by V. T. Do
“I know. I just wished thoughts of him would go away completely. I hate how much power he still has over me. It’s like I’m letting him win by thinking about him.”
Mason moved a little closer to me and placed his hand on my shoulder. When I looked at him, he nodded reassuringly at me to go on. I looked away, not wanting to see the look in his eyes when I told him the next part.
“I can’t wear makeup anymore,” I said in a whisper.
“Okay.” I could tell he was confused about that statement, but he didn’t say more, just waited for me to elaborate.
“Every time I try to make myself look pretty, I get a sick feeling in my stomach and I… I just can’t do it. Everyone keeps telling me it’s not my fault, that I didn’t ask to be attacked, and I know that. I really do. But I’m also scared to go anywhere with my face made up. I’m scared that if I somehow looked decent in any way, I’m asking to be assaulted again.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Mason’s fist clench tightly. He released it the same time he released his breath on a slow exhale. Then, carefully, he wrapped his arms around me. Our eyes met for a long moment before I was pulled in close, my face buried in his strong chest, and it felt as if nothing and no one could ever hurt me again.
“Mason,” I whispered into the fabric of his shirt, my arms coming up around his waist, hesitantly at first. But when he didn’t do anything more than tighten his arms around me, I grew confident in my touch.
“It’s okay, Livie. No one is going to hurt you again. I promise.”
I nodded. I believed him. I felt his lips brush against the top of my head softly. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay like this with him, forever.
Would he let me?
Then three loud knocks pounded on the door, and I knew it wouldn’t be possible. That must be the food. There was no way that was twenty minutes, and I cursed fast-food delivery when Mason pulled away from me.
He stood up and looked down at me on the couch, and I couldn’t be sure what it was that he saw, but I swore I saw his blue eyes turn soft right before he walked away from me.
I sat there in silence, taking in my surroundings. I still couldn’t believe I was sitting in Mason’s apartment. The hour that I’d been here didn’t feel real.
When Mason walked back toward me, he was carrying a large box. He set it on the ground by the coffee table and started pulling out boxes and boxes of food. My stomach grumbled from the smell alone, and Mason shot me an amused smile.
“Hungry?”
I cringed and answered softly, “A bit.”
“Good. Because I bought a lot.” He handed me a small bowl and a plastic fork, then opened all the containers, revealing the food. I didn’t know what everything was called, but at least I could recognize noodles and chicken when I saw them.
“Take a little bit of everything. I want to make sure you’re eating enough, okay?”
I looked at him, and his eyes twinkled with something I couldn’t identify. “Okay.”
He winked and I nearly went into cardiac arrest. No man should ever be this good looking. No man should ever have this strong of an effect on anyone, period. It made him dangerous in ways I’d never thought of.
Mason took a seat next to me, and though there were some space between us, it wasn’t as huge as before. He even helped me picked the chopped scallion out of my bowl and put it on his own. I smiled into my fork and took a bite of the chicken.
The day was turning out to be not so bad after all.
25
Olivia
I drove home on Friday, excited for the weekend to start. Mostly because getting up every morning and going to school was more exhausting than before. It was tiring, putting on a mask in front of everyone, when some days, all I really wanted to do was stay in bed and pretend I didn’t exist, even for a small amount of time.
I parked the car in the garage and turned off the engine. Max wasn’t home yet, and something about going inside to an empty house didn’t appeal to me. I could call Mason, but he worked more than Max did. I had no doubt he would still be at his office. I only saw him once this week, and that was Monday when I went to his apartment for the first time.
We did text back and forth throughout the week, but it wasn’t the same as seeing him.
I missed him.
Deciding not to go inside, I pulled out my phone and texted Lizzie.
Me: Cake and coffee?
Lizzie: Yeah! Come pick me up
Me: At the dorm?
Lizzie: No, I’m at my parents’ house
I smiled and started the car again. I didn’t realize how much better it was to have a car. The freedom the car afforded me was something I loved more than anything else in the world.
It took me less than fifteen minutes to get to Lizzie’s house. Lizzie’s parents were well off, and they lived in a really nice neighborhood in a huge four-bedroom house. Her dad owned a restaurant nearby and her mom was a mechanical engineer. Lizzie and her little brother grew up not caring much about money, which had boggled my mind when we first met.
Her parents weren’t as well off as Max, that was for sure, but they had enough that Lizzie didn’t have to worry about getting a job or how she was going to pay for the absurd tuition at the University of Chicago.
But there was a downside to having such successful parents, especially when her parents had grown up with next to nothing.
They were super strict with her and her little brother.
While my mom didn’t much care when I came home, Lizzie had a nine o’clock curfew every night in high school. She was also expected to excel in school and pick a practical major to study in college. Becoming a starving playwright was not a future they had in mind for her, and that was why they were so against her aspiration to write for living.
I parked my car on the curb and texted Lizzie, telling her I was here. She texted back almost instantly with a thumbs-up emoji.
The front door opened two minutes later and Lizzie’s little brother, Henry, came out first wearing his favorite Spider-Man t-shirt.
