by T. N. King
She couldn’t stay, she couldn’t allow herself, but leaving felt like she was tearing her own heart out with dull shears, those sobs only getting worse as she peeled out of the driveway and down that familiar road. Trying to ignore his body in her rearview mirror and what felt like an ever increasing need to turn around and go back to him. She couldn’t. She just wished that she could….
Chapter Fifteen
Mason didn’t know when exactly he’d started measuring the turning of time based off of major events in his life concerning Nicole, or when the interludes were timed by the lack of communication between them, but somehow along the way that’s where he had found himself. Two weeks since he’d nearly had her naked on his lap in the Carter’s living room. Two weeks since she’d answered any form of an attempt at communication from him, emails and texts unopened, calls unreturned, voicemails seemingly unopened… it was worse than before, if only because of the events leading up to it, events he had been spending that past two weeks, twice a week, explaining in bit by bit detail to Dr. Friedrich. Trying to make sense of what he’d done wrong or where he had misread the signals, but the good doctor never did anything more than add a whole host of other questions he hadn’t even thought of yet to his repertoire of what ifs and how comes. It was two weeks of checking in with Marie more times a day than he’d done ever before in his life, hoping and waiting for any bit of news of Nicole that he didn’t have to ask for.
Which had been rewarding enough, he supposed, being that he’d at least finally been told about Nicole and Aaron’s breakup. Not that Marie had known what happened, Nicole had reportedly told both Marie and Paul that she didn’t much want to talk about it and she just needed help to pay for the deposit on her new apartment. Other than that, it was the two adults pressuring Mason for information, as if he had any to give them- which he readily enough admitted, confessing that he hadn’t spoken to her since she’d been down last, which had only led to a whole host of other questions which he’d expertly avoided. He wasn’t about to confess to having their daughter writhing half dressed atop his hand and thighs right before she rushed from the room entirely, he wasn’t about to confess to anything, he was the one who was seeking information from them… he just had to do so in a way that wouldn’t bring questions or concern back on himself.
Finding out that she had actually left Aaron helped though, even if she hadn’t seen fit to tell him herself, knowing she was going to be living separate from that creep went a long way in helping him manage his anger over the situation as a whole. Managing his anxiety and constant obsession with thinking about it and how else it could’ve gone, and why she would have encouraged such a thing from him in the first place however, was a lost cause. It was affecting him at work, his business emails even shorter than usual, his avoidance of his peers all the more pronounced. It was affecting his sleeping schedule, not that he’d had much of one in the first place, but only averaging out at two hours a night was beginning to wear on him in ways that he hadn’t foreseen. Living in his daily life, continuing to handle his responsibilities, and manage the time between therapy and the Carters was wearing a very thin line on his ability to handle anything else, no matter how insignificant or small it may have seemed. His pencil sharpener in his office breaking had almost felt catastrophic, and even recognizing the level of exaggeration for what it was didn’t stop him from managing to break it even further before tossing it.
It was why he had been sure to clock out early that afternoon, anticipating that wait in traffic that he would have to do between there and Dr. Friedrich’s office with every intention of using it as a time to calm down and collect himself. Not that he was doing very well with that, concerning himself as he was with thinking about all of those things that were agitating him in the first place. Negative side effect of the radio that he had broken within the dash of his car earlier that week and the forced quiet that he had to endure because of it. There was nothing to distract him from those thoughts, nothing to make the drive any less thought consuming of a process… and so he was sitting in traffic, thinking about all of those things that only made it more difficult for him to calm down and collect himself as he had intended. Like Nicole and the way that she had felt under his hands. Like Nicole and the way that her hips had moved so responsively each time his thumb had circled up into her. Like Nicole and the fact that she had yet to call or text him back in those two weeks since, and it was driving him insane.
Occupying every recess his brain could offer and making that slow, bumper to bumper, traffic all the worse from it. How was he supposed to reorient things when she had reacted like that? How was he supposed to let things slide back into the way they had been before? Even if Dr. Friedrich were right and she had reacted that way solely because of the trauma she was going through and the abuse that her relationship with Aaron had been centered upon… it had happened, they had crossed that line, and even with as long as it’d taken for them to cross that line it was still easier to have done that than go back and uncross it. The not knowing was worse than finding out that that was the case. The state of limbo that he had been left in for the interim was more debilitating than if she had just outright told him that it wasn’t something she could ever be interested in pursuing. She had said a lot of things, she had talked about how wrong it was, how dirty it made her… but not once had she even implied that it wasn’t something she wanted…
“God damnit.” His voice was too loud in the otherwise silent car, foot pressing too hard down on that brake pedal as he moved one hand off of the wheel to dig around the passenger seat. “Google, call Marie,” snapped out when he found his phone wasn’t in easy reach, just counting on his car having synced with his phone when he had gotten in it. Which it should have, however technology was fickle and he wasn’t about to just assume that luck would be on his side this time when it hadn’t been in months. It took only a moment for him to be rewarded with the sound of the line ringing on the other end though, hand returning to the wheel and his knuckles near turning white from the force he was gripping it with while he waited. There was every chance she wouldn’t answer, every chance she’d be in a meeting or at one of her at-risk youth meetings. There was every chance it would go to voicemail and then he would have no choice but to flip his blinker last minute and take that right that would lead him to Dr. Friedrich’s office, but he was inching along in traffic, breaking intermittently and waiting…
“Hey honey, you caught me at a bad time, I’m about to go into court, but I can give you like three minutes.” Marie’s rushed, overly chipper tone taking over that annoying ringing at the last second before it would have switched to voicemail. “Oh damnit, Dave not the Henderson’s case file, HENRY’S case file. Yes. That one. No, I’m coming in, you go on ahead. Yes, I know, I’ll be in in time. Dave we have five minutes, I’m allowing my son three, I think that’s plenty of time. Oh don’t make me call Susan or I’ll tell her you were eating red meat at lunch- yeah that’s what I thought, you power walk on out of here.” Only half of that conversation was transmitted over the line, but it was enough for him to follow, and once again he was glad for Marie’s ‘family over all else’ dynamic, even if he were planning to abuse it in this instance.
