17. Sadie #2
Mason Vreeland and I developed a routine after that.
Neither of us said anything about it, but for the next two weeks, he was waiting at the top of the stairs by the cafeteria before class, and we walked to the photography lab together.
We didn’t say much (it wasn’t a very long walk).
Just “Hey” or “How’s it going”—the kind of things you say when you don’t really expect a response and when you don’t want to give a response yourself.
The Monday after homecoming, that changed. When Mason saw me coming down the hall, he gave an exaggerated bow.
“Well, if it isn’t the queen herself.”
Yes, Ben and I had been crowned homecoming king and queen after the football game on Friday night. No, it wasn’t the type of thing I thought Mason would care about.
“Oh, come on, I don’t need your crap,” I replied. “What’s wrong with being homecoming queen, anyway?”
“Nothing,” he said as we fell into lockstep on our usual path to class. “It’s just a little… basic, you know?”
“Do people still say ‘basic’?”
“Well, I just said it, and I’m people.”
“Fair enough. But I’m still not interested in your opinion on my extracurriculars.”
We were walking along one of the deserted basement hallways, and I was between Mason and a long row of lockers. Without warning, he stopped short and whirled around to face me. I almost ran directly into him.
“What the hell?” I asked. “What’s your problem?”
There was no one else around, and suddenly, like a rush, I felt everything I’d felt the first time I’d sat down next to him.
Everything that I thought we’d made an unspoken pact to ignore because it wasn’t going to lead us anywhere good.
He was staring at me, and he was too close.
I should have told him to back off. I should have told him that I’d be walking by myself from now on, and he was out of line.
I should have told him that he was making me uncomfortable.
He was, but for an entirely different set of reasons.
He was making me uncomfortable because he was looking at me with his big dark eyes like he was about to kiss me. And I was uncomfortable because I wanted him to. Deeply. Desperately.
“You could be a lot more than just homecoming queen, you know,” he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. “You don’t have to be his girl just because it looks good to everybody else. You don’t have to pretend.”
“I’m not pretending,” I replied, willing my voice to sound annoyed. “You don’t even know me.”
He cocked his head to one side and bit his lip, studying me. God, he was sexy.
“You really think you’re something special, don’t you?” I asked, trying to catch my breath. “Is this your thing, being all moody and quiet and then coming on really strong?”
He laughed. He actually laughed. “Something like that.”
“You might be the most arrogant jerk I’ve ever met.”
“Really? That’s saying something, considering who you’re dating.”
“Screw you.”
I meant to walk away after I said that. The bell had already sounded, which meant we were late.
And who did Mason Vreeland think he was, anyway?
Just because he was somehow above the high school crap, he thought it was his only purpose in life to rain on everyone else’s parade and tell them how he thought they should be acting.
I was surprised he and my sister weren’t the best of friends—they seemed to have that particular line of thinking in common.
“I don’t need anyone telling me who I am, or who I should be, or who I could be,” I said finally. “And we’re officially very late for class, so if you’ll excuse me.”
I pushed him out of the way and started down the hallway.
“Tell me you’re happy, then,” he called after me.
I turned back. “What?”
“Tell me you’re happy. Look, I’m sorry if I came off like a jerk, but I just… I’ve gotta know. Are you happy? Because if you are, I’ll leave you alone. Scout’s honor.” He even held his fingers up like a Scout.
“You don’t really seem like a Boy Scout to me.”
He shrugged and gave me a million-dollar smile. “Until I was twelve. Once a Scout, always a Scout. So, what’s your answer?”
“I—” I suddenly felt like I was standing in the hallway completely naked. It was actually none of Mason’s business if I was happy. He was the last person on earth who should care, but he was also the only one who was asking.
Damn it.
In my few seconds of silence, Mason had crossed the space between us. The hallway was still empty, so there was no one to see us when he slowly brought his hand to my face.
That was the moment I realized I was not in love with my boyfriend. That was also the moment I kissed Mason Vreeland.
Once Mason and I started seeing each other, I realized just how good I was at lying.
