by Kate Benson
“Sure.”
“Okay,” he nods before he raises from his spot and heads for the kitchen.
We talk about little, definitely not much of substance as he pulls eggs, butter, milk, cheese and jelly from the fridge. We catch up on gossip about Walt’s, updates from mom and my latest trip to the doctor. It doesn’t take long to realize its filler since the only new information that comes up is his continued distaste for Alex, Dash’s replacement at the bar.
I know it’s for my benefit. I know if he had his way, Mason would tie on his big brother/best friend cape and delve into curing us both of our current relationship woes. Thankfully, though, he doesn’t go there. Although we’re both feeling completely surface by the time I sit across from him at the table, I’m also feeling a little more relaxed.
We continue to make small talk for the bulk of our meal and when I yawn, he encourages me to take a long nap.
“I haven’t been sleeping all that great lately,” I admit, releasing a sigh as I give my belly an affectionate pat and he nods his understanding. “Besides, I still have so much to do. I know I can’t pack it all in one day,” I groan, looking around me for a moment before my eyes fall back on his. “We definitely can’t fit it all in your truck,” I allow, bringing a smirk of agreement to his lips. “But even though only about half of this stuff is coming, there’s still way too much to pack for me to even think about sleep.”
He gives me a subtle nod, reaching for the jelly. He thanks me when I slide it closer to him and he grips the knife, slathering it onto his toast.
“You know, for what it’s worth, I think you ought to stay here,” he offers, pulling my eyes to his. “I’d love nothing more than to live with you again, have you back home, but you put yourself through an awful lot of ass busting to make it here, kiddo. I know things are kind of up in the air right now, but I also know it’d be a real shame to walk away from everything you fought so hard for.”
“Are you talking about Austin or are you trying to help your jackass friend?”
“I’m looking out for my sister,” he admits, flashing me another soft smile as he stabs another bite of eggs. “But for the record, my jackass friend agrees with me.”
I say nothing. Not only because the thought of staying in this apartment on my own makes me want to break into a fit of sobs I’m not sure I’ll ever come back from but mostly because even the mention of Dash has me heartbroken all over again.
“He also told me his side of the story and I know you might not want to hear this right now, Eve, but I believe him.”
I think on his words, the gravity of them much more than what I’m capable of dealing with emotionally right now as I use the tines on my fork to gently push around the last of my breakfast. Hours of lying awake alone on the couch followed by another round of restless obsession makes me absolutely certain of only one thing: I have no idea what to think about Dash Hunter or last night.
I want to believe Mason. Hell, I want to believe them both, but I know what I saw. I know the feeling I had in my gut the night he got that text and I know, maybe better than anyone, exactly what Dash Hunter is capable of.
I thought he could be different, that he would change just for me. And I guess in a perfect world, in that very same fairytale I’d accused Dash of selling me after he tore my heart into a million pieces, that’s possible.
But I know what I saw. I know what I felt. I remember each and every promise he ever made me, and in that moment, that split second that resulted in our end, nowhere did I see the happily ever after I signed up for.
All I saw was the guy I grew up hating.
I rise from my place across from him, my chest seizing once more as I give my brother a kiss on top of his head, mussing his hair before I take his plate.
“Thank you for the eggs, Mase,” I whisper, dropping our dishes into the sink with a long, painful sigh.
I turn back to face him, finding him already standing there, eyes soft. As I take a step forward, his arms wrap around me once more and my chest begins to seize, taking it with me completely.
“Come here, kid,” he whispers, tightening his grip. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
He’s trying his best to console me, but it’s no use.
The dam is down and my heart is shattering like it’s never shattered before.
I’m officially broken.
“I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but you’re going to get through this.”
“I won’t,” I shake my head. “It hurts so bad, I can’t even breathe,” I sob vehemently. “This wasn’t supposed to happen, Mase. He promised he wouldn’t do this to me, and I trusted him. I believed all of it.”
“Shh,” he whispers, stroking my hair. “It’s okay.”
“You told me. You said he would do this, and-”
“You know, Eve,” he interjects with a sigh. “I’m not always right.”
I try to focus on his words, the meaning behind them, and the images of Dash that come along with them are too much. They just hurt to damn much and all I can do is fall apart all over again.
“This time you were,” I sob, gripping my belly when I feel the babies kicking, their silent little protests pulling another low wail from my chest. “I should’ve listened to you when I had the chance, Mason,” I admit. “I never should have fallen for Dash Hunter.”
The days that followed were some of the hardest of my life.
I threw myself into my pregnancy, my art, virtually anything I could think of that would help me keep my mind off Dash.
Mason stayed there with me for the rest of that weekend, promising me his shifts were covered at Walt’s so he wouldn’t catch any hell for skipping out. I didn’t miss how every so often, he’d look down at his phone and send a quick text. I knew he was talking to his best friend, that regardless of everything that had happened and still might, the two of them were still thick as thieves.
I wanted to be angry with him about it, but try as I might, I couldn’t.
