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I’m losing my sense of past and present as I listen to the thunderstorm and tell myself it still shouldn’t affect me. I’m a grown-ass woman who is more than capable of taking care of herself.
…and yet my intense fear of thunderstorms has plagued me from the time I was a small child.
When Mom and Pop adopted me and became my new parents—my only family as far as I knew—they discovered for themselves how traumatized I was. Thunderstorms are no stranger to Texas, which meant several times a year, I was desperately climbing under the covers, crawling under furniture, hiding behind curtains and inside closets.
Though I’m better at disguising it these days, not much has changed.
I urge myself to fall asleep as I lay curled up on the sofa bed. It’s easier if I just… pass out. If I sleep through the storm.
Knuckles tap on the den door. I expect Velma despite the fact that she said she’s out to dinner and will be gone for a few hours.
That’s still more plausible than the alternative—Mason being outside my room.
He knocks again. “Syd?”
My eyes stay shut. My voice sounds tight. “What?”
“You good?”
More rain trickles down. More lightning flashes. More thunder crashes. I flinch and draw the blanket tighter around myself.
“Yes,” I answer stiffly. “I’m fine.”
There’s a pause that’s long enough I assume Mason’s left. He’s shrugged and walked off. And then—
“You don’t sound fine. Something up?”
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
I’d tell him off if I wasn’t so crippled by my intense phobia. Right now it’s taking all the energy I have to remain calm and not freak out. At my worst, I’ve spiraled into incoherent sobs, weeping like a little girl in the rain who just lost her parents all over again.
“I said I’m fine,” I manage. “I don’t want to fuck right now. Go away.”
The offense sounds in his tone. “I wasn’t trying to fuck. I was… this is stupid.”
For a second time, I expect him to walk off. Shrug his shoulders and give up. He hates me so much he’d probably laugh if he saw me like this, hiding under the covers like I’m five-years-old all over again, on the verge of tears.
The door opens and he walks right in.
He stops at the sight of me curled up on the sofa bed.
“You sick?” Then it hits him. “Fuck. Sydney… you’re not… you ain’t pregnant, are you?”
I glare in his direction from the small opening in the blanket I’ve covered myself with.
“No, Mason,” I say, irritated. “I’m not fucking pregnant.”
“Then what’s the problem? You on your rag?”
Another roll of thunder passes through and I flinch, squeezing my eyes shut. “Please just go. You’re making it worse.”
It hits him. He laughs as it does. “Hold up… you’re afraid of the thunderstorm? That it?”
“I said just go!”
The summer rain’s only picked up. It’s showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Which means it’s about to be a long, traumatic evening.
Mason goes nowhere. He digs his hands into his jean pockets and stares at me. The amused bend to his mouth shifts… slightly.
