I laugh humorlessly. “God, I’m so embarrassing. Everyone’s gonna be all ‘Hey, how’d you break your hand?’ And I’m gonna have to be like ‘Well, actually, I was tryna be all tough and punch someone. But jokes on me because his face broke my hand!’”
“Hey,” Mason says, “if you didn’t break your hand throwing a punch, you wouldn’t really be Amelia Collins. You like to keep things interesting. Never a dull moment with you.”
I’m technically not really Amelia Collins, but I get what he means. My life is just one constant shit show after the other.
“Yeah, I guess.” I sigh. “It might just be karma for punching a guy whose dad just died.”
“Aiden punched him and everything’s working out just fine for him,” Mason mumbles.
My head snaps over to look at him, but he’s not even looking at me, focusing on driving.
“I wish Anna could’ve seen it.” I change the topic. “She would’ve been so proud. How many times has she wanted to punch him? Like, a million. Actually, she probably would’ve done it first.”
“Yeah. She probably wouldn’t have broken her hand either.”
I scowl at him and he laughs, the old, effortlessly charming Mason back as his chocolate-brown eyes light up with mischief.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He smiles. “Too early for jokes?”
“At least wait until after we leave the doctor’s,” I reply, not mad at him in the least.
“Deal.” He laughs.
We eventually check into urgent care, since it’s almost midnight and everything else is closed. They give me an ice pack for my finger and we sit in the waiting room in chairs that are infuriatingly similar to the ones in the police station waiting room. Do all waiting rooms have furniture from Shitty Chairs Are Us? At least it’s much quieter here than at the station, and the air isn’t as suffocating, but it still smells like disinfectant.
“Hey, that was cool of your dad to do what he did for Aiden and the twins,” I tell Mason as we wait.
“Yeah, my dad’s great. I’ll deny it if you repeat this because I need my street cred, but I wouldn’t mind ending up just like him.”
“He is good looking, so you’re halfway there,” I joke.
“Oh, so you think I’m good looking?”
My smile mirrors his. “No, you’re not listening, I said your dad’s good looking.”
He barks out a surprised laugh and I think back to what his dad did for Aiden. “But seriously, that was awesome for your dad to suggest becoming their legal guardian. I guess that technically makes them your foster brothers.”
Mason shakes his head. “I’ve known Aiden for years. We’ve been through some shit. I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me he’s my brother.”
That statement makes my heart swell. I wish someone felt like that about me. Mason shuffles his feet and shifts uncomfortably in his chair. I can tell he wants to ask me about Aiden, but I’m not ready to talk about it—it’s easier to talk around it. “What did your mom say about it all?”
“Oh, she thinks it’s a fantastic idea. If anything, she’s upset I didn’t say anything earlier,” he admits sheepishly. Mason gets the hint and keeps the conversation in safe, let’s not address the elephant in the room territory. “Did you tell your mom about any of this stuff going on?”
I laugh humorlessly. “My mom and I don’t have that kind of close relationship. We don’t really tell each other things unless it’s absolutely necessary. If anything, we usually hide stuff from each other.”
Mason frowns. “Why do you say that? I’m sure she doesn’t hide stuff from you.”
I think about his statement. “She has this new, secret boyfriend I have yet to meet, or even know anything about. She’s always giggling at his texts and coming home late when I know she doesn’t have a flight.”
“Secret boyfriend, huh? Is he a secret agent or fugitive or something?”
“No. I’m sure he’s just a regular, run of the mill, boring man. He’s just a secret from me.”
“Why is that?”
I sigh and honestly consider it. “I don’t know. I think she thinks I’m not ready to see her with someone who isn’t my dad. I want her to be happy, and I already know their marriage was crumbling before he died. I don’t think it’d be a big deal if I met him, or even just knew his name.”
Mason purses his lips in thought. “Maybe she just doesn’t know how she feels about him yet. She wouldn’t want to introduce someone she isn’t one hundred percent certain about to her daughter.”