“Hey Marie, I’ll be quick, I just went to go order Nicole a house warming gift for her new apartment and realized that I didn’t get the address from you the other night.” The lie fell smoothly off of his lips, eying that turn that he was supposed to be taking and the oncoming traffic through the median speculatively. He was in the turn lane at least, even if he wasn’t the car up next to take it… he would be after that SUV moved, and while he could always turn around…he was banking on Marie needing to get back to whatever court case she was working on expediting both the conversation and the resulting decision on whether or not he was turning at all.
“Oh! That’s so sweet honey, I’ll send it to you on my way in that way you can do that, just don’t get her a dish set, Paul and I already got that covered- I can’t believe Aaron
decided to keep those ones we bought them last time, but- oh I don’t have time for all of that. It’s only two blocks away from the apartments they were staying in together so it should be easy enough for you to do, same zip code and all, it’s just a different apartment complex and numb—”
He’d barely waited for her to finish, flipping his blinker at that last minute, and pulling back out of the turn lane only just narrowly missing the truck that was coming up alongside him. “What was that? Mason Christopher, I swear if you get into an accident today I’m going to lose all of my hair, and pull yours out as punishment!”
He wasn’t terribly worried about it, moving in and out of the nearly stopped traffic with much more ease now since he knew he’d be pulling back onto the free ramp for the highway. “I’ll be safe Marie, traffic is just jam packed out here. Thanks for the address.” He could hear that ding from his phone, indicating it had indeed fallen under the passenger seat which he would have to figure out how to extract after he navigated through the mess of traffic he was in, when he had more availability to drive with just the one hand. “I’ll let you get back to your court case before Dave finds something to threaten calling Paul on you for.” His voice as light as he could manage while switching lanes yet again, already working his seat just far enough back to allow for that stretching he was about to be doing in regards to getting his phone.
“Oh please, Paul and I don’t have secrets.” She was laughing, but he could hear her heels clicking overtime against that pavement regardless, the quiet that he was assuming had been attributed to the meeting room, or some other place she and Henry had sequestered themselves for counsel slowly being replaced with the general hushed hubbub of the courthouse. “Send me a link of what you buy for her so we can try matching around it! By honey, wear your seatbelt.” The last syllable barely out of her lips before the line sounded as dead, his finger flicking the switch on his stereo to disconnect the call completely before the dial tone could start.
Paul and she may not have secrets, but she thought the same of Nicole, and he knew damn well that Nicole did. The main one being him and what the two of them had gotten up to in her living room two weeks previous. Just like he knew if Marie found out he’d be hearing a lot more than concern about his safety while driving. Actually, he wasn’t even sure he’d be hearing from her at all in any manner that wasn’t threatening to send Paul after him to bury him or worse. Which were all things, considering he was on his way to Nicole’s right then, he really didn’t need to be thinking about. “Fuck!” His leg slipped slightly, torso trying to incline just enough to fit his arm under the passenger seat and grab his phone without moving so much that he couldn’t stay in that flow of traffic getting onto the onramp. He just needed… two more inches, grunt escaping him as his chin clipped the edge of the steering wheel, fingers finally closing around that cold metal and his body almost jerking back into an upright position to keep from running into that Nissan in front of him.
At least opening and getting to Marie’s message was easy enough, setting his phone on that magnetic thing that Paul had gotten him for Christmas to hold it in place as soon as he had the address entered in his maps. “Google, call Dr. Friedrich’s office,” tossed out as an afterthought as he merged off of the ramp, increasing his speed and keeping an eye on that surrounding traffic to see when he could break through to the left lane. The directions were simple enough, he really wouldn’t need that moving map with its turn by turn directions until it was he got nearer to campus and even then it seemed like a simple enough adjustment from her old apartment, even if he had only been there the one time.
