6. Mason
Mason
Age-Sixteen
I woke up this morning not to the alarm I set…but to screaming babies.
I force myself out of bed and drag my feet to their room, wiping the sleep from my eyes.
Sixteen is supposed to feel like your first taste of freedom. I can drive now. I have my own car. I rarely even have any adult supervision around here. I should be enjoying this time, enjoying school, enjoying life. But I’m not.
Home life is just as shitty as ever. My dad is never around, and when he is, I just want him to leave again. Rose travels a lot with him, so it’s just me left taking care of everything, taking care of my brothers.
Rose got pregnant right after the wedding. Maybe even before, honestly, if I’ve done the math right.
I have twin brothers now—Easton and Asher—and I love them to death, but I never signed up to be a teen dad.
When I’m not at school, I’m watching them. When Rose is out of town, I’m watching them. Even when they can afford ten nannies…I’m watching them.
My dad says it will “build character,” but I think he just enjoys finding any way to take more of my life away.
School isn’t even an escape. I’m nobody there. I’m great at everything I do—sports, academics, extracurriculars—but no one pays me any mind unless there’s something I can do for them. Everyone knows me, but I have no friends. No real ones, at least.
I feel so fucking lonely.
I walk into the twins’ room and grab them out of their transition beds and open the baby gate, letting them run out of the room. I walk out behind them and tell them to go downstairs so I can get them some breakfast and get them ready for the sitter before I leave for school.
I think my dad sticks me with them any chance he gets, just so I don’t have a life outside of what he wants me to focus on.
If it’s not about school, college prep, or sports, I don’t get spoken to, like I’m some puppet.
Yet I have to watch him come home and love on my brothers—something I’ve never gotten.
If I didn’t love my brothers like they were my own kids, I would probably hate them. I can’t, but sometimes it feels like my dad’s goal—some little mind game he plays—always making sure he shows them the attention, love, and patience I never saw and probably never will.
Once the sitter is settled with them, I grab my keys off the kitchen counter, my backpack from the floor, a protein bar from the pantry, and quickly head out of the house so I’m not late for school.
I try to drown out the silence on the drive to school with the music turned all the way up, desperately trying to escape my life…trying to escape my own head.
As soon as I pull into the student parking lot, I’m met with smiles, waves, and fake greetings from everyone. Sometimes I think they just try to stay in my orbit because of the perks—the money, the connections, the route they know I’m going, even though it’s not what I want.
My life has been planned out for me, and everyone seems to see the benefits of that, but none of the destruction that comes too.
I go to the biggest private high school in Naples, Florida, and everyone is as fake as the DHgate Gucci bags all the scholarship girls parade around school, trying to fit in.
Except Delilah.
She’s not fake. She’s the only one in this school who’s genuinely nice and treats me like I’m someone.
I’ve had a crush on Delilah since freshman year. She’s pretty, smart, a volleyball star at our school, and as sweet as they come. I think I spent all of last year just trying to get her attention, even though she was in a relationship.
But once she broke up with her old boyfriend, Danny, she finally looked my way…finally saw me.
We started laughing and flirting a lot in every class we had together. We even got in trouble once for skipping together so she could ride with me in my Mustang down to whatever fast food she was craving.
She’s the kind of girl who seems like she’s never had to try. Everyone likes her. How can they not?
Most of the time, I feel like the background character around her, but I’m happy to play the part.
It doesn’t even bother me when I hear the guys talk in the locker room about her, about how she doesn’t actually like me, she’s just using me now to get her ex back, about how she couldn’t actually want to be with me.
Funny, because she wants to be with me enough to invite me over to her house this weekend.
I’m still a virgin, but I know she’s not. And I feel like she’s given me every single sign that she wants me.
I think I want to make her my girlfriend.
I’ve never had a girlfriend before.
But I think I’m gonna ask her this weekend when we’re together.
* * *
The week flies by way too fast, and the nerves start clouding every thought I have. I can’t wait to be around her outside of school, and all I can think about is what she wants to happen when we’re alone.
I’m finishing up football practice when I walk over to the bench and look up to see her in the stands, waiting.
She smiles down at me, and I see the small blush on her cheeks.
