AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My heart rate picks up, and a cool sweat breaks out over my skin.
“It’s Monday,” she says, and I wince.
Fuck, there goes two poetry classes in a row I’ve missed. if I don’t get it together, I’m gonna fail everything this semester.
“We had plans for dinner. Remember?”
Frowning, I turn my head, meet her gaze over my shoulder.
She sighs, shaking her head, clearly seeing the answer for herself written all over my guilty, confused face. “Bubs…what’s going on?”
Gone is the disappointment, and back in its place, the concern I’ve come to grow keenly aware of these last few years. She’s lightened up a little bit in the last year, after seeing how good college has been for me. No doubt after today, though, she’ll be back to her hovering ways.
I lift a shoulder, and hang my head.
A beat passes, then, “Is it Mason?”
Everything in me stills.
“Reggie told me what happened.” Right…
Obviously they’ve been in touch, what with Seamus being out on parole as of last week.
Talk about worst possible timing.
It was literally mere minutes after his blowout with Mason that night, that Ivy showed up and dropped the bomb on Waylon: his piece of shit sperm donor was getting out of prison.
And to say he didn’t react well would be the understatement of the century…
The night ended with me dragging Will out of the bathroom after Waylon—in a PTSD-induced flashback, apparently—choked him out against the wall.
It was…bad.
Made even worse by the I love yous and it’s okays falling desperately from Will’s mouth as Ivy and Shawn wrangled Waylon away from him, shoving him to his knees.
The way he begged for Izzy… for Mason…
In all the years I’ve known Waylon, I’ve never seen him that…broken. It would seem I wasn’t the only one who’d been holding onto Izzy for Mason’s sake. As if his acceptance was the final nail in her bodyless coffin.
Talk about a fucking shit show.
It’s enough to make even a skeptic like me wonder if we actually might be cursed. I mean, something’s gotta give eventually, right? There’s got to be a break in the clouds somewhere in the horizon.
After crashing at Will’s place that night, I’d gone back to my parents’, packed up, and said I was going home. Home. This home. My home. When they’d asked what happened, and tried to stop me, I turned the attention on Waylon. Told them the news. Mom immediately went off to call Reggie, and Dad…
Well, let’s just say being the only kid they have left has some perks.
Having a history of anxiety has all the rest.
Whereas my mom hovers, he caves into whatever I want—whatever makes me happy.
And leaving Shiloh is what I told him would make me happy. He made sure Mom didn’t fight me on it.
So for weeks now, I’ve been in this sort of daze—wallowing in a way I’ve never wallowed before. Grieving in a way I hadn’t allowed myself to grieve until now. While I haven’t completely neglected classes, making an effort to at least show up to most of them…
Let’s just say I’m going to have to work my ass off studying when finals come around. Hell if I remember anything we covered these last couple weeks. And the big project for my illustration class? Haven’t so much as turned on my drawing tablet, let alone worked on it since I got that call from Mason.
He’s tainted everything…
