Chapter 35
MASON
The last day of Thanksgiving break looms over him like a tree barren of its leaves.
Winter has finally made its home in Northwood, and snow covers every street after one wild snowstorm overnight, with the snowplows creating rolling snow hills on every lawn.
The next few days were mostly comprised of speaking with the police and Callum. Some moments with Jenna in between it all. All his focus was on Callum and making sure Mr. Brown would never get to hold anything over Callum again.
Joel was never seen in the Fanning house again, and Elena had never looked happier in the days following their breakup.
He barely saw his parents of his own volition. He would say one word phrases and only speak unless spoken to. They still hadn’t told him if things would change with his degree or if he could just keep doing what he wanted to.
All he can think about is his future. He doesn’t know what it holds anymore, but what he does know is that Callum could be part of it.
The threat between them is gone, and maybe, if they try hard enough, they can still make things work.
He’s in the middle of folding all of his laundry in his bag to head back to campus when he gets a knock on his door.
He folds his Montgomery Physics Department sweater and places it carefully in his suitcase and then gets up and answers the door.
He opens it to see his mom on the other side.
He immediately tenses, clenching his fist on the doorknob.
“Can I speak with you, Mason?” she asks, her voice taut and frame unsure.
“Yeah, come in,” he says, as he holds the door open and she walks in.
Mason watches her look around the room like it’s the first time she’s ever been in it.
She looks at the posters and knickknacks on his walls. His kinematic equation posters. The telescope Callum gave him. The stacks of physics textbooks on his bookcase. His “poly-nom-nom-nom-nomials” poster.
She plays with her necklace as she looks around, and her gaze fully lands on the framed article from The Goldberg. The first one he wrote. He had framed it when he first came back to town, just to remind him that he was more than just one thing.
She sighs and takes a seat in his desk chair.
“Honey, I—”
Mason sits on his bed and brings his legs to his chest as he watches her. He’s not sure what to expect.
“I wanted to… apologize.”
Surprise surges through his chest. That’s one of the last things he was expecting.
She looks up at the ceiling. “I don’t think I realized how much of a terrible mother I’ve been.”
Mason furrows his eyebrows. “Mom—I don’t think of you like that.”
She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter.
Forget about what happened with Callum, Mr. Brown, and everything that’s happened since.
I feel like I’ve been a terrible mother to you.
I mean, hearing you say all of that at that dinner—how could I not have seen how much I was hurting you? Me and your father?”
She sniffles and Mason realizes she’s about to cry. He can count the number of times on one hand the times he’s seen her cry in his life.
“And I look around this room… how could I have ignored it all? I’ve denied you of so much, honey. Of course you hide everything from us. We didn’t give you a choice. Of course physics is your passion—”
Her lips trembles and she looks outside.
“Now, am I happy that you hid something like this from us? No. Not when it involves thousands of dollars… and I still have a hard time seeing a future with you doing physics…”
Mason bites his thumbnail as he watches her.
“But it’s your future. I can’t force you to do journalism. I can’t force you to be something you don’t want to be. My parents wanted me to own their family business, and did I do that? Of course not. I went to New York City and followed my dream.”
She chuckles. “And now look at me, passing on that same expectation they had of me onto to you.”
Mason runs a hand through his hair.
“I can’t stop thinking about that dinner. Just how angry you were. How much passion you had. Clearly, you’ve been hiding for so long, and Joel made it all come out. And Callum brings out that passion in you, too.”
Mason nods. “But, Mom, I’ve been telling you my whole life what I’ve wanted. You never listened. Why are you changing your mind now?”
She sucks on her teeth. “I mean, everything that happened with Callum, of course. Just seeing how much of an impact a parent can have on their kid… I don’t know.
I just don’t think I’ve ever seen you as emotional as you were at Thanksgiving dinner.
Never seen you speak with such conviction.
I only saw that in your writing about Callum. ”
She gives him a knowing look, like she’s known this whole time that there’s been something more, but never fully realized it until they admitted it to her in that clearing.
“I just hope that after finals and with this new semester you at least stay on The Goldberg. I’ve never seen your writing be so good.”
Mason nods. “I don’t plan on leaving. I just—writing was never a career for me. It was just a way to help me understand myself. To express what I’ve wanted to say…”
He bites his thumbnail again as he stares at his bedsheets. “But my passion is with physics. It always will be, Mom. I want you to finally understand that.”
She tenses her shoulders and nods, like she wants to push more, but she doesn’t. She lets Mason say what he wants.
“I will try to, honey.”
She sighs and gives him this look like she doesn’t know what to do with him. For a short period of time, her apology seemed like an apology for everything and that he was going to get out of it unscathed, but the look in her eye tells him he’s not getting off scot-free.
“You can stay in physics. We saved a college fund for you as you grew up, and it’s not coming out of our bank accounts anymore.
That money’s been saved for years. But… I want you to write.
Even if it’s just a personal essay or some kind of article at the end of the semester.
You really have talent, Mason. And it would be a waste for you to squander it. ”
Mason nods.
He knows she’s right. It would be a waste if he just let his writing muscle atrophy and only did one thing. If there’s one thing he’s learned about the past few months is that he can be a lot of things at once. He doesn’t have to put himself in a box like he thought he had to.
He is multifaceted and multi-talented. It would be a shame to hide all of it.
“I will, Mom.”
She smiles at him and rubs his leg.
“Get back to packing. We’ll have a talk with your father at dinner later.”
She gets up and closes the door behind her and Mason rests his head on his headboard.
He feels silly now. If he had just been more vocal with what he wanted and spoke with more conviction, then maybe he wouldn’t have had to lie and protect himself all the time.
He had wasted so much time not saying how he felt that he had boxed himself into a cage of his own making. Maybe his parents had high expectations, but he never learned to question them.
This whole time, all he had to do was think for himself.
He vows to himself that as soon as he steps foot on the Montgomery campus that he’ll live the rest of this semester and every semester after as authentically as he can.
He’ll make himself known.