by Amelia Wilde
23
Lark wanted to give him a chance, she wanted to believe that the past five days and the love they’d rediscovered was real, but…it had only been five days.
That lease proved Mason could fake anything for five days.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the way they had giggled together four summers ago as they’d visited one cheap, Atlanta apartment after another, imagining what they were going to name the cockroaches they’d be sharing a kitchen with in their crappy new living space. They’d been so excited to finally live together that not even the reality of what they could afford on their very limited budget had been able to dampen their spirits.
And then, the night he’d proposed, when he’d gotten down on one knee and told her he didn’t want to wait to promise her forever, when she’d cried and laughed and hugged him so tight…
He had hugged her just as tight, and there had been happy tears in his eyes. There had been no sign, no clue, nothing to warn her to expect the worst.
If she gave Mason a chance, she might end up with that happily ever after she’d been imagining last night. Or she might end up deceived and broken all over again. There was no way to know for sure. Mason was too good at hiding the things he didn’t want other people to see. He was more of a master than she’d ever assumed, so adept she would never be able to trust what he showed her on the surface.
Never. No matter how much she wanted to, no matter how it was going to rip her apart to lose him all over again.
But, in the long run, it was better to lose him now than months down the road, when she was already pregnant and tied to a man she couldn’t trust for the rest of her life.
“I’m sorry,” Lark finally whispered in a calm, defeated voice.
“That’s it?” he asked, breath coming faster. “You’re not even going to think about it?”
“I have thought about it.” Lark lifted her chin. “It’s over, Mason. For good.”
He took one stunned step back and then another, shaking his head back and forth. “Just like that,” he muttered beneath his breath, crossing to the table and snatching up the folder. “Because of some stupid piece of paper your poisonous sister found.”
He drew back his arm, hurling the folder across the yard with a combination shout-growl that made Lark flinch.
Mason spun back to face her, a wild, angry, miserable look on his face. “You’re throwing us away for nothing!” he shouted. “Nothing!”
“I need you to leave,” Lark said, pointing toward the door with one trembling arm.
She’d never seen Mason this angry. She knew he would never physically hurt her, but seeing him out of control was scary, especially knowing Felicity and Melody could be home any minute.
“Lark, don’t do this!” He closed the distance between them so fast there was no time for Lark to move away before her head was in his hands, his fingers buried in her hair as his thumbs trapped her chin.
“Look at me,” he said, leaning down until their faces were only a breath apart. “Look at me and tell me you don’t want to be together. Tell me you don’t love me and I’ll walk out that door, and never come back.”
Lark swallowed and tried to back away, but Mason had her trapped. “Let me go,” she said, lifting her hands to grip his forearms.
“Tell me,” Mason demanded, still holding her captive.
“You have to go, Mason,” Lark said, fighting the panic rising in her chest. With him so close, with his hands on her and his strong arms warm beneath her fingers, it was impossible to imagine never touching him again, never looking into his deep blue eyes or smelling his Mason smell or feeling his lips on hers.
But she had to imagine it.
“Leave,” Lark repeated in a firmer voice. “Now.”
“You can’t tell me you don’t love me,” Mason said, ignoring her. “Because you do, and you know we belong together. You felt it last night, the same way I did. Please, Lark,” he said, dropping his forehead to hers. “Don’t push me away. Please, don’t give up on us.”
“She asked you to leave.” Aria’s voice came from the back door. “So leave. Before I have to call the police and tell them I shot an intruder on my property.”
Lark’s eyes slid to the left to find Aria standing on the top step leading down to the patio with Daddy’s shotgun in her hand. Lark’s first instinct was to tell Aria to put the gun down, but with Mason in his current state, threatening him with a firearm might be the only way to get him to leave.
Mason’s hands slid from her hair as he turned to face Aria without any sign of fear. “Why did you do this?” he asked.
“I’m not the one who lied, Mason, you are,” Aria said. “Own it or not, I don’t care, I just want you out of this house before my baby comes home.”
Mason glanced over at Lark, an unspoken question in his eyes.
“You need to leave,” she whispered.
“Lark, this is crazy. This is—”
“Leave,” Lark said. “Or I’ll go inside and call the police myself.”
He met her gaze for a long moment before his shoulders slumped with a sigh. “All right.” He turned back to Aria. “Congratulations. You’ve won. Now she’ll get to spend the rest of her life as miserable and alone and bitter as you are.”
“Get out,” Aria said, a hitch in her voice that surprised Lark. She sounded more upset than angry, which didn’t seem in character for her, especially when holding a gun on someone.
“Good bye, Lark,” Mason said with a long pained look. “I will always, always wish this could have ended differently. Because I love you. And that’s the truth.”
And then he turned and walked across the lawn and out the gate leading into the front yard. A few minutes later, she heard his car start and pull away down the street.
He was gone. Mason was gone, and he was never coming back.
The realization hit one second; Lark found herself crumpled on the concrete of the patio the next.
24
She buried her face in her hands, crying like the world was coming to an end. She knew it wasn’t, but God, it felt like it was. It felt like every good thing had been burned away, every hope and dream gone up in smoke, leaving ash behind. Lark swore she could almost taste it, bitter in her mouth.