It makes me smile so hard that it hurts.
Jamie walks up next to me and slaps a hand on my shoulder, making me look over at him.
“Be careful with that one, man. I’ve heard how heartless she can be.”
I shrug his hand off and tell him I’m good. He smiles and shrugs, telling me he’s just tryna warn me.
Whatever. These guys don’t even know her. They just know what they hear.
I grab my stuff and walk off the field in a hurry.
She’s already walking down the stands when I get there, and then she falls in step beside me.
When we walk around to the side of the building where the locker rooms are, she tugs on my jersey and pulls me toward the wall, bringing me down to kiss her.
Our first kiss.
My head is spinning.
All I feel is her lips pressed against mine, and my heart beating out of my chest.
I’ve only ever kissed one other girl, and that was in fifth grade on the playground during Truth or Dare. I was embarrassed and didn’t know what I was doing.
But this kiss…it feels like someone just turned on my ignition and revved up the engine.
She takes control, and I can’t help how hot I think it is. She knows what she’s doing and what she wants. And right now, that’s me.
She pulls back slightly and looks up at me. “I want you tonight,” she whispers. “My parents will be out on their date night, so we’ll be all alone.”
If my heart could literally beat out of my chest, it would probably be on the ground right now. I know it doesn’t make sense that she would want me, especially when every guy in the school is always trying to get with her. But people don’t see how we are together.
They don’t get us.
* * *
We’ve been lying on the couch for a couple of hours, watching whatever shows she puts on as her parents scramble around the house, trying to get ready.
Eventually, she gets up to answer a call and walks into her kitchen right as her parents come in and tell her they’ll be back soon.
She waves to them and keeps talking on the phone.
When her back is to me, I pull out my wallet and check for the tenth time that the condom is still there.
I quickly close it and stuff it back into my pocket when I hear her hang up the call.
She walks back over to the couch, and when I think she’s going to sit back down with me, she just stands there instead, reaching her hand out for me to take. I don’t ask any questions; I just let her lead me wherever she wants.
Her room is everything a sixteen-year-old girl’s room would be—posters on the wall, purple sheets on her bed, and stuffed animals all over the place that she still hasn’t grown out of yet.
I don’t really know what’s happening or what to do, so I just stand there. I’m starting to freak out a little, wondering if this is actually happening.
Am I about to have sex for the first time?
The nerves are taking over and making me second-guess everything.
Does she want to have sex?
Did I read all the signs wrong?
What if I have no idea what to do?
I mean, I’ve watched porn before, but what if I suck? She’s been with other guys before; she’ll probably know—
She takes my hand and pulls me closer, laughing a little. “Are you nervous, Mason?”
Hell yeah, I am.
“Nah,” I laugh out, trying to play it cool.
She takes the collar of my shirt and twists her hands in it. “I know you’re a virgin. It’s okay. I can show you what to do…”
I’m so turned on that I’m afraid I might finish before we even get started.
I need to pull myself together. I can’t be the lame guy who doesn’t know how to be cool about having sex. I also want her to know I like her for more than just this, though.
“Delilah…I really like you. I want you to be my—”
“Shh,” she whispers, cutting me off with a kiss. “We don’t need to do that. Just enjoy it.”
I can’t think straight. I just move my hands to her hips, and she moves her hands to the hem of my shirt, pulling it up over my head and throwing it on the ground.
She steps back and takes her shirt off. I’m just standing there, staring at her as she unclasps her bra and lets it fall to the floor.
I feel stuck. Frozen like a deer in headlights.
She walks back closer to me and guides my hands down to the button of her jeans, and we take them off of her together. She places her hand on the waistline of my pants, and I think I might pass out from the nerves.
Get it together, Mason. It’s just sex. You know the basics…right? Just go for it.
It doesn’t take long before we’re in her bed—me trying to figure out what I’m doing and her guiding me, showing me what she likes.
I feel seen in this moment. I feel wanted.
And I want to give that feeling back to her.
I do everything she tells me and let her set the pace while still trying to be confident, even when I get nervous and mess up or keep stopping to ask her if she feels okay, or if it feels good, or if I’m doing this right.
She just giggles every time and tells me it’s perfect.
* * *