“Mason? If you’re calling to tell me you’re running late, I do have the traffic app on my phone, and I did see it was backed up just outside the office, losing ten or so minutes of our time isn’t going to really affect anything one way or another.” He at least sounded like he was in a good mood, half laughing the last half of his sentence out even as the sound of his clinking spoon indicating he was drinking tea sounded in the background. It was a fair enough assumption as well being that it would have been why he had been calling if he had actually taken that turn… however…
“I am running late, but not in the sense that I’m going to be coming in at all. I think it’s safe to say I’m going to be missing my appointment actually.” Which was a dangerous line, especially with the court mandating and how tricky rescheduling could be with Dr. Friedrich’s in-demand schedule. Which would be why he was calling at all about it, his hand running down the front of his face before that sigh of Dr. Friedrich’s even transferred over the line, finally breaking into that furthest left lane and picking up speed. “I didn’t think I’d be able to actually get an opening for you later this week so I was hoping you’d be willing to moderate this session via the telephone.” Which was uncharted territory, for him at least, he was sure he had other clients who did something similar occasionally. Or at least, that he’d heard of it being done before.
“I mean I don’t see why not, seeing that I’ve got the hour blocked off for you anyways, but do you mind me asking why you aren’t going to be making it in?”
The ‘and on such short notice’ was left off, but Mason could still feel it through his tone regardless. He had actually, over the years, become very careful about his scheduling with him, especially after he learned what an inconvenience it could be both to Matilda, his secretary, and Dr. Friedrich himself. They didn’t have to fit him in last minute as often as they did, his six month stint with another psychologist had proven just how rare of a commodity that was that they afforded to him as regularly and with as such notice as they usually did.
“I’m heading to Nicole’s new apartment, actually I think it’s fair to point out I probably won’t even take up that full hour.” Definitely not with how fast he was now going on the highway, but he didn’t feel like it was a fact he needed to point out to Dr. Friedrich considering what else was going to be occupying the questions that were sure to come. “It was… an impulsive, last minute decision. Otherwise, I would have called beforehand.” And very likely made an appointment for even earlier so he could have gone over everything he’d been going over in his own head aloud to the man before he made the trip at all.
“Ah, I see. So the two of you have resumed contact then? Have you discussed what happened last time you were around one another or is that what you’re on your way to discuss now?” There was something to be said for the lack of judgment in his tone, that mild interest coupled with slight concern easier for Mason to handle than the barrage of questions and censorship that he could have provided in its place. He still had yet to figure out if it were because he knew how poorly Mason reacted to that line of approach or if it were just his personality and he didn’t quite care enough to try and figure out one way or another. If it were the former, it would more than likely damage the communication that they had built up over the years and he, especially currently, was unwilling to go down that path out of sheer curiosity alone.
“Well no,” he answered instead, each word drawn out enough for there to be a pause before he needed to continue. “She’s still ignoring my calls and texts, which is part of the reason I’m heading over there.” Or all of the reason, if she had answered him even once and asked for more time to process or even just to tell him to fuck off he would have likely taken her at her word and done just that. Her not answering was becoming problematic though and the longer it went like this the more he found it vexing even the more trivial aspects of his life. But Dr. Friedrich was already familiar with that line of complaint concerning the subject, so he didn’t have to expound any upon it verbally, which worked for his shifting lanes again, watching the truck that had tried to cut him off swerve to avoid the median with a kind of vindictive satisfaction.
“So you’re heading to her apartment unannounced then? Do you have a game plan for how you’re approaching that conversation or was all of it truly an act of impulsivity alone?” The sound of his spoon against his mu
g backed his words up again.
Mason focused on that for a few moments, counting the turns it had to be making within the cup and considering his words. He wouldn’t necessarily call what he had formulated a game plan, but he wasn’t rushing over without having considered it either. All he had done for the past two weeks was consider the conversation he was going to be forcing into effect. The ins and outs of it, the possible dialogue, the rebuttals and arguments made. He’d damn near nearly fabricated twelve entirely different conversations from it mentally in preparation.
“I’m going to ask her what she wants,” he answered finally, chewing over the words as if he were still considering the usage of them in that context. “I’m going to ask her about two weeks ago, and I’m going to ask her why she never said that it was something she didn’t want, if it turns out it was.” If it didn’t… then he figured he was going to ask her why in the hell it mattered what anyone else thought. He’d gone enough years following the social construct concerning his emotions and their relation to her socially and otherwise. Having been under the impression that it was one sided, if it weren’t … he didn’t think he possessed the willpower to ignore it any longer than he had already, especially not if she was only denying it for the fact that she felt she was obligated to do so.
“And if she tells you that it was reaction based alone and that she doesn’t want anything to come of it, or for it even to have happened in the first place?”
Worst case scenario, his dry tone cutting through whatever other thought process Mason had been having long enough for the words to sink like lead weights into his abdomen. If she had been acting only out of instinct and some repressed guilt from her relationship at the time he was going to be even more hard pressed to meet his own gaze in the mirror, but then Dr. Friedrich knew that. There weren’t many people that could make him actually feel guilty over his actions or thoughts, if they were being completely honest that list began and ended with Nicole alone. His fingers tightened reflexively on the wheel, narrowed gaze turning back to traffic and only just resisting the urge to cut through the very small opening in eighteen wheelers to his right.