“I can’t believe it,” Lindsay said, shaking her head. “Are you okay?”
“Fine. I’ll be right back.”
Mason’s room was close by. I’d been there once before, very briefly, during another one of his parties. He wanted to play me a song he and Kaz recorded, and it had been surprisingly good. Despite all of his flaws, Kaz had a nice voice.
I barged into Mason’s room, not bothering to knock, even though he could be in bed with some girl. He wasn’t. He was sitting on his bed, hunched over his phone. He looked up in surprise when he heard me enter.
“You’re dropping out?” I demanded. “Are you insane?”
He stood, his six-two frame dwarfing me even in my heels. “You heard?”
I studied his appearance, looking for any signs of a mental breakdown. There were none. If anything, he looked better than normal. The bags I’d often noticed under his eyes were gone, as if he’d finally managed to get a solid night of sleep.
“Yes, I heard. From Noah. He must be on drugs, because this is the most asinine idea I’ve ever heard.”
A weary smirk tugged on Mason’s lips. “Nah. We took all of them away after he ended up on the roof at the last party.”
“And you decided to sample them?”
“I’m not on drugs, Mol. Kaz and I are moving to LA and are going to try our luck with our band. We’re hoping we can get signed.” He ran a hand through his long blond hair and smiled.
What was there to smile about? All I saw was someone I cared about in the process of making a horrible mistake.
“You are out of your mind.” There were so many things wrong with this I didn’t know where to start. It hurt like a bitch that he hadn’t thought to tell me earlier, or maybe even ask for my opinion on his plan. Yeah, by now I knew he wasn’t interested in me romantically, but I’d thought we were still friends. I guess I held him in much higher regard than he held me. I couldn’t imagine thinking about dropping out without at least talking to him before going through with it.
But I didn’t feel like sharing any of that with him. He didn’t deserve to know what he meant to me. It was clear to me now that we were so different, we may as well be alien species.
“Do you realize how lucky you are to have your parents paying for you?” I demanded. “You’re going to throw it all away on a whim?”
He didn’t even flinch. Here I was, feeling eternally indebted to my sister for getting me to college with her blood, sweat, and tears, and Mason clearly didn’t feel an ounce of that gratefulness for his parents.
“I’m not doing well in my courses,” he said calmly, but the smile fell away.
“And who’s fault is that? I’ve offered to tutor you a dozen times, and you always brush me off.”
He looked away. “I thought you’d be supportive, like you were of your sister,” he said, his tone taking on a note of accusation.
My eyes widened at his audacity at comparing the two situations. They were nothing alike.
“My sister wanted to go to college,” I reminded him. “She didn’t get the opportunity to, and it was something she regretted for a long time. When she got the chance to pursue her dream, I was supportive because she was runningtowardsomething good. Not running away like you are.”
Couldn’t he see it? Why was he justleaving? Leavingme?
“I’m not running away,” he said as he turned and picked up a sweating can of beer off his desk.
“You are. You’re running away with that moron. This was Kaz’s idea, wasn’t it?”
He took a long sip of his drink. “We made the decision together.” I was sure he was lying.
“You know what they say about carefully choosing who you surround yourself with, right? You’re the average of the five people you spend most of your time with. He’s bringing your average down.” I was so mad, I didn’t have the mental capacity to filter what I was saying.
Mason turned to look at me, his eyes narrowed. “Is that why you stopped hanging out with me?”
God, he was infuriating. Did he really think it was somehow my fault we’d drifted apart? He was the one who’d led me on for years with all of his flirting and attention.
I scowled at him. “Yeah, that’s exactly why. And guess what? Kaz is going to ditch you in LA as soon as he grows bored of you. This is a mistake.”
Something dark flashed across his features as he took another long swig. He lowered the empty can down on the desk before eating up the distance between us with two sure steps. “Well, since we’re making mistakes tonight…”
