by Bella King
Mason looked over at me, holding his other gloved hand up and smiling wildly, like I was supposed to be impressed by all this. I returned a weak smile and took a sip of my drink, nodding my head and trying to look supportive. I didn’t think I looked too convincing.
Chapter 9
“Look at this,” Mason said, pulling a wad of bills from behind his back and waving it under my nose. He was back in his t-shirt, which had the sweat from the fight soaking into it, causing the fabric to turn see-through slowly.
“That’s nice,” I said, taking another sip of my drink to hide my expression.
He frowned. “That’s 500 bucks right there.”
“That’s nice,” I said, unsure of how to respond.
“Nice? That’s awesome. That’s like half a month’s rent. Who else do you know that can make 500 in a single night?” He said waving the chaotic array of banknotes around.
“Don’t your parents pay for everything?” I asked, remembering how rich his family was.
He rolled his eyes. “Do you think I want to live with those losers? No, I’m going on my own. I don’t need them.”
I didn’t know whether he had been hit in the head one too many times or if this was just the man he had become, but his logic didn’t make much sense to me. His parents had always paid for everything he had, and I doubted they were going to stop just because he was an adult. That’s how most people’s parents were in this town. Why did he want to separate himself from the people who raised him so badly?
“That’s nice, I guess,” I said, shrugging.
Mason looked irritated. “Well, Jasmine, I thought you would be happier about it, but I guess you can’t see a good business opportunity when it stares you right in the fucking eyes and dances the chicken.” He spat the words out angrily and in a condescending tone, making me feel small and stupid next to him.
I had the sudden urge to run, to get myself out of this god awful place, but thankfully Mason spoke before I could do anything too crazy.
“Let’s get out of here, shall we?” He said, his voice laced with annoyance at how unimpressed I was.
I nodded, placing the drink in my hand down on the bar. Mason grabbed my hand roughly, pulling me through the crowd of people waiting to congratulate him on his win. He brushed them off and pulled me out of the bar, and back upstairs into the abandoned corner store.
I was glad to be out of that place. I felt like I could finally breathe after having to inhale smokey air for the past half hour. I took in a deep breath, savoring the crispness of the warm night air. I would rather spend my time out here doing nothing than go back in there to watch people try to kill each other. I didn’t see how that qualified as entertainment.
“You should be proud of me, Jasmine,” Mason said when we got outside, lighting up another cigarette.
Jesus, did he ever stop with those?
I shook my head. “I thought it was really mean the way you beat that guy up.”
He chuckled. “That’s boxing.”
“That’s not boxing. You were kicked from the team, right? You’re not really boxing anymore,” I said, frustrated that he didn’t see how insane this whole thing was.
“They kicked me because they’re weak. If you want to be great, you don’t play by the school’s rules. They’re a bunch of pussies. They don’t understand the sport at all,” he said, tapping the ash off the end of his cigarette.
I wanted to tell him that it was he who didn’t understand the sport, but I kept my mouth shut. I suspected he wouldn’t have listened to me anyway. He seemed to be too wrapped up in the money involved to care about how the game was supposed to be played. Something had corrupted this man, and I wanted to know what it had been.
“Why do you want to separate yourself from your family? What’s the point of making money this way?” I asked, trying to keep my voice as sweet and innocent as possible so as not to offend him again.
His facial expressions told me that he didn’t want to answer my question before he even opened his mouth. “I’m an adult. I don’t need to live at home anymore,” he said, only telling me a small portion of the story. He was hiding something.
I sighed. “Well, it’s late. Thank you for inviting me out, but I need to go to bed.”
“What? I wanted to go out to celebrate. Maybe we could hang out in the park and have a drink together,” he suggested.
“No thank you,” I said, wanting to get home as soon as possible and forget I ever came out with him.
Mason groaned. “Fuck, Jasmine. I thought you would have grown up a little since I saw you last.”
“I am grown up,” I said defensively. He had struck a chord in me with that statement. I was insecure about the fact that I had spent the past three years caring for my father instead of doing what other people my age were doing. I felt like I missed out on some formative years that I would have to catch up on if I was going to fit in at Windsor Elite.
Mason chuckled, flicking his cigarette onto the pavement. “Have you ever have sex before?”
“That’s a personal question,” I said, taken aback by his brashness.
“It’s a question that you would answer if you had, but you’re still a virgin, aren’t you?”
I was, but that wasn’t something I felt comfortable talking about. I didn’t care if he viewed me as immature if I hadn’t had sex yet. That’s not what being an adult was about. After seeing what he was doing late at night to make money, I was bet my life that I was more mature than he was.
I crossed my arms. “I’m going home now, Mason. Thanks for bringing me out,” I said dryly.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said, lurching out and grabbing my wrist. “Are you a virgin or not?” He asked, his eyes growing frighteningly intense as his brow furrowed.
“Ouch,” I said, trying to pull my wrist away.
“Answer the fucking question, Jasmine,” he said, shaking me by the wrist. His strength was scary when it was used on me. After seeing what he had done to the man he fought, I was terrified to anger him.