Henry was an adorable eight-year-old who looked nothing like Lizzie, save for his eyes. He had dark auburn hair, tanned skin, and almond-shaped green eyes. I smiled and waved when he waved at me before sprinting to the car.
He climbed in the back. “Hi, Olivia.”
“Hi, Henry. I didn’t know you were coming along.”
“For cake and chocolate milk? I would not miss this.”
I laughed just as Lizzie came out the door, wearing a gray beanie on her head, her signature nonprescription black-framed glasses, a black t-shirt that read, “i hate the world, so be nice,” and a small handbag strapped to her shoulder. She climbed into the passenger seat and looked back at Henry.
“Put on your seatbelt, squirt.”
He rolled his eyes but did as she asked.
She grinned at me. “Hey, you.”
“Hey. All ready?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
Henry dominated the majority of the conversation on the short ride. Lizzie and I shared amused smiles when he began his talk about Brianna, a girl in his class who was his best friend, but not his girlfriend. A fact he repeated several times. Lizzie nodded along, and I focused more on the road. I was still getting used to driving everywhere.
When we finally pulled up to Mary’s Cake Shop, Henry sat up and clapped his hand. “Hey, Olivia?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you know it’s been years since we’ve been here?”
I smiled. It had only been a month, but I played along. “So you’re pretty excited to be back, huh? What are you going to get?”
“The triple-chocolate lava cake, of course,” he said, and his voice suggested that I should have already known this.
“Of course.”
We got out the car and Henry grabbed both mine and Lizzie’s hands. Give it a few years and he won’t want to hold our hands anymore.
I tightened my hold on him just a little.
Lizzie and I had become friends when I was twelve. I met Henry when he was three, and I swear this little boy took my heart that very first moment.
We walked into the cake shop grinning from ear to ear. Henry let go of our hands and quickly moved to the glass display of all the different kinds of cake.
Sally, a quiet girl we went to high school with, greeted us at the counter. “Hey, Olivia. Hey Lizzie.”
“Hi,” I said. “How’s it going?”
“Eh, I can’t really complain. I get to see little kids get excited about cake all day long.” She motioned with a smile to Henry, who now had his face pressed against the glass, his hands cupped on either side of his face.
Lizzie laughed and pulled Henry away. “What did I tell you about pressing your face against the glass?”
Henry looked down on a pout. “Not to do it.”
“Why?”
He fidgeted on his feet. “Because of germs.”
“Good. Now you want the triple-chocolate lave cake, right?”
His eyes lit up and Sally and I shared a smile. “And chocolate milk. Don’t forget the chocolate milk, Lizzie.”
“I won’t, squirt. Why don’t you find a table for us to sit while I order? Cool?”
She put out her fist, and he bumped it, his expression serious. I laughed then. He was just too cute. “Cool,” he repeated. “Can I have your phone to play with?”
Lizzie handed the phone to him and he grabbed it with both hands, as if it was the most precious thing in the world, then walked over to a corner table.
“Can you keep an eye on him while I order?” Lizzie asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. I’ll watch him.”
Henry didn’t do much. Just sat there, shifting in his seat every so often, while he played a game on Lizzie’s phone.
Lizzie came to stand next to me then, and I was about to turn and order for myself, when she stopped me with one hand on my forearm. “I already ordered for you. Don’t worry about it. Sally said she’ll bring it over to us when it’s done.”
“Oh, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Henry barely glanced at us when we took our seats next to him. I looked down at the phone to find him playing the kids’ version of a word search. The little frown between his eyebrows was adorable. Lizzie and I shared a smile.
“So there’s this guy in my class. He’s a senior,” she said. I sat up a little straighter. Lizzie was bringing up a guy who wasn’t Max.
“There’s a senior in your class? What class are you taking?”
“What? Oh, it’s calculus. And he’s not really a student in the class. He’s the TA.”
“What about him? Is he cute? Smart? He should be smart, because I don’t care how ‘pretty’ someone is, not if they have the intelligence of a sea urchin.”
“Sea urchins everywhere are offended by that comment. I happen to know sea urchins are very intelligence creatures.”
“Really?” I asked. Animal facts always fascinated me.
Lizzie smiled and shook her head a little. “No, you dork. How would I know how smart sea urchins are? I don’t watch the Animal Planet for fun.”
I gasped. “Hey, Animal Planet is a fascinating channel. Very informative. Just ask Henry.”
Henry, hearing his name for the first time, perked up. He eyes sought my own and he shot me Lizzie’s smile. “Oh, yeah. Remember, Olivia, when we watched that episode on monkey wars.”
“Monkey what?” Lizzie asked.
“Monkey wars,” I repeated. “Humans aren’t the only ones to wage warfare with one another.”
Sally interrupted us with our orders before Lizzie could respond. Henry eyes lit up and he almost dropped Lizzie’s phone. She grabbed it from him before he could. Three plates of chocolate cake laid down, one black coffee for Lizzie, one coffee with hazelnut creamer for me, and a cold chocolate milk for Henry.
“Alright, guys. Is there anything you need?”
“No, we’re good right now. Thank you, Sally,” I said.
