by Anthology
Maybe he’s with me in this. Maybe we can be more. Maybe.
* * * * *
Mason
Normally, I pride myself on my self-control. But when it comes to Tia, restraint isn’t my strong suit. I shouldn’t have done that—shouldn’t have stayed in her dorm room after helping her bring the equipment back up here or fucked her up against the shaky closet door. But every time I get around her, all my good sense flees my head, and all I can think about is her. Being closer to her, getting inside her. Being with her, period.
She tugs up her jeans and then fixes her shirt, the peek of red lace disappearing with each button refastened. Her hair’s a little messy from when I had my fingers in it, and I sort of love how well-fucked she looks. Especially knowing I’m the one who made her that way.
A quick glance at my watch shows we still have more than a half-hour before her roommate’s due back, and I cringe thinking about how we finally had a chance to get to a bed, to take our time, and I still fucked her like a horny virgin, too impatient to wait.
When she’s presentable again, she smooths a hand over her hair and looks at me. “Thanks for that.”
My eyebrows climb up my forehead at her words, and she laughs. It’s a sound I realize I haven’t heard…ever. It’s high-pitched and musical, totally the opposite of what I’d expect from her. I thought her laugh would be low and husky, almost a mocking sound, but it’s not at all.
“Not for the sex,” she clarifies. “Thanks for doing the interview. It really helped me out.”
“That makes more sense,” I say with a smile. “I was wondering when we ventured into the ‘thanks for sex’ stage.”
“Not yet.”
“So, what do you have to do now?”
“I have class at 12:15.”
“No, I meant with the film.”
“Oh. Um…well, you were my last interview, so I’ll watch all my footage and figure out where I want to go with it—what I want the documentary to say. Then I’ll start editing.”
“Didn’t it get boring asking the same questions to so many different people?”
“Not at all. Everyone has a different perspective and different answers.”
“What about you?” I ask.
“What about me?”
“Have you answered them for yourself?”
“Not really, no.”
“No?” I lean against her wall, hands in my pockets. “Humor me. Why do you only hang out with the people you do? Why don’t you venture into other groups?”
She gets quiet as soon as the questions leave my mouth, and then she studies me. Just stares, her eyes flitting back and forth between mine, and I almost take the questions back, but before I can, she answers.
“I’m afraid of being rejected, I guess.” She says it so softly it’s barely a whisper, but the words shock me so much she might as well have screamed them. Tia’s the most secure person I’ve ever met. Totally comfortable in her own skin. Or so I thought.
“Anyway,” she says, “I should probably start heading to class. It’s all the way across campus.”
With a nod, I follow behind her after she grabs her backpack and heads out of her room. The walk downstairs is quiet, the weight of her confession sitting on my shoulders. Is that why she hasn’t pushed for more with me? Why she’s been satisfied letting this thing between us be a secret? Just because she’s afraid of being rejected?
When we get outside, she turns to me. “Thanks. Again. I’ll see you in class on Monday.”
“Yeah, see ya.”
I watch her walk away, too focused on her that I don’t notice a couple of my fraternity brothers taking in the whole exchange until it’s too late.
“Hey, Brooks,” Trey calls as he comes up to me. “What the hell are you doing over here?” His tone isn’t harsh, just questioning, and I can’t blame him. Normally Thursday mornings are spent at the frat house, whooping some ass on Mortal Kombat.
“Yeah, what’s up with that?” Nick asks, jerking his chin in the direction of Tia. She hasn’t turned around since she walked away, her stride purposeful as she heads to class. I wonder if they see what I do when they look at her—someone strong and resilient and beautiful. Or if they just see the wrapping, the packaging she puts herself in as a means to keep people away.
I nod in greeting. “Hey. I was just helping her with a semester project. She needed to interview an athlete, and we’re in Econ together.” I shrug like it’s no big deal, but it’s clear I’m not fooling anyone. They all stare at me with narrowed eyes, and then Trey glances over my shoulder back toward the building. Every student here knows this is a residency building, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why we’d be in there together.
“Don’t throw away your chance at President for some pussy, man,” he says. “She’s not worth it.”
At the beginning of the year, I would’ve agreed with him. No girl I ever had was worth it, not enough to sacrifice my plans and dreams for. But as we walk away from Tia’s building, heading across the quad, a knot tightens in my stomach at having to silence what I want to say.
That maybe she is worth it. Maybe she’s worth everything.
Chapter 9
Tia
I’ve said a lot of stupid things in my life. Things I wish I could take back because they made me sound like a jackass, or interactions I wish had happened differently. Even with those dozens of instances in my history, I’ve never wanted to take back something as much as I do what I said to Mason after the interview. When I told him my biggest insecurity. When I rolled over in front of him and exposed my underbelly, placed my deepest fear at his feet, hoping…just hoping he wouldn’t crush it. Crush me.