“Yes, yes, I am,” I blurted, yanking my arm.
He let me go, stepped back and pushing his hand through his brown hair. “Cool, I never said that was a bad thing,” he said, trying to act like he hadn’t just nearly attacked me to get the answer.
My wrist stung from his brutal grip, but I was hurt more emotionally that he was behaving this way. Everything he did and said was foreign to me, as though I was looking at a man who had taken Mason’s skin and worn it as a practical joke. I wasn’t laughing.
“Do you remember what I said to you when you left school three years ago?” he asked, growing quiet.
“Of course,” I replied. I remembered everything about that day. I remembered the feel of his soft hand as he held mine, the way he looked into my eyes with such innocence and said –
“I’ll wait for you,” Mason said, his expression blank.
I nodded. “And I said I would be back, and that it wouldn’t be long,” I said, tears coming into my eyes at his acknowledgment of that day.
He pursed his lips, looking down at his dirty sneakers. “You took three years to come back, and I had a lot of time to think during that time.”
“So did I,” I said, trying to look down at his face as he hid it in the shadows.
“You never called me. You never tried to reach out,” he said.
“My father was dying,” I said, “I was young, confused, I didn’t know how to handle all that.” I felt like he was accusing me of neglecting him, but he had done the same.
“We were good friends,” he said, looking back up at me. His eyes were glossy, but I couldn’t tell if that was from his emotions of all the smoke that had drifted around them.
“Yes, best friends,” I said, smiling at the bittersweet memories that we shared.
“But not anymore,” he continued, pulling out the crumpled pack of cigarettes from his back pocket again. “So go home.”
His words hit me hard, and
I felt my stomach sink. My emotions had a stranglehold on my esophagus, making it hard to breathe or swallow. “What?” I asked in a whisper, not sure if I was misinterpreting the words that came from his perfect lips.
“I said,” he repeated louder, “Go home.” His voice was cold and uncaring, something that I never thought I would hear from his mouth.
I felt a shiver run through me even though it was warm outside. I stepped back, taking my time to turn around as though he might stop me and apologize, but he just kept smoking, staring off in another direction and ignoring me entirely.
This had all gone wrong, and as Emma had said, I regretted coming out here with him. She was right. He wasn’t the kind and gentle young man that I had known three years ago. He was a man now, but not a good one. Something had gone wrong. He was as crooked as a splinter stuck straight out of a board, and twice as painful.
I walked away, looking behind me twice to check if he was looking back at me. He wasn’t. He stood silently, smoke wafting through the still night air in front of him. I turned a corner and ran the rest of the way home.
Everything that I had hoped to find when I came back to Windsor Elite was ruined. Emma was probably the only thing about that school that had improved since I left to care for my father. Everything else had either stayed the same or had gotten worse. I was, of course, referring mostly to Mason.
He was undeniably handsome as a grown man, but he wasn’t nearly as nice as he should have been. He was rude, unstable, and just a little bit creepy in the way he looked at me. I felt like he didn’t respect me the way he should have, and I also felt like he blamed me entirely for the lack of communication over the last years.
I wasn’t completely to blame for it, but I was younger back then. I don’t think anyone could blame either one of us for maintaining radio silence. I certainly never held anything against him, and he shouldn’t have either, but it was clear that he did.
At least he still remembered what we had said. I waited for him, but I wasn’t entirely sure if he had waited for me.
The question about my virginity really threw me for a loop, but as I cried into my pillow that night, I realized that he probably hadn’t asked it to try to prove that I was immature. I think he was suggesting that if I had waited for him, that I still would be. Why then, was he so rude to me afterward? I was a virgin, so his reaction made little sense to me.
As confusing as Mason was, I was more turned off by the fact that he was making money by beating people up in a ring and calling it boxing. That, and his nasty smoking habit made me want to forget about him, but it was hard. I had built up this grand image of what he would be like, only to have it torn down when I returned to school. I wished that I could escape and start over, but I had to finish.
So, the next morning, I pulled my tired body out of bed and got ready for my second day back at school. I hoped that today would bring something good instead of more pain.
Chapter 10
I drove to school with the cold air in my car pointed at my face. For some reason, I couldn’t stop crying. Maybe I was just sensitive after my father passed away, but it was starting to get out of control. I had cried until I fell asleep last night, and in the morning, I broke down in tears in the shower.
Now, driving down highway 45 toward Windsor Elite, I found that my body had more tears to produce, urging them out of the glands in my eyes at a rate that was making it hard to see the road.
I turned the music up, trying to drown out my negative emotions with some happy pop music. For some reason, that only made it worse. I turned the smooth knob back down to zero and adjusted the air blowing on my face.
I hadn’t worn any makeup today, but I had hoped that by the time I got to the school parking lot I would be collected enough to put some on. That didn’t look like it would happen now, rolling down the highway with tears rolling down my cheeks and dropping into my lap.
“Fuck,” I exclaimed as I wiped the tears from my face. I was angry that I was crying again. Why couldn’t my body just do what I wanted it to instead of making me look like an emotional wreck at school. It was only the second day and people were going to think I was strange.
