouldn’t have to be afraid of them. “I’m walking you there,” he said. “Not negotiable.” “Okay.” Okay didn’t fix a goddamn thing. Ezra’s body remained wound tight enough to break something, and the question of what was happening beneath Travis’s skin kept tearing around inside him with no name and nowhere to land. But he stayed on his own bed. He kept his hands underneath him. He did not move closer.

Travis Yoon Audition Sample Low Tide Casting-only note: This is a purpose-built, noncanon audition side set during the friend group’s Cape Cod trip in late summer 2024. It does not establish manuscript wording or staging. Performance note: Singing or humming is optional. You may simply narrate every reference to the four-note phrase. If you would like to perform it, use the same quiet contour each time you do: choose any comfortable starting pitch, move up a whole step, rise another whole step, then descend a minor third. Performing the phrase can add another dimension to Travis, but it is optional for both this audition and the finished audiobook. At low tide, Cape Cod Bay kept moving the water farther away every time Travis looked up. The towels and cooler had shrunk behind him. Dylan’s voice had not. “Trav! We brought you to the beach, not whatever this is.” Travis looked down at the wet sand stretching between them. “Still the beach.” “You know what I meant.” He did. He also had better reasons not to turn around yet.

A scallop fragment lay under a skin of water, worn almost smooth except for three ribs he could feel beneath his thumb. Two steps later, he found half of a quahog shell, chalky on the outside and purple along the inner hinge. The broken edge had exposed a second streak of color farther down, where an intact shell would have kept it hidden. He rinsed the grit from it and hummed the phrase again. Two whole steps up, then a minor third down. The first three notes made a claim. The fourth kept behaving like an apology. Holding the third note longer made it worse. Now the phrase sounded impressed with itself. A small spiral shell had lodged beside his bare foot. It looked empty until he picked it up, and something inside scratched faintly against his fingertip. Occupied. He lowered it into the same shallow runnel and waited until the next thread of water reached it. Aditi’s bracelets reached him before she did. “Is that one empty?” she asked. “This one is.” He held up the quahog half. “I meant the one you put back.” “Oh. No.” She stopped beside him with her sandals hooked over two fingers and her pants rolled unevenly above her ankles. “And the thing you’re humming?” “Also not empty.” “That wasn’t my question.” “It isn’t done.” “I didn’t ask whether it was done.” Of course she hadn’t. Aditi rarely wasted a question by asking the easier one beside it. Travis gave her the shell. She turned it in her hand, found the purple without his pointing it out, and hummed his four notes back to him. “You changed the ending,” he said. Aditi looked over. “I copied you.” He opened his mouth to show her and stopped. No. She had copied him exactly. That was the problem. In his head, the third note held while another line fell beneath it. His mouth had been forcing both jobs into one voice and blaming the last note for failing at them. “Do it again,” he said. “Which version?” “The one I gave you.”

Aditi sang the phrase more fully this time, her lower voice carrying easily over the open sand. When she reached the third note, Travis put his hand up. “Hold that.” She held it. Travis found the note underneath and let it drop away from hers instead of dragging her line down with it. Aditi’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh.” It still wasn’t right. Better, though. The two lines could now be wrong separately. “You started a rehearsal without us?” Sarah called. She and Brooke had followed Dylan out across the flats. Gavin remained on the dry sand with one forearm over his face, apparently committed to sleeping through the ocean’s eventual return. “It was an error demonstration,” Travis said. “Very exclusive,” Sarah said. Brooke held out her hand. Travis passed her the quahog shell, and she ran her thumb over the rough break before turning it inward to find the purple. Dylan slapped a rhythm against his thigh. It had too much in it. “Less,” Travis said. Dylan removed every other beat. That wasn’t what Travis meant, but it left enough room for him to hear what the rhythm might become. “Sarah, take the first line. Adi, hold the third note. Dylan, keep that, but softer.” Dylan looked down at his hands. “Do I get a shell?” “If you find one.” “You got two.” “I found two.” “That feels like a technicality.” “It’s a beach.” Behind them, Gavin lifted his arm just far enough to speak. “Y’all rehearsing?” “Apparently,” Brooke said. “Don’t ask me to move.” “Nobody did,” Aditi told him. “Good.” His arm dropped back over his face. Travis opened the voice recorder on his phone and turned his back to the wind. Aditi waited on his left, Sarah on his right, and Dylan rocked once onto his toes before stilling. Nobody asked whether the fragment was finished enough to hear. They had apparently made that decision without him. He pressed record. “From the top.” “Bossy,” Dylan said. “You’re free to go wake Gavin.” “He is not,” Gavin called without moving. Travis laughed, lost the first pitch, and found it again. Sarah took the phrase while Aditi held the third note. Travis let the lower line separate beneath it, and Dylan’s pared-down rhythm left a clean space instead of stepping on the change. For three seconds, every part kept its own shape. Travis stopped the recording. “One more,” Sarah said. He looked at the shell in Brooke’s hand, purple showing through the broken side, and opened a new recording. “Yeah,” he said. “One more.”