6. Mason #2
“You’re at one of the best rehabs in the country. No one’s holding you prisoner. But jail is where you might be if it weren’t for Dad.” And her anger stoked the flames of mine.
“Oh yes, your father. The savior.” Her taunt made my skin crawl. “You couldn’t wait to run off with him. He got his fancy lawyers and then poof, you and Zoe were gone.”
“You were too busy getting high to even notice!” I exploded, then scrubbed my hands over my face, resetting with a deep breath.
“If he had just given me the money…” Her voice was small again, wounded.
“He gave you money and—”
“I deserved more! I’m the one who took care of you for seven whole years without a word from him.
He didn’t even want to claim you. He wanted nothing to do with you.
Don’t you ever forget that. Only once you won all those games did he even give a shit.
” She spat the words, retreading the old grooves of wounds I’d tried to leave behind.
“I’ve got to go, Mom.” I banged the phone against my head. “I love you.”
“If it weren’t for me, he’d have left you behind. I’m the one who forced him to even acknowledge you.”
That barb sunk deep. It always did. “I’ve got to go.”
“You owe me, Mason.”
“I love you.”
I ended the call as she launched into another round of expertly targeted attacks.
I sat in the quiet before slamming my fist into the roof of the car. The padded interior took the brunt of my frustration over and over. I gripped the steering wheel and screamed until my throat felt like it had been clawed raw from the inside.
Mom’s words blared in my ears the whole way home. I stared up at the massive house, knowing what she’d said was true and hating how my place here always felt so uncertain. Like at any moment, the lines could be switched and I’d be on the wrong side all over again.
My mom’s words echoed in my ears for days—they always did. The guilt, the hope, the unsettled feelings shot me straight back to those years I was a kid, when I didn’t know what waited for me every day after I left the hockey rink. So I focused on what I could control.
Today, Lilah kept her hands busy with origami hummingbirds. Every day, there was a new addition to her creations. Cranes, foxes, roses, lilies, tulips.
A ripple of satisfaction rushed through me at the return of this sign of her isolation.
That didn’t stop me from swiping one from her desk, the trash, or the floor. I promised myself I wouldn’t take one, but there always seemed to be a folded one tucked into my pocket. The compulsion made no sense, and it made me angry. At Lilah and at myself.
I hated Lilah. Lilah was only trying to wreck me from the inside out. Lilah didn’t matter to me, but it was like a reflex. My father’s words echoed in my head. “You’ve been stupid to waste time on a girl like her. She has no loyalty. Remember what is important.”
My future. Winning. At all costs.
What I owed him after everything he’d given me.
Focus made champions. There was no doubt Bair had never staggered into a dark pool house to lick his wounds after a skating drill session with our father. He’d probably yawned and asked for ten more sprints.
Jaw clenched, I leaned on a lamppost on the lighted, winding path leading to the pool house to catch my breath against the needles and stabs spreading their web of pain throughout my body.
My father was home this week to oversee my preparations for next season and I couldn’t let him see me flagging like this on the cameras.
I made it to the corner of the pool house and spotted a silhouetted figure sitting on the pool’s edge, legs in the water.
A girl. Not just any girl. A girl I knew. Her name leapt to mind, although we hadn’t said more than five words to each other in two years.
Lilah, who’d already left little imprints on my life. A little bird’s footprints in dried cement.
She jumped up, eyes panic-wide like she wanted to flee.
I held out my arm to calm her, let her know she didn’t have to run, and grunted with a grimace at a cramp that hit in my shoulder so hard it felt like it would pull the muscle from my bone.
She stepped toward me, face softened with concern.
“A—are you okay?” The water reflected in her eyes with her head tucked, chin almost touching her chest.
“Not—” Before I could even say “any of your business,” she was at my side, arm wrapped around my back, trying to take all of my weight.
“Where are you trying to go?” She looked back at the path I’d staggered down, dark hair spilling over her shoulder. “Should I go get someone?”
I needed to get out of view. What if my dad saw me leaning on Lilah?
I tightened my arm around her shoulder to keep her from taking off, imagining what my father would think if she burst into the house looking for help for me.
In my current state, I could catch her, but fuck, would it hurt.
I gritted my teeth, muscles screaming for relief.
“Inside. I need a few minutes and I’ll be okay. ”
Her warm touch against my bare skin had already melted away some of the pain.
The bell chimed and everyone gathered their shit and took off for the next class.
Lilah lingered, finishing up her notes.
When I walked past, I knocked her notebook and pencil case off the desk and stared at her.
She sighed, looked at me in that lost way of hers that made me want to comfort her and she bent to scoop it up.
I picked up the folded hummingbird still on the desk and headed to the sports wing.
I left the trainers’ office, stationed off the locker rooms, for my weekly off-season conditioning analysis. At least it got me out of study hall. The gym class before us was wrapping up with no sense of urgency to get their asses out of the way.
I walked toward the athlete section to grab my clothes to change back into my uniform.
“Nice body, especially her legs in that skirt.” A junior on the football team buttoned his Hawthorne Prep monogrammed shirt.
The need to squawk about whatever girl was dumb enough to let them within a five-mile radius was annoying as shit.
“Bet she’s feeling like she could use a friend since Mason’s got everyone treating her like shit.” He took his blazer from the hook in his locker.
He now had my total attention.
“Maybe I’ll take her out. I’m sure she’ll be extra grateful for someone being nice to her.” His garbled-glass laughter flooded my vision with blinding rage. “And she can repay me for that kindness with her head in my lap.”
The junior’s three friends spotted me first. Their faces blanched, laughter turning into sputtering coughs and darting eyes. There was nowhere to go.
I dropped my bag onto the bench in front of the lockers. “Now why the fuck would you think that was a good idea?”
The junior spun around, tripping over his own shiny leather shoes. “What—I didn’t—” Then he reset. I could see the second he made his decision. His friends were here. He didn’t want to back down.
Mistake.
I could see what he was going to do before the first words left his mouth.
“What the fuck is your problem, Mason?”
His fake bravado fanned my bristling anger. He was nothing, no one. He only had to be reminded. “No problem at all. But you’re not going anywhere near Lilah.”
“What the hell do you even care? She’s a hockey spy, not a football one. The whole damn school knows you can’t stand Lilah or you wouldn’t be giving her so much shit.” He said her name and it spiked my anger.
I clenched and unclenched my fists at my sides, trying to control it.
“Whatever’s going on between me and Lilah is between me and Lilah.”
“Not sure she’d feel the same way. You’re not her jailer. If I go talk to her, what are you going—”
I slammed my hand into his face, relishing the satisfying click of his jaw against his upper teeth. My next punch was thrown off by his friends grabbing me. My closed fist hit the locker beside his head, harder than I should’ve.
Electric pain arched through every bone in my hand.