“Maybe.”
It feels good to talk this through with Mason, and I’m really glad he’s here with me. We are friends, and I don’t want him to forget that even if I know how I feel about Aiden now, and how Aiden feels about me.
“Are you really close with your mom then?” I ask.
“Yeah, I guess I’m a mamma’s boy, but don’t tell anyone.” He laughs, but his smile falters. “I just feel bad for her sometimes. My dad really wants this promotion at his marketing firm, so his work is getting busier and more demanding. He’s spending later nights, more time locked in the office on the phone. I’m proud of him and his accomplishments—he’s already pretty up there in the company—but I hate that my mom’s alone a lot. He’s even supposed to go on a business trip next week, and I just wish they didn’t send him on one over Christmas break, you know?”
“Are they doing something after he comes back?” I ask.
“The weekend after school starts again my mom is going to surprise him with a romantic getaway. So guess who has a free house to throw a party?”
“Please, Mason. I’m sure we’re going to see you, like, every day over the break. I think we’ll be too sick of you to spend the next weekend with you again.”
“‘Sick of’ and ‘Mason’ have never been uttered in the same sentence before, unless the words ‘not being with’ are in the middle.” He winks, making me laugh and I lightly hit him with the back of my good hand.
“I miss just hanging out with you, k-bear.” His tone is serious and thoughtful. “It’s nice to talk things through with you.”
“I said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’m fantastic,” I joke, and he rolls his eyes at me, still smiling.
“I think all the blood’s rushing from your head to your hand.” He nods at my swollen finger.
“Probably, but it doesn’t make my statement any less true,” I tease. “I like talking to you, too, Mason. That’s why we’re bestest friends.”
An unknown emotion passes over his face briefly before he masks it, smiling at me, but not genuinely.
“Yeah,” he says. “Bestest friends.”
It takes about an hour, but we finally see the doctor, and after looking at my X-rays, she tells me I dislocated the middle knuckle of my middle finger and it has to be realigned. It takes her about one-point-three seconds to pop it back in. I have to keep my middle finger taped to my pointer finger for about four weeks, visual evidence of my complete failure. But in my defense, I can’t feel that bad about dislocating my finger from punching Ryan. The doctor said it happens to lots of people who punch hard objects, even if she did add that it was usually walls or inanimate objects. Still, I’m counting that as a win. My status in the cool kids club hasn’t been revoked just yet.
8
Urgent care was shockingly fast and by the time Mason drops me off, it’s almost two in the morning. Sticking my head into my mom’s dark room, I announce that I’m home from hanging out with my friends and slip off before she wakes up enough to question me. I’m too tired to tell her about my finger right this minute. I’ll explain later, when I’ve come up with a good enough lie. After sending Aiden a text, quickly brushing my teeth and slipping into my pajamas, I take my sleeping pill and crawl into bed, sinking into the warmth and softness of my sheets.
Aiden calls me not even two minutes after my head hits the pillow. I tell him what happened with my finger, and he seems more amused than anything.
“Guess that means I have to teach you how to throw a proper punch when you’re feeling better,” he says, his voice laced with amusement.
“I know how to throw a punch, Aiden,” I complain. “Ryan must have, like, a metal plate in his jaw or something.”
“I can assure you that he doesn’t.” I can almost hear the smirk in his voice over the phone. “But when you’re better I will teach you. It’ll make me feel better.”
“Make you feel better?” I ask incredulously. “How will it make you feel better? I’m the one who’s gotta change the tape on my fingers every twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”
“Well, if you’re going to keep going around punching people despite my protests, I’d rather you not hurt yourself every single time.”
“God, I’m never going to live this down, am I?”
He chuckles, a beautiful deep melody to my ears. “Give it a couple of days. It’ll pass.”
“How are the twins?” I ask, turning onto my back and staring up at the ceiling.