The worst part of it all is that I can’t even talk to anyone about it. Mason and I worked it so this thing between us could only be between us, but I could use a friend’s input. The problem is my closest friend is Piper, and she hates jocks more than I do. Her prejudice of Mason is so ingrained he doesn’t stand a chance, no matter how nice of a guy he is. And he is. Despite the crowd he’s in, the group he surrounds himself with, he’s nice, down to his bones. Wouldn’t matter to her, though. And if I told her I had feelings for him…if I told her I was in love with him? She would flip out. Probably call for an exorcism, because surely I wouldn’t have taken this path of my own free will. Not Tia Lanning, the girl who bucks all conformity, who turns up her nose at the sheep. She would never get involved with one, let alone fall in love.
And yet here I am.
Not having anyone to talk to about this is probably why I am where I am, standing in the quad, a few dozen yards away from Mason and his friends, working up the courage to take that first step. I did a lot of soul searching since last Thursday, after our interview and my realization that I’m in love with him, and I’m not okay with how things are between us. I’m not okay being shoved in the dark anymore. I deserve better than that, especially when it’s more than just a quick fuck for me now. So I decided I needed to test my theory. See how Mason reacts to me in public. If he ignores me, I guess I have my answer. It’ll hurt like hell, and I’ll have to scrape myself up off the ground, but I’d rather it happen now and on my terms than getting blindsided with it later.
Taking one last deep pull from my cigarette, I stub it out, blowing the cloud of smoke in the air before I take off in Mason’s direction. I know the exact moment he and his friends notice me coming, because they all get silent. Every single one of them just stops talking. One of them even elbows another, a non-verbal, get a load of this chick, but I don’t stop walking. Not until I’m standing in front of Mason.
I was so busy looking at his friends, watching their reactions, that I didn’t look at his. And now that I’m right here, close enough to take in every nuance of him, I notice he looks…awful. Like he’s going to be sick. His face is pale, his eyes wide and fearful, like I’m going to tell him I have herpes, and so does he, and oh, hey, I’m pregnant, too. But I know that’s not the fear that has him paralyz
ed. That honor is the simple fact that I’m in front of him and planning to talk to him in public. And with that look, that potent fear in his eyes, all my hope dissolves until it’s just a tiny grain of sand where moments ago it was a mountain.
“Hey,” I say, forcing my voice to come out strong, because I can’t back down now. Instead of saying what I’d planned to—namely, asking him if he wanted to go to a movie or something equally lame—I go to Plan B, hoping to salvage some face at having come over here in the first place. “You know that interview you helped me with for my film project? One of the shots didn’t come out, so I was hoping you’d be able to redo that bit. It’s not a lot. Maybe five minutes?”
His horror transforms to confusion, then relief, and it’s like he’s twisting the knife in my stomach, shoving it deeper to inflict the most damage. “Oh. Sure. Yeah, I can.”
I nod and turn to go, saying, “Thanks. I’ll let you know in class when works.” And then I leave, my shoulders held high as I walk away. I don’t get very far before the snickers start up and a chorus of dudes erupts. I can make out Mason’s voice telling them to shut up.
Then one of his buddies says, “Doesn’t she know Halloween was a couple weeks ago? What a freak.”
That tiny grain of hope that was left still holds out, thinking maybe Mason will speak up. Now would be a great time for him to tell his frat brother to fuck off, that he doesn’t know a damn thing about me. That I don’t deserve to be judged by him. But Mason doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything.
The only sound that reaches me is his laughter joining in with theirs, and that tiny grain of hope is swept away with the rest.
* * * * *
Mason
I choked. It was a stupid thing to do, and I still can’t believe I did—have been kicking myself ever since—but it was a mistake. I keep replaying it in my head, over and over again, and it gets worse each time I relive it. If I had to do it over again, I’d have told Nick to shut his fucking mouth and then gone off with Tia. Maybe asked her if I could walk her to her next class. Maybe reached down and held her hand.
Except I didn’t do any of that. I just stood there like an idiot while they talked smack about her, loudly enough that I know she had to have heard. And the thought that she heard what they said—but worse, what I didn’t say—burns.
The hours I have to wait until our shared class later that afternoon are the longest of my life. When the time finally comes, I don’t even hang back, waiting for her to go in before me so I can figure out where to sit. Instead, I’m the first one there, standing outside the door to the lecture hall, watching as the flood of students comes in. But none of them are Tia.
She’s usually here by now—at least five minutes early every day. But not today. The professor calls the class to attention, and there’s still no Tia. I don’t think twice before I push off the wall and head out of the building in search of her. I can’t leave things like this. I have to find her and hope she understands why I did what I did.
I walk by her dorm, by the dining hall, through the quad, but she’s nowhere to be found. I’ve just about given up when I spot her over by the coffee stand, heading in the opposite direction from me. Without thinking it through, I take off running toward her, needing to see if she’s okay. To apologize. Tell her how stupid I was.
“Tia!” I yell, uncaring of who hears me.
Her shoulders stiffen, but she doesn’t stop or turn around, instead continuing on her path. She doesn’t increase her pace, so it doesn’t take me long to catch up with her. She ignores me as I move in front of her, walking backward to see her face. And suddenly all my words dry up. My apologies, my questions, my reassurances. All I’m left with is, “You aren’t in class.”
“Neither are you.” She still doesn’t look at me, instead staring at some far-off place around my arm.
