by Lina Langley
“With Hashim and Brandon?”
“No,” he said, furrowing his brow. “No, no. Like, uh, a…”
I sucked on my straw, unsure of what I was supposed to say. I let the water fill my cheeks as Jules fidgeted in his seat.
He cleared his throat and looked right at my face. “Like a date, Mason,” he said.
I choked on my icy water. I covered my face with my hand, trying my best to stop the coughing, trying to compose myself so that I wouldn’t make him feel bad. My cheeks were red and my eyes were watering, both from the choking and from the shock of what he’d just said.
I could feel his gaze on me. I wanted to turn around, tell him that it wasn’t his fault, that I hadn’t intended to react like that. He was handing me a napkin when I finally managed to set my gaze on him. I dabbed my eyes with it, then wiped my mouth, then crumbled it and set it on the table in front of me.
People were staring. I shook my head, waving my hand and telling everyone that I was fine, trying my best to ignore the boy sitting across the table, still waiting for an answer.
When people stopped looking at us, I turned my entire body back toward him and cleared my throat.
He was looking at me, a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes on his face. “It’s okay,” he said. “I get it.”
I shook my head. “No, Jules,” I said. “You don’t.”
“I think I do,” he replied. “You’re going to say no.”
I took in a deep breath. My heart was beating so fast, and there was a part of me that wanted to say yes. A part of me that was so strong it scared me. I wanted to say yes, I wanted to go to a movie with him, I wanted to hold hands and get popcorn and talk about his favorite actors.
But I couldn’t. The very thought of it should have made me sick. Even if I could see myself leaning over and kissing him on the lips, even if the very thought of it made me weak at the knees, even if his was the last face I thought about whenever I was drifting off to sleep.
I shook my head slowly. I didn’t dare look at him. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t.”
“It’s okay,” he replied. I could hear the disappointment in his voice. He cleared his throat then spoke again. “Whatever, I figured you were straight anyway. I just didn’t want to not take a chance.”
“I’m not,” I said, then rolled my eyes when I saw the way he was staring at me. “I mean, I don’t think so. I’ve never been with anyone, and there’s no… I don’t know, real push either way.”
He furrowed his brow, staring at me. “But you’re a teenager.”
“I know,” I replied. “I guess I’ve always been too busy to think about it.”
“Too busy,” he echoed.
I sighed. “Please,” I said. “Don’t take it like that.”
“How am I supposed to take it, Mason?” he asked quietly. “Rejection is one thing, but you’re really not helping me keep any shred of my dignity here.”
I leaned over and dropped my voice to a whisper. I could see the little grey specs in his eyes, the way his pupils glimmered, the way his eyelashes curled up and made his eyes look bigger. “I want to say yes, Jules,” I said. “I would love to go out with you. I just, I can’t.”
He waited a second, his expression softening. “You can totally just not want to.”
I chuckled dryly. “Yeah, I wish I didn’t want to,” I said. “But there are things about me you don’t know, okay? Things that would change everything. We can’t date, Jules.”
“You could at least give me a chance,” he said. “Everyone has baggage, Mason. You don’t have a monopoly on it.”
“I can’t,” I said, my voice a little more than a whine.
He groaned, then waved his hand in front of his face. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. You don’t want to go out with me, it’s not something I should be giving you shit for.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, tilting my head back to stop the tears from sliding down my cheeks. “I—it’s okay if you don’t want to be my friend anymore.”
He laughed. My gaze fell on his face, and I was surprised to see the grin. “Don’t be ridiculous, Mason,” he said.
“I thought—”
“Just because you rejected me?” he asked with a wink. “No offense, but I think I’ll live.”
“So you’re not mad?”
“No,” he replied. “A little stung, maybe, but it’s just a rejection. I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes,” he said. “You and me? We’re going to be friends forever.”
He said with such conviction, that just for one second, I believed him. And everything was okay.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MASON
I couldn’t stop thinking about him. It was like a flick had been switched on in my brain after he had asked me out, and the way he had reassured me that we would always be friends had made me lose any hope that I could simply get over him.
I needed to. There was something visceral inside of me that said I shouldn’t care so much about him, at least not like that, but he seemed like less a brother to me than all the foster siblings I’d ever had before. I had to begin putting people between us, because there were a few times when I thought about what it would be like if I just reached over for his hand at that moment.
If I just grabbed it and we walked together down the hallway, our fingers intertwined, or if I put my arm around his waist and held him close to me.
I yearned for his smile and the way he and Hashim giggled with each other before they opened the door to our bedroom always made me sit up and get giddy with anticipation. I didn’t want to be excited about it—I beat myself up about it when I was alone and told myself that such thoughts were sick, but it felt hollow and never rang true. Our blood relationship with each other felt brittle and artificial, like sugar glass. But his presence always felt real, and I always wanted more of him.
My life felt better around him, like everything had more of a shine, like I could see everything a little more clearly.
