Eight #3
“If you’re all coming, we should do a group costume,” said Lara. “Down?” she pointed her fork at Mason, who saluted. She pointed at Cella, who cried, “Sim!”—one of the several Portuguese words Lara had taught her that evening. The fork landed back on me.
“You feeling okay?” asked Cella.
I watched Mason squeeze her hand, and I pushed away my seat. “I’ll be right back. Restroom.”
In the bathroom, I splashed water on my face and pinched my skin to verify that it was still there, still attached to my body.
My flesh felt borrowed. I thought I could peel away myself or the version I had encased myself in.
I wondered if a chameleon had ever crawled out of its skin.
Then I remembered about molting. They got to shed their falsehoods like clothing.
I could only add onto mine until they formed a crust.
I tried to recall a single person I had been completely honest with in the last week. I turned on the faucet and stuck my head under.
“Usually when people hear, ‘I’ll be right back,’ they don’t expect a fifteen-minute disappearance. Poor Lara thinks you’ve climbed through a window. I had to tell her you get nervous headaches.”
Mason leaned against the tile wall, ankles crossed. He was ink bleeding through pages, muddying the words together, erasing meaning.
Shutting off the sink, I brushed back my hair. Water dripped down my temples.
“Is that all you do?” I asked. “Lie? And get other people to lie?”
He was the connecting thread. I didn’t do things I didn’t want to; I didn’t mind hurting feelings.
Pretending was for making shallow friends, and I was just fine without those.
I was happy to be harsh if it meant I was real, but Mason had me lying to make up for other lies.
I was lying in my own head, just looking at him, pretending not to notice his every shade, line, and angle.
“Because you’re so harmless,” he retorted.
“Don’t do that,” I snapped. “You don’t get to be a victim just because you’re good at playing innocent.
You walk around like you’re unarmed, like a mask isn’t a weapon.
You’re manipulative, and you treat your friends like dolls.
You’re using Cella, and you’re using Lara, and somewhere along the line I tripped and you got me too.
Fucking find someone else to play with and leave me alone. ”
I stalked to the paper towel dispenser for an excuse to turn my back to him.
“Yeah,” Mason said in a punched-out breath. “I know.”
I scoffed and aggressively patted my hair dry.
“I don’t mean to—” Mason stopped himself. “Or . . . I don’t want to.”
“Right. You have to. You had to tell Lara I get nervous headaches, and you had to tell her I liked her, and you had to tell Cella you liked her.”
“I do like her,” Mason said, but his voice was boneless, falling in on itself. “I thought she . . . but . . . Choices. I think I’m not good at those.”
When I faced him, hand hovering at my hairline, he had slid slightly down the wall, just enough to bend his knees a little. His head was turned, facing himself in the mirror. He bit one corner of his lip.
“I realize what I do,” Mason said candidly. “Usually too late.”
“I don’t feel bad for you,” I said, just to get a rise out of him and steer away from the melancholy bordering his voice like lace. Another front, probably, as real as the tragedy mask I’d held for half of drama class.
Mason shook his head and stopped facing the other way. “Will it mean anything if I say that I haven’t been trying to hurt anyone? It’s like, I’m playing defense here, not offense . . . Wow, I really wish I hadn’t just said that.”
“Is there a but there? ‘I haven’t been trying to hurt anyone, but’?”
“Of course there is,” said Mason with a self-deprecating laugh.
“You’d better not hurt her,” I said. “Do you get that? I don’t just mean her feelings.”
“So what do you mean? Physically?” Mason bristled. “Why would you even say that? You heard my mom. We don’t hurt people.”
“I don’t give a damn what your mom said. Don’t get it twisted; I’m playing nice for the sake of the truce, but I don’t trust your kind. I sure as hell don’t trust you.”
“This is you playing nice?” asked Mason.
Seconds later, he deflated, backtracking.
“What I meant is, I’ve never met anyone as bad as I am at choices.
I’m not sure I ever learned how to make them.
I haven’t had much practice. That’s . . .
I’m sorry. I don’t want anyone hurting because of me.
But I don’t want to hurt either, so is it one or the other? ”
“I truly do not care.” I crumpled the paper towels and shoved them into the bin. “Just tell me what the hell you want from me.”
Mason’s pupils held a rippling sort of loneliness, water stirring at the surface of a bottomless well. He rubbed his arm over his mouth and said, “I want you out of my way.”
“Great!” I said. “We want the same thing. Leave me the fuck alone.”
Mason put his hands up. “I’ll start right now.”
He left the bathroom. When I returned to the table, Cella said Mason had gone in a hurry, something about a problem on the farm. Another lie. At this point, it would be hard to count them.