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My chest squeezes as I remember that night back in September, the one year anniversary of Izzy’s disappearance, and what I asked of him deep into the night, unable to help my worry from encroaching on us.
“I trust you,” I’d told him.
Hoping that would be enough.
Hoping he wouldn’t be so weak as to cave to the lulling lure of prescription painkillers. I could tell from the second they kicked in that night—the way he seemed to just sort of melt into this relaxed version of Mason I’d never met before, not even before Izzy, that prescribing those pills was a mistake.
But what the fuck could I do? He was hurting.
But now he’s always hurting…
“Jer?” he says gruffly, pulling me back to the present. He’s not slurring, but that’s what’s so sneaky about the pills.
It’s easy to pretend it’s helping him more than hurting him.
“Yeah?” I say quietly, finally speaking.
“Do you…”
Emotion momentarily steals his voice, but I feel the weight of whatever it was he was about to say nonetheless. Feel it in the rapid panicked pattering of his heart against my ear. And I understand. Even before he gets the words out, I get it now—why he’s as tense as he is. Why he trembles. Why his heart is threatening to burst from his chest.
“Do you still feel her?”
Because of course. Of course he thinks that’s what this is all about.
My fingers flex against his side, sinking into that soft spot under his ribs, getting twisted and lost in his shirt.
“Yes,” I lie, like I always do.
And he exhales, like he always does.
I try to push off him to pull myself away…
But he doesn’t let me.
Everything in me goes pliant, and I’m jello.
Strong, lean arms creep higher, folding over themselves as he wraps them securely around my upper back.
And for some reason, I find myself saying no louder than a whisper, my voice devoid of any emotion, “I came out to my parents.”
He remains quiet, but I know, like my dad, he heard me.
“Mom…she hugged me. Smiled too,” I tell him robotically. “Dad said he loves me.” I blink. “I can’t remember the last time…” My voice crackles, fading, emotion finally slipping through.
A sort of dangerous stillness overcomes Mason, tension blanketing the room that even through my still mostly numb haze, I can sense it.
“I just…” I start to say.
“You just what?” he says raggedly.
I close my eyes, suck in my cheeks. “Nothing. Never mind.”
I just wonder if they would have gone this long without saying it to Izzy, had it been my chair that was empty instead.
But I keep the doubts circling in my mind to myself. I won’t do that to him.
Sure you’re just not scared of what he’d say? You know he probably thinks it too. Imagines it… wishes it…
