30. Simone
Simone
“How far could a girl on drugs even go?” Lani huffs.
I shake my head and let out a sigh. “I don’t know, but we need to find her.”
I don’t know how long we’ve been searching for her, but it feels like all night. My feet are killing me.
We’ve searched every street, called her phone a million times, even called everyone we thought she could be with…and nothing.
I don’t know what else to do, and I hate feeling this helpless. But she has to come back at some point, right?
I just need to know she’s safe.
Eventually, Lani convinces me to go back to the house and get a ride back to campus with her. I give in because I don’t have the energy to fight anymore.
I’m tired…physically, mentally, and emotionally.
We end up finding someone sober to take us home, and I just stare out the window the whole way back, replaying every moment I missed, every sign I ignored, every time I chose to believe she was fine simply because I needed her to be.
“I should’ve known,” I whisper.
Lani grips my hand. “No. Don’t do that.”
“You noticed before me because I was so wrapped up in myself and chose to believe she was actually doing better…because it was the lie that made me feel better.”
“I noticed,“ she says gently, “because I know what it looks like, Sim.”
I look over at her. “How?”
She looks away for a moment, then slowly back to me. “Because I’ve seen enough people I love try to hide being high or fucked up. I’ll give it to her, though. She did a really good job at hiding it. You can’t blame yourself. When people go down that road, the only one who can stop them…is them.”
“I could have,” I mumble, even if it’s not true. It’s what my brain keeps telling me.
I look up at Lani again. “No more secrets between any of us, okay?”
“No more secrets.”
Back in the dorm, staring at her empty bed, I pull my phone out and text the only other person who would know what to say to make me feel better.
Simone: Well today’s been a complete shit show
Three dots appear almost instantly.
Mason: Wanna talk about it?
Simone: Maybe…
Mason: Want me to come get you?
Simone: You don’t have to do that
Mason: Too late. Already on the way
Simone: Mase…
Mason: Sim…
Ten minutes later, there’s a knock on the door.
Lani is already passed out, so I quietly get up to open it. Mason is standing there with a pint of ice cream and a soft smile.
I shake my head and laugh. “Smart man.”
“Figured it might help a little.” He nods towards the hall. “Come on.”
I give him a confused look. “Where are we going?”
“For a drive.”
“I’m in PJs.”
He lets out a little laugh. “I feel like we’ve had this exact conversation before.”
“Let me at least go change this time.”
He shakes his head. “I think it’s better this way.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Then maybe you should be in PJs too.”
“I don’t have PJs. I’m a grown man. I just sleep in my boxers.”
Do not picture that, Simone. No inappropriate images of our friends.
Even if they do look like a Hollister model or the fourth Hemsworth brother.
Ew, no. This is like thinking about a family member naked. Stop.
“Simone,” Mason says, pulling me back from my ill-suited thoughts.
“Huh,” I answer nervously.
“Were you imagining me in my boxers?”
I let out a noise I’ve never heard myself make before. “What!? No! Of course not.”
He just looks down at me and smirks like he knows I’m lying.
I snatch the ice cream and push past him. When I turn around, he’s still standing there, leaning against the doorframe with a smug look on his face.
“Come on,” I tell him.
He laughs and pushes off the doorframe, coming to walk beside me.
We’re halfway through the pint of ice cream when I start telling him about what happened with Lydia.
Mason comes to a red light and looks over at me, confused. “Tyler cheated on you?”
“No! At least…I don’t think so.”
“Then why would she say that?”
I weigh what I want to say, but say screw it and just tell him.
It’s Mason…he doesn’t judge me.
“Tyler called before the party, saying he ‘wanted to talk.’ Which is the universal code for ‘I wanna break up with you.’”
Mason turns his attention back to the road when the light turns green. “If he does, he’s the biggest idiot on the planet.”
I shake my head and take another bite of ice cream before holding it out for Mason. “I mean, what else could it be? You’re a guy. Tell me what I’m missing here.”
“You’re not missing anything…except your worth if you think you ever need to beg any man to stay with you.”
“I would never beg.”
“Good,” he says simply.
We drive until Mason can barely keep his eyes open, and then end up back at the Sig house.
Chase is still gone, and we’re sitting on the floor of his room, knees to knees, talking about Lydia.
About how I always feel this need to protect her, even when it hurts me, how I know she doesn’t mean the things she says when she’s in a place like this, but it doesn’t make it hurt me any less, how I just wish I could take this pain from her, that I’m afraid will one day take her from me.
Mason knows all the right things to say, and all the ways to make me believe she’s not too far gone yet. He gives me a little hope that I’m not actually losing everyone I care about all at once, and it’s nice to have someone like him in my corner, talking me down from all the spiraling thoughts.
Talking about everything still makes all the emotions I’ve been holding back hit me at once like a damn train.
I don’t know if it’s the exhaustion, or everything piling on top of each other…
or how safe I always feel talking to Mason, but I can’t seem to stop, or even care to stop the tears when they come.
“What is it about me…“ I ask, “that’s so hard to love?”
Mason looks up at me and notices the tears. He reaches out, placing his hand on top of my knee, trying to comfort me.
“Sim,” he says quietly, shaking his head, “no…no, that’s not what this is. Whatever is happening between you and Tyler…that’s not on you. That’s not your fault.”
“Then why has no man ever been able to show me the love I so easily am able to give out to everyone else? Not even my own father, who raised me and was around. Why was I never good enough to have his attention? Why am I not good enough for Tyler’s attention now?
Why do I keep craving this attention from them when they obviously don’t want or care to give it to me?
He moves his hands from my knees to my cheeks, making me look up at him. “Look at me.”
I do.
We just stare at each other for a moment, and it’s like he’s trying to tell me so much with just his eyes, things his words alone can’t convey.
“I don’t have a lot of friends,” he starts softly, “very few genuine ones who I could call on if I really needed, very few I could tell anything to, very few I trust to hold my darker parts. But you…you are probably one of the only friends I have that I feel safe enough around to let in. You hold a light to everyone’s darkness around you…
just by being you. You’re pretty fucking special, and anyone who can’t see that and can’t appreciate having you around…
doesn’t deserve to have your light in the first place. ”
The tears come on full force because his words feel like the reassurance I’ve never gotten before.
He pulls me into a hug as we’re sitting on the floor, and I just let him hold me as I let out all the frustration of never feeling like I’m enough, even though everything I do is to prove to everyone else that I’m worth something, prove to myself that I’m worth something.
“Stay over,” he whispers.
I look up at him, shocked. “Stay…over? Here?”
“No funny business,” he says quickly. “I can even sleep in another room. But I wanna do something with you tomorrow, and it’s really late anyway; you might as well. It’s not safe for you to walk. And it’s probably not safe for me to drive you either. I’m about to pass out.”
“Do what tomorrow?”
“We’re gonna have a ‘Yes Day.’”
“What’s that?”
“A little taste of my childhood,” he says, smiling, and I see this pride behind it I’ve never seen before.
“It’s something my mom used to do with me when I was having a hard time.
She’d give me the entire day to do whatever I wanted, and she had to say yes, no matter how crazy or ridiculous my requests were. ”
I can’t help but laugh as I wipe the rest of my tears away. “Whatever I wanna do?”
“Whatever your heart desires.”
“I don’t think you know the trouble you’re signing up for, Sinclair.”
“Trouble is my middle name, pretty girl. I’m always down for a good time, especially with you.”
We sit there talking until it gets so late that I end up passing out in his bed while he sleeps on the floor—fully clothed, of course.
No boxers like I was picturing.