Chapter 22 Mason
Mason
I wake up in the morning, weirdly cold. Birds singing, ceiling fan looping, sea shooshing.
Heart pounding.
I reach for her, but somehow, I already know it, again—Sierra’s gone.
Her clothes are no longer on my floor.
I pull on some sweats and a T-shirt, race downstairs, don’t even put on shoes. I run out the back door, down the grass, through the orchard. Don’t stop running, all the way along the path to the gate, under the plum tree, and up to her cottage.
I knock on the back door, tap on a window, but by the time I get around to the front of the cottage, it’s clear.
She’s gone.
I can see the driveway that curves around the side of June’s house, and Sierra’s van is not there. I head over there anyway, frantic.
June is on her knees in her garden, and when she sees me, she frowns deeply. “Mason . . .”
“Don’t worry, I’m leaving.” I don’t think she’s ever actually seen me on her property before. I haven’t been many times. “Have you seen Sierra?”
“Not today. She left already.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. Early this morning . . .”
I’m already disappearing around the house. I follow the driveway around to the front, then all the way out to the road, just in case. But Sierra’s van is nowhere to be seen.
How long ago did she leave?
It doesn’t matter.
She made her choice.
I walk all the way back up Honeymoon Lane to my driveway, swearing to myself. Telling myself that this is how it has to be. That I knew this was coming. All that shit.
It doesn’t help.
I take the fork in the driveway where it splits, the private driveway that leads up to my house. The front door is locked, and I didn’t even bring keys.
I’m a fucking disaster.
I think I cut my foot.
I go around to the back, limping a bit, and find Layne in my kitchen. Coffee brewing, making breakfast.
“Where’s Kaylie?” I ask him. “And Grandpa?”
“Good morning to you, too. They’re outside somewhere, with Scar.” He gives me a curious look. “Out for a jog? With no shoes?”
I’m breathing heavily and prop myself up against the island. “Fuck” is all I manage to say.
“You want eggs?” he asks, cracking some into a pan on the stove. “And maybe some coffee? Your shirt is inside out.”
The idea of eating right now just hurts my stomach. “Shit. I fucked up, Layne.”
My brother takes a long look at me, and says, “Sierra?”
I just nod.
“You hooked up with her, didn’t you?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to get a hold of myself. My head is scrambled. “I did more than hook up with her, Layne.” I take a deep breath. “And now she’s gone. She went back to the city, early.”
“Well, shit.” Now he looks sorry for me. “How did you fuck it up? What did you do?”
“I don’t know if it’s what I did or what I didn’t do.
” I drop onto a stool. “She wanted me to find a way to work with June. To go into business together. Open a restaurant at the pier, together.” I swear again, press my fingers into my eyes.
“I think . . . maybe she hoped we’d ask her to stay. You know, be a part of it.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” my brother says.
And hearing him say that . . . Jesus.
“I know. But June . . . she wouldn’t go for it.”
Why didn’t I come talk to him sooner? Layne would’ve told me to just ask Sierra to stay. We could’ve let her sell smoothies at the bar or set up a smoothie truck in the lot or something.
Fucking anything.
If I wasn’t so fucking afraid.
“Did June give you a reason why?” he asks.
“The only reason she ever gives is Grandpa. She refuses to do business with Tommy.”
Layne kind of snorts. “I’m not surprised.
Imagine it. You’ve lived next door to Sierra for your entire seventy-plus years of life.
All that time, you’ve loved her, and you’ve had to watch her marry someone else, live a whole life without you, right in front of your eyes. Sounds like a goddamn nightmare.”
I watch him scrambling eggs as if he didn’t just blow my world right open.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Grandpa. And June.”
“You think he loves her?”
“I think he’ll never admit it if he does. He married someone else, too. Who knows where the heartbreak started. But I guarantee you, those two have wounds. Of the amorous variety.”
Jesus Christ.
Mind blown.
“How do you know this?”
My brother, who is admittedly more sensitive than I am, just shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s not that hard to see that something’s going on. Usually you hate someone because deep down you fear something about them, right? So, ask yourself. What would make Grandpa afraid of June Spencer?”
Fuck me.
Sierra fucking scares you.
That’s what Jace said to me, and he wasn’t wrong.
“Fuck, Grandpa.” I lean on my elbows, rub my hands over my face. “You’re telling me that his unrequited crush on our next-door neighbor is why I can’t buy that goddamn building?”
“Hey, I didn’t say it was unrequited.”
I consider that. “June said she wanted Grandpa to apologize to her. That she’d never consider negotiating with us until he did. Do you really think that’s all it would take? ‘Sorry I hurt you’?”
“Hey, it couldn’t hurt. A lot can be mended with the right words.” He glances at me as he plates eggs. “If they’re sincere.”
Yeah. Maybe. “What the hell do you think is stopping him? What’s he so afraid of?”
“Well . . . imagine he tells her after all these years that he’s sorry. And she won’t hear it. What do you think he thinks will happen? They just go back to the way they were? Or do you think his heart breaks all over again?”
I swallow. Trying to imagine that scenario: decades of life with Sierra as my neighbor, just out of my reach. Finally, pushing aside all the years of calcified resentment and guilt and fear to apologize, only to be rejected.
“Maybe he’s right to stay silent.”
Layne makes a disgruntled noise. “If that’s what you think .
. . shit, brother.” He puts a mug of steaming coffee in front of me.
“All I’m gonna say is if you wanna sit there looking like a sad sack of shit, regretting that you let Sierra go, and not do anything about it .
. . you are more like Grandpa than I ever took you for. ”
It’s not a compliment in this context, at all, I know.
“Do I look that bad?” I say dryly.
“Bro.” He levels me with a look. “Get a mirror.” Then he goes to stick his head out the back door and shouts, “Breakfast!”
While I sit there, trying to look normal.
Distractedly, I sip my coffee, rub Scar on the head when he nudges against my leg.
Watch my niece and my grandpa and my brother gather around the table, Kaylie chirping on about something.
Layne scooping eggs and bacon onto plates.
Pouring apple juice, bumping into each other, looking for the butter.
Suddenly, I see my life fast-forwarding in this place.
It’s not hard to do.
I can see myself at my dad’s age, when he died . . . only I don’t have a loving wife and children.
I can see myself at my grandpa’s age, as a widower . . . only I never had a wife at all.
Because that’s the way I’m headed right now, isn’t it?
I used to tell myself that it wasn’t my fault. That I tried.
Jenn left me at the altar. Her choice.
I was ready and willing to be a husband, start a family. I wanted a family of my own, more than anything.
Maybe I still do.
But maybe after she left me like that, I got angry.
I got angry . . . because I was fucking scared.
And after my parents died . . . maybe I convinced myself that it’s just not safe to love. Because people leave you, and that’s beyond your control.
And if I keep believing that . . . maybe I will end up alone. Wishing things had been different, regretting things I never said.
Risks I never took.
Just like Tommy and June.
Maybe all it would take to turn things around would be to tell Sierra how I feel. To tell her I’m sorry if I hurt her.
To take a risk, because she’s worth it.
But maybe I’m already too late.
Maybe I’ve already lost her.
Hurt her too badly by hitting her right where she’s wounded, letting her believe that she was never what I wanted most.