I looked up at the ceiling, my hands behind my head, my elbows pointing out of the bed, when I heard Brandon laugh. I glanced at him to see that he wasn’t doing anything but looking at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “It’s nothing.” I rolled my eyes.
“Okay, sorry, I have to say something,” he said. “I can’t stop myself.”
I groaned, putting a pillow over my head and groaning. “Stop staring at me,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he said, laughter in his voice. “You’re just so… how do I say this?”
I groaned again.
“You’re just so easy to read,” he said. I could feel my bed shift as he sat down next to me. He removed the pillow and I rolled my eyes at him. “Look, I don’t give a fuck what you do, but Hashim keeps wanting me to play Cupid and he’s not going to get off my ass until I do.”
I looked up at him. His eyes were a dark blue and he always looked like he was about to tell the world’s funniest joke. I sat up. “What do you care what Hashim says?”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he said. “I guess I think you guys are cute too.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Did Jules talk to you?”
“Jules doesn’t need to talk to me,” Brandon said. “Move over.”
I did as I was told, leaving him a space to get in the bed next to me. “Look,” he said. “The way you two look at each other, it’s sort of… beautiful? I’m going to go for beautiful.”
I shook my head. “You can’t say that.”
“What do you mean?”
I licked my lips. “You don’t understand,” I said. “You don’t have all the information.”
“So tell me the information,” Brandon said. “Give me something to work with here, Mason.”
I sat up. Our shoulders were touching. Brandon reached into his pocket, grabbed a lighter and then leaned over to open the nightstand drawer. He grabbed a book a
nd opened it, flashing the hollowed-out pages at me. My gaze darted between the blunt and Brandon’s face.
He raised his eyebrows. “I already stuffed a towel under the crack of the door.”
I smiled at him. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, lighting it up and taking a puff. “If anything happens, I’ll take the blame. My parents donated the new stadium.”
“Is that right?” I asked, taking a hit when he handed it to me.
“You don’t think I stay here through my good looks, do you?”
I smiled. “I wouldn’t know,” I said. “But you’re smart. It doesn’t surprise me that you’re here at all.”
He laughed, throwing his head back and hitting it against the wall. “Aw, fuck,” he said. “Nah, man. You’re just being nice.”
“You’re smarter than me,” I said, then laughed. “You’re right, it’s not hard. My bad.”
He laughed with me, taking another hit. “So what is it? Do you really not like him?”
I licked my lips. “No,” I said, taking another hit, letting the smoke fill up my lung. “No, no, it’s the opposite.”
“Color me surprised,” he said.
I rolled my eyes as I watched him exhale. “You can’t tell him,” I said. “I really do have my reasons.”
“You need to stop doing that,” Brandon said.
“Doing what?” I asked, handing him the almost finished blunt.
“Dangling your reasons like that,” Brandon replied. “Jules is strong, but he’s sad, too. He really likes you, and you act like you like him too, and it’s confusing.”
I nodded. “I know,” I said. “It’s confusing for me too.”
“So do it,” Brandon said. “It’s not wrong to go after things you want to go after. Not if it would make you happy.”
“It’s not about that,” I said. “It’s not about whether I would be happy or not.”
He put his head on my shoulder. “You’re wrong,” he said. “You are allowed to be happy.”
I could feel my eyes welling up with tears again. Brandon and I had become close, he was a good friend, but he was Jules’ friend before he was my friend. There was a huge chance that, if I told him the truth, he would tell Jules.
And I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t do that to him.
I couldn’t do it to any of us.
“There are so many things about my life that he doesn’t know,” I said. “Things that I don’t think he’ll ever know.”
“You don’t want him to know,” he said, more to himself than to me.
“He would never look at me the same,” I said. “It would hurt him.”
“Don’t you think it would be better to let him make that call?”
I licked my lips. “If I tell you a secret…”
“I won’t tell him,” he said, moving away from me and looking into my eyes. “I promise.”
“And Hashim?”
He smiled at me. “No,” he said. “You should know I won’t tell anybody.”
“I do, I’m just worried,” I said, looking away from him. I could see a sliver of my reflection in the corner of the bathroom mirror. I took a deep breath before I spoke. “I’m going to tell him, y’know, the thing. I just haven’t been able to bring myself to do it.”
“He already knows you’re a virgin,” Brandon said, chuckling to himself. “You told us all that very first day.”
I ignored him. My head felt light and heavy at the same time and my mouth was dry. “I don’t want to tell him yet because I know it’s going to change everything,” I said. “And right now, I’m just… I don’t know, I’m enjoying what we have together. I know that’s fucked up, but I want it to keep going for as long as possible. I want to enjoy it for as long as I can.”
“Maybe you’re not giving him enough credit,” Brandon said quietly. “He can be pretty understanding.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “Right,” I said. “That’s what I’m worried about. Like, how immoral is it to keep him in the dark because I like him?”
“Will it hurt him if you tell him the truth?”