“I’m sorry,” Aria said with a long sniff. “I’m so sorry, honey.”
Lark hiccupped, coming back to her body enough to realize Aria was on the ground beside her, rubbing her back in slow, comforting circles. At least Lark was sure they were meant to be comforting.
“I want to be alone,” Lark said, shifting away from her sister. “Please.”
“Are you sure this is what you want, Lark?” Aria asked.
“Yes. I just need…a few minutes by myself.”
“No, I don’t mean that. I mean…Mason.” She sniffed again, a long, liquid sniff.
Lark glanced up, shocked to see tears wetting Aria’s red, red cheeks. Her skin always turned cherry red when she cried. It was one of the hazards of being a redhead and the reason Aria usually refused to weep except at funerals and other legitimately tragic moments.
So why was she crying now? When she had gotten exactly what she wanted, and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was right about Mason all along?
“What do you mean?” Lark asked with a sniff of her own.
“I mean what just happened,” Aria said, motioning toward the gate where Mason had disappeared a few moments ago. “I know he lied, and I can’t believe he hid his plans to go to New York from you for so long, but maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe he has changed.”
Lark’s mouth fell open. She blinked, then blinked again, not knowing how to respond to these particular words coming out of her sister’s mouth.
“He was really devastated,” Aria continued in a soft voice. “I could see it in his face, couldn’t you?”
“You’re taking his side?” Lark shook her head and rose quickly to her feet, needing to escape the insanity. “I can’t believ
e you’re taking his side.” She started toward the back door, but Aria grabbed her hand.
“Of course I’m not taking his side. I’m on your side, that’s why I knew I had to show you the lease, but I—”
“How did you get it, anyway?” Lark asked, pulling her hand from Aria’s grasp and spinning to face her sister. “I thought I asked you to quit snooping.”
“And I did, I swear,” Aria said. “I called Mason’s uncle three days ago asking if he had any of Mason’s books or notebooks from before he left for New York, but I never heard back. But then I ran into Parker at the store yesterday, and he said he had a box of Mason’s old papers that he’d found in the desk upstairs and—” Aria broke off with a sigh. “I knew I should tell him I wasn’t interested anymore, but I thought there couldn’t be any harm in looking so…I did.”
“And found exactly what you were hoping to find,” Lark said, eyes running dry as a terrible numb feeling began to settle in her chest.
She remembered this feeling from the first time she lost Mason. It was a self-defense mechanism—her heart shutting out the pain before it could get too debilitating—but it wouldn’t last forever. The numbness would wear off sooner or later and the pain would rush back in, hotter and more miserable than before.
“I wasn’t hoping to find anything,” Aria said. “Not after dinner the other night. He seemed so genuinely committed to you and you were so happy. I really thought...”
“Well, you thought wrong.” Lark turned to go a second time, but Aria rushed around her, blocking the path to the door.
“Maybe not. Maybe he’s telling the truth. Four years is a long time, Lark.”
“You were the one who said people don’t change,” Lark said. “And you’re right. Even if he’s telling the truth, I’ll never be able to trust him. He’s too good at deceiving me. I’d never know when he was telling the truth, and when he wasn’t.”
Aria’s forehead furrowed. “No, you wouldn’t, but…you can’t ever really know, can you? About anyone? Doesn’t there come a point when you have to decide to believe the best about a person and…let go?” She held Lark’s eyes with a long, searching look, as if she were genuinely trying to sort out the answer to some burning question.
But for Lark the question was no longer relevant.
“What if Liam showed up on the front step this afternoon and begged you to come back to him?” Lark asked. “What if he swore he was a different person and promised you the life you always wanted? Would you pack up your and Felicity’s things and give it another shot?”
Aria was silent for a long moment. “No. Even though a weak part of me would want to, even after everything.”
“Well, I’m not going to listen to the weak part of myself, either,” Lark whispered. “I can’t. It’s too painful to hope and… Better to be done with it, once and for all.”
“Done with hope?” Aria asked, eyes filling with tears all over again, as if she had just now realized what she’d done when she decided to show Lark the lease. “What about the best is yet to come, and everything you said to me the other night? That can be true for you, too.”
Lark was suddenly tired, so tired shaking her head felt like a Herculean effort. “I meant what I said. Mason was it for me. I’m done hoping for that kind of happiness.”
I’m done hoping for any kind of happiness, she thought to herself as she moved around Aria and trudged up the steps into the house.
This time, Aria let her go, as if she could sense the battle was truly over, and that this time, everyone had lost.
25
Mason didn’t get wasted. Never. Not even in college.
He had a few beers with friends, a mixed drink during happy hour, or wine with dinner, but he didn’t drink to get drunk or to try to escape his problems.
He’d had enough stepfathers who Drank with a capital D to know that getting smashed only made new problems. When you sobered up, whatever you were trying to escape was still there, and all you had to show for your trouble was a sour stomach, a pounding head, and a higher risk of liver disease.
He knew better. He absolutely did. So there was no excuse for why he found himself at Buddy’s at eleven in the morning with a beer in one hand, and a shot of whiskey in the other.