“Of course. Let me know if you need anything else.”
We waited until Sally walked away before Lizzie spoke again. “We’re getting off topic. How did we go from talking about some guy in my class to monkey wars?”
I shot her cheeky grin. “Tell me about this guy.”
“He asked me out on a date.”
I tried not to show too much interest. Lizzie didn’t date… mainly because of Max. Her first and only relationship lasted three months at the beginning of our junior year, and it resulted in her losing her virginity. Lizzie was never excited about Dereck. I think that was her way of trying to get over Max. Obviously it didn’t work.
“What did you say?”
“I told him I would think about it.”
“Do you like him?”
“We exchanged numbers and have texted back and forth, but I don’t know, maybe?”
I looked down at my coffee. That would be a no. There was no “maybe” in liking someone. I always thought it was one of those things you would just know. As bad of an end result my relationship with Lorenzo had been, I knew instantly, freshman year, that I liked him. And with Mason…
Well, I had never felt anything so intense in my life before. There was no maybe about it. I really, really liked Mason.
“Whatever you decide to do, I’ll be here. Just… promise me you’ll only do things that’ll make you happy.”
Her eyes were soft when she took my hand and squeeze. “I know. Trust me, I learned from the whole Dereck situation.”
I nodded. After she and Dereck broke up, Lizzie could barely get out of bed. But it wasn’t because she was heartbroken. She was the one who ended things. It was obvious that Dereck liked Lizzie more than she liked him. I thought it was because she was regretful over ever agreeing to go out with him, but she never said, and her feelings probably had more to do with Max than she let on.
“What’s his name?” I asked.
“Sam Costner. He’s pretty good looking, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
She laughed. “Okay, yeah. I think so. Above average height—he’s taller than me by at least a head—and he plays football, so yeah, you can say he’s got an athletic built. Dark blond hair, brown eyes. He’s super nice to everyone. Hates bullying. Oh, and he helped me with my math homework, so smart, too.”
“He’s sounds great, Lizzie.”
“I know. So why am I not feeling it?”
I didn’t say anything. We both knew the truth. She wasn’t feeling it because she was in love with Max. She sighed and looked at Henry. Then she laughed. I looked and laughed, too.
Henry was halfway finished with his cake. But it looked like more got on his cheeks than in his mouth. Lizzie pulled out an unopened water bottle from her bag and a small hand towel in a re-sealable plastic bag. “I came prepared.”
She wet the towel a little and used it to wipe Henry’s face. He scrunched up his face at her but didn’t say anything. Henry was one of the most well-behaved kid I had ever met. Quiet, too. Until he got to know you.
“Okay?” she asked him, putting the towel back in the bag.
“Okay, Lizzie.” He grabbed his chocolate milk in both hands and took a huge sip from the straw.
“You’re good with him,” I said.
“Well, he’s an easy kid.”
“You’re pretty good with all kids,” I said. And that was true. Lizzie and I once tried to set up a babysitting business during our freshmen year of high school. Whereas I was good at getting in more business for us, negotiating prices with the parents, and keeping track of the money we made, it was Lizzie who did the babysitting bit.
I felt like such a failure during my first attempt at holding an actual baby. Lizzie laughed and said it wasn’t a big deal, but our “business” only lasted that year, before I got the job at the grocery store.
Lizzie grinned. “I know. But it’s going to be years before I have a kid of my own. Trust me, I do not want to end u
p like Jenna McKay.”
I nodded in agreement and raised my coffee cup. Lizzie clicked her mug against my own before we took a small sip. Jenna McKay was a girl we went to middle school and part of high school with. She got pregnant at sixteen, dropped out of school at seventeen, and last I heard, she was living with her parents and her baby girl.
And though I didn’t want to be in her situation, I thought she was pretty lucky to have such supportive parents by her side.
We finished out desserts quickly after that. Henry was pretty excited to be out with his sister and her friend, who he thought were the coolest people on the planet. He told us so.
Lizzie and I shared a smile.
We were both theater geeks and weren’t considered cool by our peers, but it was nice that he thought so.
By the time I dropped Lizzie and Henry off and made my way home, the sky was already darkening and Max’s car was there. But that wasn’t what got my attention. It was the fact that Max stood on the porch… and there was someone there with him. It looked like she was on her way out, and with the way she was touching him, it told me she was intimately familiar with him.
Max had never had company over since I moved in with him. My hands felt sweaty all of a sudden, and I realized I was nervous.
What if this woman was important to Max?
I had no problem with him dating, and even if Lizzie might be hurt if she knew I felt this way, I wanted Max to date. I wanted him to have more in his life than just be my guardian.
But the thing with Max dating was, he never did.
At least, not seriously.
He had always been too hung up on my mom to date seriously, but it had been almost four months since she’d left. And for this woman to be here, even if she was… stopping by? I wasn’t sure why she was here in the first place, or if Max had invited her in and she was on her way out.
I parked the car and they both turned to me. Max waved, and though he couldn’t see inside the dark car, I waved back.
The woman did nothing. She barely glanced my way before turning back to Max as if he was the most fascinating man in the entire world.