I thought for a second. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m pretty sure it will.”
Brandon closed his eyes and tilted his head. “I don’t know, man,” he said. “This one is a bit of a mind fuck.”
“Such a mind fuck.”
“But you love him, right?” he asked. “And that’s all that matters. At least that’s what people say.”
“Yeah,” I said, biting my lower lip. “That’s what they say.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JULES
It was a nice, sunny Sunday, and we were driving down toward the lake. Hashim had called shotgun and he kept fiddling around with the radio, even though I had specifically told him I was in charge. We had cycled through greatest hits through to the eighties until we had finally settled on Lady Gaga.
Neither Hashim nor Brandon were that into her—at least that was what they said until “Born This Way” came on and they started to sing and dance along.
I looked at the rearview mirror at Mason, who looked unusually pensive. I turned the radio down as Hashim and Brandon booed and jeered. “Guys, shut up,” I said, speaking over them. “Are you okay, Mason?”
They quieted down instantly.
He looked at me and smiled. “Yeah,” he said.
“He’s still worried about that exam,” Brandon said. “But he shouldn’t be. Mason, you were so prepared.”
He looked at Brandon and flashed him a tight smile. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”
“It’s been a couple of months,” Hashim offered. “You’ve gotten a lot better. Jules is always talking about how smart you are.”
Mason nodded, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t even pick up his gaze to look at me. I checked my surroundings, then pulled over to the shoulder of the road. “What’s happening?” Hashim said.
“I thought we’d try something fun,” I said. “Hashim, swap places with me. Mason, you’re getting in the driver seat.”
Mason put his hand on the back of my seat and leaned into me to talk. “I don’t have a license,” he said quietly.
“I know,” I replied. “And everyone here does, so it’s only fair that we give you a chance too, isn’t it?”
He cleared his throat. “Are you sure about this?”
“Yes,” I said. “You’re always talking about how much it sucks that your foster dad didn’t get to teach you as much as you would have liked, so we’ll teach you.”
“Yes!” Hashim said. “Communal driver’s ed. Fun.”
“Nerds,” Brandon said quietly, but he was smiling. After a little more arguing, I had finally managed to convince them all and we began to shuffle around the car. Mason took the driver seat. He was already pretty good at it, he just needed a few reminders. By the time we got to the national park, we were all in good spirits and Mason seemed like he was enjoying himself a little bit.
“Hey guys,” I said toward the back seat. “Do you mind finding a good spot while we park? You know it can get a bit packed here on weekends.”
“Sure,” Brandon said, making kissy noises. Hashim elbowed his side, but they were both snickering.
“Get out of my car,” I said, rolling my eyes as they took forever to get their shit and get out.
“I know how to park, Jules,” Mason said as soon as they close the door behind them. “In case you didn’t know that.”
“I did know that,” I said. “I just wanted to talk to you.”
“Jules…”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not that predictable,” I said. “I mean, I would love to ask you out until you said yes, but even I know that won’t work.”
Mason exhaled through his mouth. “It’s not that—”
“That you don’t want to, I know, you’ve told me this a million times. No, no, that’s not what I’m talking about.”
“What are you talking about?”
I looked a
way from him. I didn’t really want him to know how much attention I was paying to him, because I was worried he was going to think that it was weird, but part of me didn’t care. It was more important that he know that I was there, that he know that I cared about him. “It’s not the exam,” I said. “What is really going on?”
He found a parking spot and began to maneuver so he could back into it. “I can’t tell you.”
“Please,” I said. “That’s so tired.”
He looked at me for a second.
“Whatever, you have your secrets, but you can’t just be secretive,” I said, adding jazz hands for effect. “If doesn’t work if you don’t at least drip feed us information.”
He laughed, but there was no humor in his voice. “I’m not actually trying to be mysterious,” he said. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I really do want to tell you these things.”
“Yeah, yeah, you said,” I replied as he backed into the parking spot. “Damn, you’re good at that.”
He smiled at me. “I’m good at getting in tight spaces.”
I cleared my throat, my cheeks red. I hated it when he did that, flirting with me even though we both knew that I had no chance with him, that the two of us could never be together. He saw the look on my face and cast his gaze down as he killed the ignition. “Sorry,” he said. “That was mean.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Will you stop deflecting and just tell me what’s bothering you? I promise I won’t stop being your friend.”
He shook his head. “I’ll tell you,” he said. “But you can’t promise that.”
“Why not?” I said, smiling at him.
He smiled back at me, but he was shaking his head. “Just trust me,” he said. “It’s not in your best interest.”
“Whatever,” I replied. “You’re still avoiding the topic.”
He side-eyed me for a second, then shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll tell you.”
I watched as he took the keys out of the ignition and then handed them to me. I could feel how warm his hand was, even though he only touched me for the briefest of moments.
“But you can’t—”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t tell anyone.”
He licked his lips. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you,” he said. “I’m just sort of ashamed.”