“Yeah. When I saw you weren’t there, I came to find you. To see, you know”—I swallow, still unable to just say what the fuck I came here to say—“about the film project. When you need me for it.”
It’s a cop-out. I know it, and by the way her eyes narrow, she knows it, too.
She stops walking, so I do, too, and then she finally looks at me. Her eyes rove over my face, studying me. Scrutinizing me. Then she says, “Actually, I got all I need from you. We won’t need to do anything else together.” Her words don’t register until she’s already around me, slipping off to the side and toward a group of people I’ve seen her with before—fellow film students. She doesn’t turn around, doesn’t look at me over her shoulder, and I’m too stunned to do anything but stare. Stare after her and hope this sinking feeling in my gut at her words—words that can mean so much more than just my help with her project—is guilt and not foreshadowing.
Chapter 10
Mason
She never showed up.
After her brush-off in the quad that day, I figured as much. But still, I hoped. I went to the parking lot of our usual meeting place and waited for her, hoping she’d come. So I could tell her everything I had hours to think about. Everything I should’ve said in the first place. But after twenty, thirty, forty-five minutes passed, I wasn’t so sure. When more than an hour went by and she still didn’t show up, I knew. She was done with me. With us.
But, really, could I blame her?
I didn’t give her any reason to stick around, to stick it out. In fact, I gave her every reason not to. She put herself on the line, revealed her insecurity to me, and I didn’t do anything but let her hang out to face the storm by herself. Worse, I made that very insecurity come true.
Days have bled into weeks, and she still doesn’t look at me in Econ. She slips into the lecture hall just before class starts and is out the door the second the professor dismisses us, never once sneaking a glance in my direction. Meanwhile, I can’t stop looking at her. Looking for her wherever I go.
She’s all I see.
I want her. In my bed, in my life. And I don’t care who knows it anymore.
I just hope that realization didn’t come too late.
* * * * *
Tia
I had no idea it’d be so hard to move on. To forget Mason. We only shared a handful of weeks together, but now it’s like I can’t go anywhere without seeing him. When I’m at Spin, he’s there, his ghost in the listening booths. When I’m working on my film, his presence surrounds me as I edit. As if his voice in my head wasn’t bad enough, I have to watch him, too, and listen to his words on my work of art. I have to constantly relive the day that changed everything. When I’m in my room, he’s there, taking up too much of my space, and I can’t escape.
But I’ve tried. Oh, how I’ve tried. I ignore him in the (thankfully) only class we have together. I dodge him in the quad, turn and head in the opposite direction when I see him coming. It’s not that I’m afraid of seeing him. I just…don’t want to deal with the pain.
Instead, I’ve thrown myself into my film, rearranging bits of it, reworking it until it’s near perfection, getting ready for the semester showcase in a couple weeks.
Despite my obvious lack of interest, Mason hasn’t given up. The first week, he slipped notes under my door—single sentence pleas. I’m sorry and I wasn’t thinking and Give me another chance, please taking up more space in my brain and my heart than they did on the tiny wisps of paper.
The second week, he started writing things on the whiteboard hanging on our door. Inconsequential things that no one else would have any idea what they mean, but they meant something to us. Single words—Denny’s and Spin and balance—crushing my soul more than I ever could’ve thought possible. With a different word showing up every day, Piper finally asked who my secret admirer was, and after a night of too much Boones Farm, I spilled the whole sordid affair. It ended with me in a pile of tears, hugging the toilet, hungover on cheap wine and too many emotions, wishing I’d never met Mason.
That feeling hasn’t changed.
The door opens and Piper comes into our room. “Hey. T
his was in the hall,” she says as she tosses a cassette toward me, the small rectangle bouncing on my mattress, just my name written across the front label.
“What’s this?”
She shrugs and tosses her bag on her bed. “It was in front of our door. I assume it’s another gift from your secret admirer.”
Thankfully, she hasn’t said much since I spilled all the details. I think she hates him on principle just for the simple fact of what he did to me. But at the same time, she wants me to be happy, and I think she realizes he made me happy. Before. She just wants to help me get back to that place.
I look at the small tape, an innocuous thing, really, but it might as well be a snake for how I stare at it.
“Come on, T, listen to it. Maybe…I don’t know…maybe he gets it right this time.”
But that’s the thing… I don’t have to listen to it to know he doesn’t get it right. Because in the end, he can’t say anything to erase the damage he caused. He can’t rewind time, go back to the day everything came crashing down around me, the truth ringing loud and clear in his silence and laughter. “What could he possibly say that would make it okay?” I don’t wait for her answer before I take the cassette and grip the silky tape at the bottom, pulling and pulling and pulling until my bed looks like a graveyard for tape reels. Then I scoop up the pile and walk over to the garbage can, throwing it in and going back to my bed.
“Message received,” Piper says with a nod. Then she comes over to me, bouncing on my mattress. “Let’s go out tonight.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“Come onnnnn. You never feel like it anymore. Some of us still need to get laid. Come out with me, please? A few people are heading to Moe’s. It’s open mic night,” she sing-songs, knowing how much I usually love going.