“They’re having lots of fun here at Julian’s, but poor Bubba’s started hiding when he hears their voices—they’re having too much fun terrorizing the poor dog when all he wants to do is sleep.” He chuckles. “They’re excited about Christmas but wondering how Santa will know that they’re going to be staying at Mason’s over the break instead of at home. I assured them that Santa knows everything and guaranteed them that they’ll still get their presents no matter where we are.”
“Have you heard from Anna?” I ask. “My calls are going straight to voice mail.”
“Yeah, Julian said she’s fine—she just unplugged for a while to relax. But they’re coming to Mason’s tomorrow.”
“I’m glad Anna feels better,” I reply, then, after a pause, softly add, “And I’m glad Greg is out of your life. You shouldn’t have to spend it always looking over your shoulder.”
It sucks, I should know. Aiden always understands the deeper meanings. “I know,” he says quietly. “It’ll get better, Thea. I won’t let him hurt you.”
I turn my head to look at my closet, the door wide open, and stare at the shoe box with my memories and reminders inside, recalling the conversation my mom had with Agent Dylan. The connection on the phone crackles with our silence.
No, Aiden. I won’t let him hurt you.
On Sunday morning when my mom walks into the kitchen, her eyes go straight to the tape on my fingers.
“What happened?” She moves to grab my hand, but I pull it away.
“I’m fine, I dislocated my finger. It’ll be back to normal in a couple of weeks.”
She narrows her brown eyes at me, her face serious. “And how did that happen?”
I shrug. How would she react if I told her I punched a guy? That’s definitely not keeping my head down and staying out of trouble like I’m supposed to be doing.
“You don’t know?” she deadpans, propping her hand on her waist.
I have to stop myself from getting defensive since that’s a sure sign of guilt. “You know me, I’m superclumsy. I was being silly with Char and Anna and ended up banging my hand on the table.”
Nothing about her disbelieving facial expression changes except a raised eyebrow. She’s totally not buying it. “You banged it on a table?”
“Yes, Mother. What do you think I did? Punch a guy?” I lace my voice with as much sarcasm as I can, even though that’s exactly what I did.
She studies me for a moment longer before turning around and pulling a box of cereal out of the pantry. “If I know my daughter, that’s exactly what she did.”
I freeze. Is she spying on me again?
“Ha-ha,” I say dryly.
She grabs a bowl and pours herself some cereal. “You need to be more careful, though. Stop adding to your list of injuries.”
“Yes, Mom,” I say in a flat tone, just to stop the impending lecture.
“And while you’re at it, stop sneaking boys in.”
My head snaps up to look at her. She’s not even looking at me, her back turned to me as she rummages through the fridge.
“What?”
She grabs the milk and turns back to me. “This is the first time I’ve properly seen you since Friday night, so don’t think I forgot to yell at you for letting that boy stay over on Friday.”
Shit. After her reprimanding text I thought she’d drop it. I thought I’d gotten away with that. I open my mouth and close it, no sound coming out.
“He wasn’t in my room!” It’s all I can say.
She pours the milk into her cereal and places it back in the fridge. “I know, I checked your room. But seriously, Amelia? This is why we need to move. You really think it’s smart to let this boy sleep over? You don’t even know him.”
“His name is Aiden, Mom. And I do know him.” My voice creeps up. I’m trying really hard to stay calm and talk to my mom like an adult and not throw a tantrum like I really want to. “I was helping a friend. I’m allowed to have those.”
She sits down at the table in front of me. “You can have a friend. You cannot have a boy sleeping in my house without my permission.”
“Would you have given me permission if I had asked?”
She glances up from her cereal and sends me a look that says, Really?
“And that’s why I didn’t ask,” I mumble, pushing around the remnants of the cereal in my own bowl. “He couldn’t go home.”
“Why not? He didn’t even sleep in your room, so what was the purpose of the sleepover? Why couldn’t he go home?”
