25. Chapter 25
Sebastian
The truth had a funny way of always coming out.
For Lucian, it was time; for Cameron, it was apparently alcohol.
And Mason… All she needed was to be away from me.
Luckily, I had cameras posted around almost every inch of the house.
I’d need to stick one in the basement now. Not like it’d do me much good, anyway.
As much as I wanted to claim the cameras were for watching Cameron and gathering evidence… deep down, I knew they were there so I could monitor Mason. Unfortunately, I bit off more than I could chew when I listened in on the movie night she and the other adults shared.
That’s when I learned Mason was roughly two years away from being my sister-in-law.
Lucian had finally gathered the courage to ask her, and she said yes.
But Lucian’s mom’s side of the family would have a fit if he got married without a wedding.
They still needed to find a venue and plan the wedding itself.
That meant I had approximately that amount of time to win Mason over… again .
All I had to do was be myself… but that was the problem . No one liked me for me. Every positive quality I possessed was so intense that it became a fault. I was so smart that it was obnoxious. I was so direct that it became rude. I was so loyal that it became obsessive.
That’s why I toned myself down. And, if that weren’t enough, I forwent the way I wanted to look in favor of a pretty, professional package. But… Mason didn’t like that package, which was a shame because I did it all for her.
I made myself into a man who was worthy of her. I made myself strong, and handsome, and successful…. But Mason didn’t want any of that. She wanted me . That would have been fantastic if I had any idea who I actually was.
I hadn’t been myself since I was sixteen. How could I be when the world forced me to be a monster?
But I didn’t want to think about that. So, I snuck out of my apartment and ventured to a local drugstore where I stared at the wall of hair dye like it’d be able to tell me what I was missing.
The last time I dyed my hair was to go undercover for work. I was working in a local high school trying to figure out which of the faculty was slaughtering members of the cheerleading squad.
Spoiler alert : It was the tenth-grade history teacher.
And when I came home with chocolate brown hair, my mom threatened to disown me. She liked my golden waves, and it was an insult to her that I changed them.
After all, our blonde hair and blue eyes were all that separated us from the rest of the family.
The fluorescent lights flickered just as my attention settled on a box of black dye.
I hesitated for a beat before picking it up.
The cardboard package was small but weighty, and the front had a woman who looked far too happy for a hair dye package.
I scanned over the text like it would tell me this wasn’t a terrible idea.
Permanent hair color. Deepest Blue-Black.
The color reminded me of a raven’s feathers. I pulled out a part of my bangs, examining the sandy strands. It’d be a change… one I wanted to do. But what if it looked bad? Was getting disowned worth the risk of coloring my hair?
I weighed the pros and cons for a moment before remembering I could just shave my head if things went south.
With a deep breath, I placed the dye in the red shopping basket hanging from my forearm. I should have just taken my bounty and left, but seeing as I planned to ruin everything I’d worked for over the last few years, I might as well get a snack too.
I wandered through the aisles until I came upon a wall of candy.
Normally, I avoided all artificial dyes and excess sugar. Because of this, I couldn’t even remember what candy tasted like, let alone which ones I liked.
But I remembered the first time I visited Lyon to see Mason. Cameron’s spawn had made it impossible for her to keep anything down for nearly a week, and all she could think about on my first night there was blue raspberry flavored anything.
So, I ended up finding something that fit the criteria. Mason ate so much candy that her teeth turned blue. She asked if I wanted to try some, and my first thought was to reject her. But I didn’t want to be anything but perfect when we first started dating, so I said yes, and she kissed me.
Her lips were sweet and sticky, and she tasted like the blue-flavored sugar she craved. To this day, that was my favorite kiss with Mason.
It wasn’t perfect, or rehearsed, or even anything I was in a rush to do again. But…it was her .
My heart ached at the memory, but I tried to push it away.
I grabbed a bag of blue sour cubes and a pack of gummy fish because I vaguely remembered those being my favorite as a kid.
With my bounty in hand, I headed toward the self-checkout area. I just hoped I’d have the courage to use the hair dye.
