57. Mason
Mason
I wake up to grass in my mouth, sunlight in my eyes, and my skull feeling like it’s splitting open.
I blink against the brightness and immediately regret it.
Why the hell am I outside?
I shift and feel something crunchy under my shoulder—leaves.
My cheek is pressed against the lawn behind the Sig house, and there’s a red Solo cup tipped over near my hand like the crime scene I’m a part of.
I try to sit up slowly, but stop.
Bad idea.
My head pounds so violently, I swear I hear my heartbeat in my teeth.
Hell. What did I do last night to deserve this?
I squint towards the house where the back door is propped open. Someone’s blasting music inside, but it’s not party music anymore; it’s the morning-cleanup kind of music now. The kind you play while waking up drunk kids and sweeping up bad decisions.
How fucked up did I get?
I drag a hand over my face, trying to piece it together.
Okay. The end-of-year party. Tito’s. Lots of Tito’s…
and beer…and whatever the fuck is in that punch they make.
There was chanting, and…Simone. Her smile.
The way she laughed in my arms. The way she kissed me like nothing else mattered.
Then she was gone. And the party kept going even though it felt like it stopped because she wasn’t around anymore.
There were girls everywhere, all over the guys around me.
A blonde I don’t even know, who was trying to attach herself to me.
In my face. Laughing too hard. Hands everywhere.
On my chest. On my arm. I remember looking around, looking for Simone.
I remember searching for any way to politely reject her and escape the way she was boxing me in.
I remember her leaning in to my ear and having this repulsion run down my spine.
I told her I was feeling sick and put some distance between us before scanning the room again, looking for Simone.
I couldn’t find her, but when Tanner walked by, I grabbed him, desperately needing someone to give me a way out of there.
I ended up pushing the girl off to Chase, who happily took the girl off my hands, giving her whatever attention she was chasing. After that, I rode with Tanner on a beer run…I don’t really know what happened next; everything is blurry after that point.
I remember trying to get into my room. I remember the door being locked, and Chase yelling something about how I owed him for all the nights I kicked him out of our room. I remember trying to call Simone. And I definitely remember her not answering.
After that…blank. I’ve got nothing. And now I’m here, in the fucking grass.
How many rock bottoms am I going to hit?
Because this definitely feels like one.
I pull myself up and bend my knees to rest my arms on as I wait for the spinning to even out. Then I dig my phone out of my pocket and hit call on the only name in my recent call log.
No answer.
I call again, and again.
Did I do something to fuck up last night?
Even more than I have been recently?
Is she finally over my shit?
I can’t get my brain to stop spiraling.
I can’t even get my brain to stop spinning.
I just need a magic hangover pill and to find Simone.
I shove myself to my feet and nearly fall over. My head keeps spinning, and I brace against the side of the house until the dizziness settles.
I stumble through the back door and into the kitchen. It smells like stale beer and the remnants of too many fucked up kids.
Chase is at the sink, rinsing out cups.
He looks up at me and winces. “Rough morning?”
“What happened last night?” I ask immediately.
He snorts. “You happened.”
“Be serious.”
He shrugs. “You were nonstop last night. The life of the party. Then you rode with Tanner to the store after you gave me the gift of pussy. And I didn’t see you after that.”
“What happened with Simone?”
He just shrugs. “I don’t know. Didn’t see her most of the night, honestly. I think Tank was asking something about what you did to upset her…can’t really remember. I was too busy trying to convince the blonde to give me seconds.”
“You’re a pig,” I tell him, walking over to the fridge to grab some water.
“Relax. We can’t all fall in love like you and have pussy on a platter every day.”
I glare over at him even as the headache begs me to sit down and not move for the rest of the day. “Don’t talk like that when you’re talking about her.”
“Yes, sir,” he says sarcastically. “My bad.”
The walk across campus feels like hell, but hell I’d walk through ten times over to see her face.
I don’t know what I did, but there’s no way in hell I’m letting her just ignore me and not figure it out in the last few days we have here.
By the time I reach her dorm, I feel like I’m about to throw up. I don’t even bother texting her to tell her I’m here. I just knock.
No answer.
I knock again.
The door swings open, and there she is. It’s like every time I see her, I realize she’s actually more beautiful than I remembered. Doesn’t matter if five months have passed, five days, or five hours; she gets more beautiful every time I look at her.
I’m still stuck in a trance when she clears her throat, pulling my attention back to her.
She looks pissed as she just stands there, arm propped against the door frame, waiting for me to speak.
I look past her and see she’s the only one in her room. She’s also…packing.
“You’re packing.”
She looks back over her shoulder and then back to me flatly. “Yep.”
“We still have a week left. Are you leaving early?”
Her eyes narrow on me with annoyance. “I still have to move everything out. I’ll be at the Gamma house next year, and Lani and Lyd are moving to a double dorm. I’ve told you this…many times. But I guess you were too wasted to ever remember.”