Great. Now I’ve done it. She already doesn’t like Aiden, and here I am giving her more ammo against him. I can just imagine how that conversation would go: Well, Mom, he was arrested for killing his stepdad and his house is a crime scene. Yeah, that would earn him all the brownie points with my mom.
“He just couldn’t,” I mutter, standing up from the table to escape more questions. “Next time I’ll tell him to park around the block, okay?”
“Amelia!” she exclaims, a frown on her face. “That wasn’t the lesson you should be taking away from this. Don’t be a smart-ass.”
I inhale deeply as I try to keep my frustration from escaping. “And what should the lesson be, Mom? That I’m destined to live alone? That I’m not allowed to talk to anyone? That I’m supposed to be miserable until I die? If that’s the case, why don’t you just ship me to Bum-Chuck-Nowhere in the middle of the Arctic, where I’ll be the only person around for ten thousand miles?”
“You’re being dramatic, Amelia.”
I push through the lump in my throat. “I’m trying really hard to not hate my life, Mom. If I’m not allowed to live my life then I might as well just let Tony find me.”
“Amelia!” She’s been relatively calm throughout this conversation, but that made her mad. She takes a breath. “I know it’s been hard on you Amelia … Thea,” she adds on quietly. “But we’re doing all of this to keep you safe. I love you and I want you to be happy, but most importantly I want you safe. If that means making some sacrifices then that’s what we’ll do.”
I look away from her. “You don’t understand. You got to have your high school experience. You get to leave and go anywhere and be anyone you want. You even get to have a boyfriend. I just don’t want to live my life by going through the motions.”
She’s quiet for a moment as she looks out the sliding door. “When you become a parent, you don’t ever think this is something you’ll have to deal with. I’m doing my best, Amelia.”
I hesitate, the anger draining from my body even though I really want to stay mad. I think back to how she’s making us leave, tearing me away from my friends, while she’ll still be able to take flights to visit her boyfriend.
“Well, your best sucks.” I turn to run out of the room before she can say anything else, not even caring that I rudely left my half-eaten bowl of cereal on the table for her to clean up.
“This is seriously the best empanada I’ve ever had,” I tell Natalia, M
ason’s mom, as I stuff my face with seconds.
She laughs as she puts down a tray of other finger foods on the couch sectional in front of us. All of our friends are sitting in Mason’s basement on a large, black, U-shaped couch that accommodates us all nicely. There’s a flat screen TV mounted to the wall in front of us tuned to the news, though no one’s really paying attention to the guy running for governor who is making a speech. It’s really just background noise.
“I’m glad you’re all enjoying it,” she says, brushing her dark hair out of her face. “I always tell Mason to invite you all over more often.”
Mason loads his plate with the new food she just brought in, talking around a full mouth. “And I told you that I don’t wanna share your food.”
She playfully swats the back of his head, distracting him long enough for Noah and Chase to grab the last two chicken wings he was reaching for.
“Not cool, guys!” Mason directs his comment at the two food thieves, who just smile as they stuff their faces.
“Relax, I have more,” Brian announces as he comes down the stairs with a tray of hot chicken wings, not even getting to set them down before everyone’s grabbing them off the tray.
Brian shakes his head and sits at the end of the couch. “Wow, you’d think you guys haven’t seen food in weeks.”
“Don’t look at us,” Annalisa says, gesturing to me and Charlotte. “We’ve just learned to adapt. If we’re not fast enough, they finish all the food.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Mason agrees with a mouth full of food, and Natalia swats him again.
“Manners,” she scolds, but she’s smiling anyway. “Do you boys want something before it’s all gone?” she asks Jason and Jackson, who are sitting in the entertainment section of Mason’s basement, a foot away from the television, playing a video game.
“No,” they shout back in unison.
“No, thank you.” Aiden reprimands them, and the boys repeat the phrase robotically.
“Sorry.” Aiden looks back at Natalia a bit sheepishly. “I bought them that video game as an early Christmas present and they’ve become obsessed.”
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