I lay on the carpet of my living room, hands folded on my stomach, trying to decipher invisible pictures in the plaster on my ceiling. Convincing myself to dye my hair was the easy part.
All that took was a little… herbal courage.
Every time I thought it was a bad idea, I took a drag of my pen, and after enough THC entered my system, my doubts went out the window.
But now, as my lips tingled and I wondered what it ’d be like to be a speck of dust just floating in the wind, I still could not force myself to eat the candy I purchased.
I turned my head slightly so I could stare at the bag of sour cubes.
Being stoned and snacks went hand in hand. That was a little fact I learned after Mason left. Her disappearance because of her mom’s death was something I hadn’t accounted for, and it destroyed me to the point I needed to take a semester off school.
That, on top of the personal effects Holly’s death had on me, was more than I was equipped to deal with.
Because of all that, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t eat.
I’d once heard that someone could die of a broken heart, and I never believed it until that moment.
No one understood my anguish, especially because Mason and I were barely friends at the time, and I’d rarely ever talked to Mason’s mom.
Eventually, my mom got sick of my moping and decided to slip me edibles. She told me the law always had some gray areas, and marijuana was one of them. It was better to have me get a little high than starve to death.
That trick worked back then, but now I couldn’t force myself to ingest the cubes of sugar, artificial dye, and God knows what else. Plus, even if they ended up tasting okay, I’d never like the flavor of blue raspberry as much as I enjoyed it on Mason’s lips.
Maybe I should just kill—nope. Bad thought. Not doing that.
I brought the plastic mouthpiece between my lips and pressed the silver button in the center of the pen. The golden liquid in the cartridge crackled as the taste of weed danced across my tongue and into my lungs. It was supposed to taste like apricot jelly, but it wasn’t even close.
After inhaling too deep, I coughed out the vapor in one big cloud. But it didn’t stop there. I propped myself up on my elbows as I hacked. After nearly a minute, my coughing fit stopped, and I caught my breath…. And took another drag off my vape. Just much smaller this time.
How was this what Mason wanted me to be ?
That thought almost consumed me as I laid back on the carpet. I was willing to give her perfection, but all she wanted was a mess. Was she secretly the type to use others to make herself feel better? She never had been before.
A knock at the door pulled me from my thoughts.
My heart thumped at the idea of Mason standing outside my apartment and waiting to see me.
But… the chances she was awake were slim to none.
Her pregnancy had officially progressed to the point where she could barely stay awake.
Growing a human was hard work, and that hard work had left my poor girl exhausted.
“Who is it?” I called; my voice raspier than expected.
A beat of silence filled the air, and once again, I propped myself onto my elbows.
My heart raced at the idea that it could have been Mason waiting on the other side of the door.
She had never been good with confrontation, so maybe her silence was an acknowledgment that she was in the wrong with us.
I felt the world spin under my feet as I stood, and for a second, I contemplated if my mind was playing tricks on me. I squinted, staring at the door, wishing I had some sort of superpower that would allow me to see through it. Unfortunately, that wasn’t how the world worked.
But it wasn’t like opening it would be dangerous to me. My front door was located squarely in Sophia’s game room, and the only threat I had in this town was Dale. And he wasn’t even a threat… just a weird annoyance that wouldn’t leave me the hell alone.
With that in mind, I stumbled toward the door before opening it.
The hinges creaked, echoing through the all-too-dark house.
My stomach flipped when I realized the person standing on the other side wasn't my sweet princess, the light of my life, my reason for living.
Instead, Cameron stood in the doorway, his fiery hair weakly illuminated in the moonlight.
We looked at each other for a moment, and neither one of us blinked. It was like one of those grade school staring contests. But I was already miserable, which meant I didn't need to subject myself to Cameron or his specific brand of honesty .
So, instead of giving him space to tell me how terrible my personality was, how desperate I came off, or that Mason loved my brother more, I shut the door.
More so, I tried to, but Cameron stuck his stupid bear-like mitt on the frame. The door hit his knuckles, and the oaf didn't even flinch. Maybe he wasn’t smart enough to feel pain.