14. Mason
Mason
SOPHOMORE YEAR OF COLLEGE
Rush week is even more annoying when you’re not rushing yourself.
Okay, I take that back. It’s kinda fun watching the fresh meat squirm and beg for their place here. But it also sucks, because the anniversary of my mother’s death always falls at the end of rush week, today specifically.
The loud chaos I would normally welcome is something I want nothing to do with right now. I’d much rather be alone.
The Sigma Chi house normally looks like what you’d expect a frat house to look like—half decorated, half destroyed, lights strung up randomly inside, and red solo cups hidden in every corner still there from before summer break.
But tonight they’ve cleaned her up pretty nicely since it’s the night of the mixer for new pledges.
I walk downstairs from my room in the Sig house that I moved into this year, and see that people are already starting to set up.
Granted, it is 7 PM, but hey, I didn’t have any classes today, and I’m feeling pretty fucked mentally, so I’ve been hiding in my room up until I was finally forced to get my ass out of bed and come help.
Every year, no matter what I do, it hits like clockwork. I wake up feeling heavy and angry for no reason, like someone pressed pause on everything inside me.
I’ve been trying to distract myself with rush all week—running events, drinking, playing the fun frat guy everyone enjoys being around. But underneath, I’ve just been waiting for this day to hurry up and come and then be over.
I head out into the front yard, where I’m being forced to string lights across the patio with Chase, Ryan, and Tank.
Chase is balancing a half-full beer while trying to put up a banner, Ryan’s carrying a stack of tablecloths, and Tank’s…well, Tank’s just being Tank, carrying the vibes and nothing else with his lazy ass.
Ryan’s girlfriend, Ava—a Gamma chair—comes up to him, kisses him, and tells him she needs him to come with her to pick up the kegs.
Ryan groans. “Now?”
“Now,” she tells him, smiling sweetly, and he sets the stuff in his hands down to follow her.
They head off, leaving the rest of us to take over and finish everything ourselves.
That’s when Joy—Gamma’s VP—walks up in her yellow thigh-length sundress and perfect confidence.
She’s got that sorority leader look—friendly but firm, smiling but also a little distracted, thinking about the ten other things she needs to get done.
She crosses her arms and looks around. “Alright, boys, I’ve got some of our new pledges here to help you out before the mixer starts.”
Tank grins. “By help, do you mean—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” Joy says, cutting him off. Then she steps aside and introduces them. “Paige, Simone, and Parker—these are the guys running set-up. Mason, Chase, Tank, and…Ryan, whenever he gets back with Ava. Make yourselves useful, ladies.”
Three girls step forward. Paige looks confident, like she’s already made herself the queen of her pledge class.
Parker’s stuck smiling at Tank like she’s calling dibs on the giant.
And then there’s Simone—dark curly hair, soft features in the night light, wearing a loosely cropped Gamma tee and cutoff shorts.
Joy looks at us. “Each of you grab a girl and put them to work. Chop-chop.”
Tank immediately claims Parker. Chase takes Paige. And that leaves Simone standing there with her hands on her hips, waiting.
I sigh and jerk my chin toward the string lights in my hand. “You, come on.”
Her eyebrows lift slightly in annoyance, but it looks like she wasn’t really expecting any enthusiasm from me anyway. “Alright then,” she says, following me toward the back patio.
I try to give her direction with different tasks, but my head isn’t really here. I’m ready to get a couple of drinks in me that’ll get me out of this funk.
“Untangle these,” I tell her, handing her a wad of lights I found in a box from the party supply closet.
“You could say please, you know,” she tells me with a little bite.
I look over at her. It’s dark out here, and without the lights plugged up, I can’t really see her face or the shit expression she’s probably giving me.
“And you could just do what you’re asked to do.”
“Are you always this much of a dick?” she asks.
“Only when I’m forced to play babysitter.”
“God forbid you have to interact with someone you think is under you.”
“I didn’t say that,” I tell her, trying not to roll my eyes.
“You didn’t have to.”