No excuse at all, except that Lark had called things off and the world was a dark, miserable, worthless place to be, and Buddy’s was the perfect place for feeling miserable.
The bar was literally on the wrong side of the tracks, a squat wooden building next to an abandoned train station built in the early 1940’s that had never been renovated as far as Mason could tell. The gravel parking lot was overgrown with weeds, the wood siding was cracked, and the foundation was so badly rotted it was hard to believe it passed code.
The inside was even worse.
The faded old bar was patched in a dozen places, the floor had settled on a slant, the entire place smelled of sour armpits and stale nuts, and even in the middle of the day it was so dark it was hard to see into the corners. The single rectangular window above the door barely let in enough light to maneuver your beer to your mouth.
Which was good. Mason didn’t want to be able to see the glass clenched in his hand too clearly. He had no doubt it wasn’t clean. It felt gummy against his skin, sticky the way the floor had felt under his shoes.
The thought that he was drinking out of a used glass had turned his stomach for the first few sips of beer, but after a shot of whiskey and a refill of whatever amber swill Buddy—the ninety-year-old bar keep, a cantankerous old man without a friendly bone in his body—had on tap, Mason found he wasn’t too worried about his dirty glass.
By the third beer and second shot of whiskey, he hoped not to be worried about anything.
He didn’t want to think anymore. He didn’t want to remember the defeated look in Lark’s eyes, or the hopelessness in her voice when she had told him it was over. He didn’t want to admit to himself that he had lost her for good this time. He didn’t want to imagine a future without his best friend, or leaving town tomorrow without her in the seat beside him.
He had planned to ask her to move in with him tonight during their sixth date. He’d made reservations at the little Italian restaurant where they’d had their first date, and planned to ask Lark if she would consider giving up her apartment and moving into his condo. She said her catering business was pretty equally divided between Summerville venues and larger venues in Atlanta. Her commute wouldn’t be any worse than it was already, and he would only be a few minutes from home when he got off work at the end of the day.
He had already been imagining coming home to Lark, imagining the two of them walking the streets of their new community, trying all the Chinese restaurants to see which one had the best eggrolls, running in the park before work, hitting the Farmer’s Market on Fourth Street on Thursday nights, and finding a new brunch place for hanging out and reading the paper over coffee on Saturday mornings.
He had already decided that he didn’t need a home office, after all. He could find a place for his computer in the living room. That way he and Lark could turn the second bedroom into a guest room for her sisters for now, and a nursery for their first baby not too far down the line.
Their first baby. He had been sure they’d have at least three.
Now, he was never going to know what it was like to start a family with the woman he loved. Now, he was going to live the rest of his life alone, wishing for something he could never have, knowing there was no one to blame for it but himself. If he could go back in time and punch his younger self in the face he would do it. In a heartbeat.
But he couldn’t, so he would have to settle with taking his self-loathing out on his liver.
“I’ll have another whiskey, Buddy,” Mason said in a loud voice.
The bartender had massive, cauliflower-shaped hearing aids in both ears. Still, you had to talk loud enough for him to hear you over a train, even when you were the only person in the bar and the jukebox was qui
et.
“Coming up,” Buddy grumbled in his usual tone, the one that insinuated that you were a pain in his ass, and he couldn’t care less if you lived or died, let alone continued to patronize his establishment.
“Make that two,” came a familiar voice from near the entrance.
Mason didn’t remember the door opening or closing, but it must have, because he and Buddy were no longer alone, and Mason’s day had just gotten worse.
It was his uncle. He’d recognize that smug twang anywhere.
“Thought that was your fancy new car outside,” Parker said, crossing the room to clap Mason on the back in a way that was almost friendly. “Figured I’d stop in and see if you wanted to buy your uncle a drink.”
“Sure,” Mason said, nodding to Buddy as he set Mason’s whiskey down in front of him. “Add whatever he wants to my tab.”
“Well, ain’t that generous,” Parker said, settling onto the stool beside Mason with a happy sigh. “Very generous, indeed.”
Mason glanced at Parker out of the corner of his eye to find the old man grinning like the dog that crapped in the cat’s water dish.
“You’re in a good mood. Somebody die?” Mason asked, just drunk enough not to care if he picked a fight.
But Parker only laughed, a long, high-pitched laugh that ended in a coughing spasm he quieted with his own shot of whiskey.
“Nope, nobody died,” Parker said, clearing his throat as he slammed the shot glass back on the bar. “Just glad to see people finally getting what they deserve.”
Mason turned on his stool, watching his uncle over the rim of his glass as he took a long drink of lukewarm beer. He’d never seen his uncle so damned happy. Never, with maybe the exception of Mason’s junior year, when Mason’s team had made it to the state basketball finals and Mason had missed the winning free throw, dooming Summerville High School to another year without a state championship.
Mason had come home exhausted and feeling awful for failing his team—despite the fact that not a single one of his teammates, or his coach, had acted like they blamed him for the loss. Parker had been sitting on the front porch with a shit-eating grin on his face, practically twitching with excitement over the chance to glory in Mason’s failure.