I’d meant what I said all those months ago to Dash in that rental car, the night we sat outside the cabin following the most dramatic one-night stand of our lives. He and my brother need each other, and whatever happens going forward, I know that truth remains.
One thing about Mason is no matter how awkward things become, when push comes to shove, he’ll always be there for his best friend.
I know that better than anyone.
He’s been mine my whole life, too.
I’d taken his advice and decided to stay in Austin. The first morning I woke alone on the couch had been my loneliest yet. I still couldn’t bring myself to sleep in our bed and naively believed that nothing could be harder than that until my first night alone. While I’d become used to sitting up alone until after midnight when Dash was at the club, I knew that’s where he still was. It was impossible to not imagine him there with her while I sat idle, pining for all our what-should-have-beens, the happily-ever-after we would still be chasing if only he had kept his word.
I went through all the obligatory breakup stages: wrath, online stalking, questionable hygiene while binging on Doritos, trashy Netflix, and a heap of regret. But when I got to the stage that comes right before blissfully forgetting him altogether, the one I affectionately call the fuck my life while wearing sweatpants stage, it swallowed me whole. I could see no way of ever making my way to the other side of it.
Sue’s engine comes to life outside in time with my phone dinging beside me. His text notification jolts me from my catatonic state on the couch and I raise slightly, freeing Vinnie from my clingy grasp.
I love you -Dash
My eyes dance over the words, the fact that this text matches the other forty-something that had gone unanswered over the past two weeks doing nothing to dull their effect on my shattered heart.
He waits a beat, presumably to see if today’s the day I’ll answer, before he drives away slowly, same as he’s done every morning. I’m not sure where he goes, what he does all
day while I’m up here cursing both his self-sabotage and mine, but this has become our new normal.
His engine wakes me at eight, he sends the same three texts, the same three words, throughout the day and returns every morning at four a.m. to sit in the same spot beneath my window.
I couldn’t hate it more.
I also can’t deny the way his betrayal stains every waking moment.
I stumble into the kitchen, choking down my prenatal vitamins before I absentmindedly move toward the fridge. I pull the tub of yogurt that’s been my life source for two days from its place and scrape the sides of the nearly bare container with a sigh. I curse the inevitability of a long-avoided trip to the grocery store and lift the keys to his truck in my hand, the sound of him dropping them onto the kitchen counter on his way out echoing painfully in my memory.
“I’ll be back, Vin,” I promise, slipping on my flip flops and swallowing hard as I make my way toward the door.
I pull it open, cussing the sun before I glance down, and my chest fills once more with emotion. I take in the four bags sitting on the doorstep, each of them filled with enough groceries to keep me from going hungry for another week.
Slowly, my small frame begins to slide down the length of the doorway, my tears falling freely into the bag of mangoes staring back at me.
After four years in college and an alarming number of questionable life choices, I’d thought I’d known heartache like the back of my hand.
None of it even compared to what I’m going through right now.
This is undiluted anguish.
Emotional torment at its finest.
I thought I knew it all when it came to broken hearts.
But I never knew a heart could ever break like this.
dash
“You know the drill man,” Mark smirks, giving my rig a quick tug, followed by a brotherly pat on the shoulder. “Let me know when you’re ready. Engine’s runnin’.”
“Right behind you,” I promise, pulling my locker open at the same time my cell phone dings in my hand.
See you at five? -Mase
I reply, assuring him I’ll be on my way in about a half hour before I back out of the screen and pull up her name, my heart sinking for the tenth time today when nothings come yet. I type out my usual message, releasing a low sigh before I toss the phone into the locker and shut the door.
I grab my helmet and step out of the hangar, my entire body on autopilot as I make my way onto the plane and fall against the bench across from Dave, buckling in more for their benefit than mine.
“You ready to rock, brother?” Mark calls out over the engine as I pull the heavy plastic over my head and give him a thumbs up. “Alright, alright, alright!”
His quick impression of Matthew McConaughey pulls a half-hearted smirk to my lips, but I don’t feel it.
I don’t feel anything but the knot that’s been sitting on my chest since that fucking night.
That’s why I’m here.
I’m trying to feel anything else.
Anything but this.
The usual rush of adrenaline that fills my veins as we lift off doesn’t come like I hope it will. Instead, as the gust of air brushes over my skin, I’m reminded of her resting against my front. I taste the melody of her laughter as we floated above the water and she whispered her truths to me. I savor in the memory, bittersweet as it is, knowing before long, the ache inside my chest will resurface and sweep it away all over again.
“I’m really glad I trusted you,” she’d whispered.
“I love you, Dash,” she’d promised breathlessly.
“Kiss me,” she begged as she fell apart on top of me. “Kiss me right now.”
I let my eyes drift shut, willing the taste of her lips to return to me, my chest seizing when I’m still denied.
“I can smell her perfume all over you,” she whispered, echoes of her tearful gaze shattering my heart all over again. “You still taste like her.”
“Fuck,” I grate out, rubbing my eyes clear before I force them back open.