I ignore her and keep working. If this wasn’t mandatory for all actives, I’d be back in my room right now, not having to have this conversation.
After she finally gets the lights untangled, she looks back over to me. “Can you at least help me not fall off this?”
“Is it rocket science to climb up a ladder?”
I feel her eyes narrow on me. “You know what, you can find someone else to help with this crap.”
I grab her arm as she tries to walk away. “Not happening. I don’t have the energy to find someone else. We all have to do grunt work first year; get used to it.”
She yanks her arm out of my hold and huffs. “I can handle grunt work. I’m a big girl. What I can’t handle is your attitude.”
I wave my hand over in the direction of the ladder that’s against the tall fence. “Just get up there; I’ll hold you. God forbid you fall and get a scratch on your perfect little body.”
She walks over to the ladder, seeming a little pleased. “So you think my body is perfect?” she teases, trying to get a rise out of me.
“I wasn’t checking you out…so no, I don’t.”
She gets up on the ladder, and I place my hands on her lower back, steadying her.
When she gets the set of lights hooked onto the fence, she takes the plug, connects it, and turns them on.
I look up at her once the light fully shows me her face, and it’s the first time I really get to look at her.
It catches me off guard. The way the lights catch her warm, light brown skin, and the concentration on her face.
She’s beautiful. Not the loud, in-your-face kind. Just quietly beautiful. She’s beautiful in a soft and angelic kind of way.
Most girls just look the same to me—pretty faces, nice bodies, easy attention. All the same thing in different fonts. But there’s something different about her. I just can’t put my finger on it.
I help her down, and she keeps working beside me with another strand. For a few minutes, the silence isn’t so bad.
Then it slowly hits again—the weight in my chest. The ache. The fog that’s been there all day. It runs through me like painful waves.
“Can you hand me that hook?” she asks.
I don’t answer. I don’t really hear her at first. My mind is stuck somewhere else.
“Mason?” she says, her voice softer now.
I blink and look over at her. “What?”
“The hook,” she repeats.
“Oh. Yeah.”
I pick it up and hand it to her.
She studies me for a second. “Is something bothering you?”
The question catches me off guard, and I shake my head no. “I’m fine.”
She tilts her head, not buying it. “You’re definitely not. I can tell.”
“Yeah?” I ask, trying to sound bored. “How?”
She shrugs. “People have tells. And you’ve got a few obvious ones.”
I smirk a little. “You study people for a living or something?”
“I just know how to pay attention,” she says quietly. “You start noticing things when you’ve been around enough hurting people.”
That makes me stop and look at her for a second longer than I should.
I clear my throat and hand her another strand of lights. “Here. Hang these up.”
She gives me a small smile, like she knows I’m changing the subject on purpose, and lets it go.
* * *
It’s been a long, wild night, and I still don’t have enough alcohol in me to quiet my thoughts.
I’ve got a beer in my hand and no real plan except to make it through the rest of the night and try again tomorrow, hoping the pain eases up and gives me some kind of break by then.
The alcohol eventually starts to help—just a little. It makes everything blur just enough.
Chase drops onto the couch beside me, already drunk, shirt unbuttoned, eyes glazed over.
He takes a sip from his beer, then leans closer. “I think I just slept with someone’s wife, man.”
I laugh. “Whose?”
He grins. “Mine.”
I start cracking up. “You’re so drunk.”
He shrugs, takes another sip, and points out into the crowd of people. “That’s her right there, dancing.”
I look over to where he’s pointing and see a girl dancing, long black hair, a bit of an edgy vibe, pretty face, pretty body, pretty cool style.
Chase doesn’t really have a taste, so it makes sense.
Then I see the girl she’s dancing with—Simone.
I can’t help but just watch her. She’s laughing, hair falling over her shoulders, lost in the moment.
There’s something about the way she moves—so free, so light.
Like she doesn’t have a thousand weights on her shoulders.
For the rest of the night, no matter how many girls find their way over to me, my eyes never seem to stop finding her.