I should’ve known I was good at it, anyway—turns out, I’d been lying to myself for pretty much the entirety of my high school career.
But now I was lying to other people, and that was a different game. Luckily, it was a game I was good at.
The one thing in my life that got easier was my relationship with Liz.
It had been hard to forgive her after what went down with Ben at the party last year.
She swore that she didn’t even remember it happening, which somehow made it worse, and I’ll never forget the look on Jayne’s face when she sat me down in our kitchen the day after the party and told me what she’d seen.
“You’re messing with me,” I remember saying. “Come on, Jaynie. I know you hate all this high school stuff, but you can’t just make up lies about people.”
“I’m not lying, Dee. I’m really sorry, but I’m not. I saw it with my own eyes. Evan did too.”
Evan. I loved that kid as much as I hated him, and he’d been a singular fixture in Jayne’s life ever since they’d met on the show-jumping circuit.
He was absolutely incredible in every way, but he was also deeply aware of that fact.
Unlike some of the guys in our town, Evan had the money, the culture, and the lifestyle to back up his high opinion of himself.
There was even some conversation about him joining the Youth Olympics equestrian team.
I’d seen him at a few shows when we’d all traveled with Jayne, and he was amazing.
Jayne’s friendship with him seemed inevitable after they met.
Two peas in a pod, although I could have just as easily seen them becoming mortal enemies or being the kind of people who have crazy sex every time they meet on the show circuit but never speak of it.
People that similar are either best friends or sworn to eternal loathing, and I was glad they fell into the first category.
My sister was a tricky person to figure out.
I knew her like the back of my hand, but because I knew her, I also understood why she had zero interest in the usual social trappings of our school.
Jayne had really big plans (she hated when people called them dreams, because “dreams” implied that they might not come true, and everything she intended to do was absolutely going to happen), and she saw her time in our town as a prison sentence of sorts until she was allowed out into the real world.
That’s what always annoyed me, because even though she was the one dying to get out, she was also the one my dad seemed to lavish all the attention on.
Special access to his office, where literally no one else was allowed, and he was always chatting with her about what was going on with the business, even when it was clear she had no interest.
I, on the other hand, was overflowing with interest. Ben and I had it all figured out.
We were going to merge the family development firms as soon as we graduated from college and run a nice little Midwest empire.
It was comforting to know that the business was there, like a safety net, no matter what.
We’d have money. We’d go on fabulous vacations during the slow season.
We’d have a set of twins and live in this gorgeous house on the clock-tower green that I’d admired since I was a little girl.
It would be perfect. Yet somehow it almost seemed like the more I wanted it—wanted to learn about the business, get my feet wet, all that stuff—the more my dad resisted. The more he cared what Jayne thought.
Look, show me the kid who can figure out their parents, and I’ll show you the kid who will save a fortune in therapy.
At any rate, that’s one of the reasons I ended up so close with my mom.
She actually showed enthusiasm for the things I cared about, and she threw herself into whatever hobby, project, or relationship drama I was going through.
Sometimes I wished she’d be a little more of a parent and less of a friend, but she was trying in her own way.
She’d had us young, and I think she missed out a little bit on becoming a fully formed adult with her own ideas and sense of self that were separate from my dad.
Funny thing is, that’s exactly where I was headed with Ben, and I couldn’t even see it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Like I said, Jayne was the one who told me what had happened between Liz and Ben, and Evan backed it up.
I remember feeling like the air had been knocked out of my lungs.
I just couldn’t believe that Ben would do something like that.
And Liz? I don’t know. I always got the sense that she was a little jealous of me, and maybe that’s why we’d become friends in the first place.
It pained me to think about it, but I could see her getting drunk and making a move on Ben.
What I couldn’t believe was that he would go along with it or that they would take it that far.
All the way. Sure, Ben and I weren’t sleeping together, but he never seemed to me like the kind of spiteful boyfriend who would say, Fine, I’ll get it somewhere else.
Apparently, although he’d never said it, that was how he’d felt. Why else would he have done it?