“You ready man?” Dave asks from across the way and I nod. I unhook my belt before I stand, thanking him when he gives my gear another quick but thorough check. “Alright, you’re all set. Let’s do it,” he beams, squeezing my shoulder before he taps his helmet against mine and releases me. “Have fun.”
I try to force another smile, but this time, nothing comes as I make my way to the edge. I grip the frame, staring out into the sky, the hollow feeling in my gut stuck just as firmly in place as it had been this morning.
“I’m doing what you’ve been asking me to do all along, Dash,” she’d said, her blue eyes shining back at me with heartbreak. “I’m letting go.”
As my vision blurs with tears of my own, I savor in the pain and close my eyes as I step out into nothing, praying for it to swallow me.
And for the next seven minutes, I try to let go, too.
Twenty-Eight
dash
“Hey man,” Mason greets me as I approach him, the familiar blue glow behind him doing nothing to ease my exhaustion. “How’d it go this morning?”
“I don’t know,” I yawn, giving him a shrug. “I guess it was alright. They said they’d call.”
“They will,” he offers as I step behind the bar beside him. The opening riffs of a painfully familiar Queens of the Stone Age song blares out of the speakers, and I don’t miss Mason’s look of surprise when I change it to Johnny Cash. “Any word from Eve yet?”
“Nope,” I shake my head, trying to push back the ache in my chest as I ignore the look of pity coming back for me. “I left some food on the doorstep this morning, though. If you talk to her, will you just make sure she got it?” I ask, prompting him to nod. “She hates going to the grocery store, so I know she won’t leave until she has to. I didn’t want her to have to lug all that shit up the stairs.”
“No problem, bro,” he smiles as he passes me, giving my chest a quick, brotherly pat that makes me flinch. “Sorry,” he offers as I peek into the collar of my shirt to make sure the ink still looks good. “Still healing?”
“Yeah,” I nod, releasing the fabric as he reaches for a beer and makes his way around to the other side of the bar.
“You look like shit, man. When’s the last time you slept in a bed?”
When she was still letting me sleep in ours.
“Thanks for letting me take another shift,” I ignore his question and he gives me a look that says he gets it, even though I’m not sure he really does. “I know you probably need the cash, too.”
The morning after everything happened at the club, I got a call from my boss insisting I explain my reasons for leaving a packed house on a Friday night. I’d been honest with him, told him exactly how it all went down and to his credit, he was more understanding than I thought he’d be.
I was also high enough on his shit list that my request for another server was abruptly denied.
It gave me no other option than to cut ties with him altogether.
If things were already sketchy with Evie where they stood, even if she found a way to get passed this and let me back in, I knew she’d never trust me again as long as I was within a city block of Hailey.
I can find another job, but there will never be another girl like her.
For the last two weeks, I’d scoured the city, desperate for any other means of gainful employment to quickly find there was little to be found. I’d managed a few interviews at some garages on the outskirts of town, but despite the years I’d spent under the hood, no one was blowing up my phone yet.
Least of all Evie.
“I’m good, man,” he waves me off. “I got that ‘fuck you, I teach the eight grade’ salary rolling in,” he smirks. “I’ll be fine. Just do what you gotta do.”
“Thanks,” I sigh, resting my palms on the edge of the ice bin before I stare down at my feet and push out another deep, exhausted breath. I swallow back the bitter taste of the anguish sitting on my chest,
cursing my inability to just give up before I succumb to it and bury it deep all over again. “Fuck.”
“Dude, it’s been like two weeks” he sighs. “I know you don’t like admitting when you’re wrong, but you’ve got to fucking talk to her, Dash.”
“It’s not even about that, Mason. Whether I fucked up or not - which I didn’t, by the way - Evie doesn’t have shit to say to me,” I shake my head, my voice low as my gaze stays trained on my boots and I blink away the sting lingering behind my eyes. “I’d take all the blame if I thought it would make a difference, Mason, but it wouldn’t matter. I’ve tried calling her, I text her all day, every day… the result is always the same.”
“Yeah, but maybe if she knew all the shit you’ve been doing lately-”
“I can’t tell her if she won’t answer my calls,” I shake my head, standing upright to turn away from him, staring up at the ceiling for a long moment as I blow out another cleansing breath. My phone begins to blaze, and I clear my throat before I glance down, the screen showing an unfamiliar number with an Austin prefix. “Do you mind-?”
“Go ahead,” he waves me off, glancing back over the empty bar before he reaches for his beer and slams the last sip. “I got you, man.”
His words sound pretty cut and dry, but one thing I’ve learned for sure about Mason King is no matter how simple his words might seem, there’s almost always something else beneath their surface. Sometimes it bites me in the ass, but then other times, times like right now, I couldn’t need it more.
mason
I watch him slip into the back, the distraught expression taking over his features makes me shake my head in concern for my friend.
I slowly making my way back around the back of the bar and can hear him talking low on the other side of the double doors. While his tone makes it obvious he’s not talking to my sister, I hope at the very least, he’s gotten a call about a job back in Austin.