I didn’t know what would happen if I was Mason, but I tried not to think about it. I imagined myself being as cold and uncaring toward him as I passed him in the hallway as he had been to me last night. That would feel good, but I knew it wouldn’t happen. I would more than likely break down into tears on sight, having to run to the bathroom to have my flushed and sorrowful face.
I banged my hand on the steering wheel as I drove, yet again wiping the tears from my eyes with my fist. It was hard being such an emotional person. You would have thought that after all I had been through, it would be easy for me to regulate my emotions and control my sadness, but I actually thought that it made me worse. I wasn’t this much of a crybaby three years ago.
“Get it together, Jasmine,” I told myself under my breath as I pulled off the highway and began driving down the street toward the school. “He’s just a stupid boy.”
Yes, a stupid boy that managed to break my heart in a single day. I wasn’t too thrilled about that, but I needed to get over it if I was to survive the rest of the school year. There would be a lot more challenges ahead of me. I was sure of that.
I pulled into the parking lot and stepped out of my car. The sun was beating down on me already, reminding me yet again that summer was going to stretch out longer than I wanted it to. Tennis practice might not be so bad if I didn’t have to bake under this sun every time I went to play.
I followed the throngs of students into the school, keeping a close eye out for Mason so that I could avoid him. The last thing I wanted was to run into him again my accident and have my day ruined.
Except, there was no way for me to avoid it. As I walked to my locker, I remembered that his was right next to mine, and who should be there but the man himself?
“Jasmine, looking good,” he said, as though he hadn’t just told me to fuck off the night before.
“Hey,” I said softly, tilting my head down and fiddling with my lock.
“Sorry about last night, by the way,” he said, pulling open his locker.
I looked up at Mason. His face didn’t look very remorseful, but the words were a godsend. He looked me up and down with those same hungry eyes again, giving a half-smirk as he examined my outfit.
I had worn a short black skirt and a black top, hoping to look nice with an absence of makeup. I didn’t want black mascara running down my face and making me look cheap. I had some self-respect, which was more than I could say for a lot of the other women at this school. Money, it seemed, couldn’t buy class.
“It’s alright,” I said, even though it wasn’t.
“I want you to come out with me again tonight. Maybe we can hang out earlier so you don’t have to rush home again,” he suggested.
“I’d rather not,” I said, yanking at my lock after it failed to open. I wanted to get out of here, but I needed my books first. I could feel Mason’s gaze on me, staring silently after my rejection.
“Are you offended by what I said? I just got frustrated. You were acting like a little prude the whole night, and I don’t appreciate the fact that you didn’t want to support my boxing career.”
“Are you serious, Mason?” I asked, my voice showing a startling amount of anger, even for the way that I felt. “You think what you were doing was right? You’re nothing more than a glorified bully in the ring.”
“Woah now, that’s not how it is at all,” he said, holding up his hands. “I won against that guy fair and square.”
I rolled my eyes. “You have a lot to learn about fairness then.”
Mason banged a fist against his locker as I continued to struggle with my lock. “You’re so difficult to please, you know that? I wanted to reconnect after all these years and all you’re doing is criticizing me for the life I made for myself.”
“Make a different life then,” I spat.
“Fuck you, Jasmine,” he said, slamming his locker.
“Fuck you too,” I shouted, nearly ripping my lock off when it failed to click open again.
“You’re a real bitch now,” he said over his shoulder as he walked away.
I didn’t respond, but the tears in the backs of my eyes threatened to flood out again. It was all I could do to keep them inside, trying to replace the sadness and disappointment with new anger. Mason was a prick, and that was becoming more obvious every minute I spent with him. He couldn’t take criticism, and I didn’t believe that his apology was genuine.
I finally was able to get my lock open when I wasn’t distracted by the handsome, yet terrible, man that I had once known. I pulled the lock off and opened my locker, quickly scooping up the books that I needed for class and fleeing down the hallway so that I wasn’t late.
Chapter 11
I didn’t pay much attention in class for obvious reasons, but the teacher, Mrs. Roadsworth took offense to my casual attitude toward learning. The thing was, I already knew everything that she was talking about and then some. I didn’t need to listen while in her class.
A ruler came down on my desk, snapping me back into reality after I had been consumed by thoughts of Mason. I had been thinking about how perfectly his hair fell against her forehead why I was suddenly brought back to reality. Fantasy was so much better.
“Jasmine, are you going to answer my question?” Mrs. Roadsworth snapped, tapping her ruler against the edge of my desk impatiently.
“I’m sorry, what question?” I asked tilting my head up to her.
She shook her head. “Detention,” she snapped again, twirling around dramatically and striding back to the front of the classroom.
“What?” I said, not believing that she could do that for failing to answer a question. I genuinely hadn’t heard her.
“You’re testing my patience,” she said fluttering his eyelashes at me. There were like little spider legs coming out of her eyes. I didn’t know how a woman’s face could be so feminine and yet so strange and ugly at the same time.