I rub the back of my neck, hating the way this all feels, hating when she’s pissed at me.
“No. Yeah, yeah. That’s right. I remember. Sorry. Everything’s just a little fuzzy this morning.”
“Yeah. I bet.”
It’s then that I notice how red her eyes are, puffy like she’s been crying for a while.
“Simone—”
“Why are you here?” she asks flatly.
“I’ve been calling you,” I tell her hesitantly, knowing she obviously already knows that part. “You’re mad at me. I—I get that. I just…don’t know why. What…what happened last night? I don’t…remember everything,” I admit, hating how pathetic that sounds. “But I—I want to know what I did.”
“Try who you did,” she throws back.
That stops me.
“What?”
“The blonde bitch you slept with last night, Mason.” She shakes her head, and it looks like she’s choking back the emotions she feels, saying that. “I can’t believe after everything…after what I already dealt with, after you know how it feels, you would go and do the same bullshit to me!”
“I never touched any girl, Simone.”
Her jaw tightens.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
I take a step inside before she can shut the door. “I promise you I did not sleep with that girl or any girl. I don’t know what you saw or what you heard, but I didn’t fucking touch her. Simone, I would never do that to you.”
“Maybe sober Mason wouldn’t. But it seems like drunk Mason doesn’t have the same standards.”
I try to reach out and grab her hand, but she snatches it away.
“I didn’t sleep with her. I didn’t even entertain any of that girl’s advances. I pushed her off on Chase and then found the first way out of that situation. I was looking for you the entire night after you left me.”
“Well, you looked real comfortable with her, like you were enjoying the attention.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were drunk.”
“I am not Tyler,” I snap before I can stop myself. “I wouldn’t fucking do that to you.”
The name hangs between us like smoke.
Her eyes flash.
“I know you’re not Tyler,” she says. “But it’s starting to feel the same.”
That hits harder than anything else she could say.
“That’s not fair,” I say.
“No?” Her voice cracks slightly. “You don’t even remember half of what you did. You never do. How am I supposed to trust you when you turn into someone completely different when you drink? We have no labels, nothing stopping you from going back to hooking up with any girl around if you wanted to.”
I run a hand through my hair. “I left with Tanner.”
“I know,” she says quietly.
“What?”
“Tank told me.”
My brain scrambles.
“So you know I didn’t—”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know what to believe. And that’s not the point anyway.”
“Then what is?”
“The point,” she says, stepping closer now, eyes shining with something that looks a lot like heartbreak, “is that I can’t trust you.”
“I didn’t cheat on you.”
“We’re not even together!” she shoots back.
“That’s because you won’t let us be!”
“Because I don’t feel safe with you, Mason.”
The words feel gut-wrenching. They make me hate myself more than I always do.
“Simone—”
“It’s like I keep acting like my body is some band-aid for both our wounds and then keep being shocked when we’re both still bleeding.”
I don’t have a comeback for that. Because she’s right, even if I don’t want her to be.
She starts pacing angrily. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means whatever this is…we need to call it off.”
The words feel like someone punched through my ribs. I want her to take them back.
“No,” I say immediately. “No. You don’t get to just—”
“I do,” she says firmly. “I need space. It’s summer break anyway. I just…need time to think about what I actually want.”
“You want me,” I say desperately. “You and I both know you do.”
“I do,” she says, and my heart stops. “But that’s not enough.” She closes her eyes like she hates having to do this. “I refuse to be used and drained and hurt again.”
“I’m not using you.”
“You are,” she says. It’s not cruel; it’s just tired—she’s tired. “You lean on me for everything. And I lean on no one.”
I step closer to her. “Just give me a chance to make this right. All I want is you, Simone. You’re the only thing that makes my life bearable anymore.”
The second the words leave my mouth, I know it was wrong to say. That’s not something I can put on her. Even if it is true.
“That’s exactly the problem,” she says softly, and I hate the sadness in her eyes. “I don’t want to be the only thing keeping you afloat.”
I feel it then.
The weight of it.
The reality of it.
“I need to let you go,” she continues. “And you need to work on your own shit, alone.”
“Don’t do this,” I whisper.
She shakes her head.
“Please,” I try again.
She steps back.
“You need to leave, Mason.”
The words are quiet.
Final.
I just stand there for a second longer, waiting for her to change her mind, begging her to with my eyes.
But she doesn’t.
So I stop fighting.
I just slowly turn and walk out.
I feel numb walking across campus, not even knowing where I’m going.
I just walk until my legs give out near the empty football field.
I walk in and sit on the bleachers alone.
And for the first time in a long time, I let it all soak in.
No matter how heavy it feels…I just sit in it.
Especially the realization that I might have just lost the one person who has ever looked at me like I was worth saving.
I bury my face in my hands and just break.
I’ve hated myself before, my whole life, really. And for a lot of reasons. But this? This feels different. Because this time, I didn’t just hurt myself. I hurt her.
And I don’t know how to fix that.