Page 102 of Dirty Ink

How could I not forgive him breaking his phone? How could I not understand the grief and anger and devastation that had to escape somehow, that had to get out? How could I not pity him that moment? How could I not believe that given that same situation, I would shatter my phone in the exact same way?

If I’d had a parental figure in my life, ever, they would have been my everything. But I’d never had everything to lose. Not till Mason. I understood the pain of losing him. Maybe it would have been healthier shattering a cell phone. Maybe it would have been easier than shattering myself instead.

“I mean, you came back,” I said when Mason continued to look at me.

My fingers fidgeted almost nervously with the lip of the teacup beneath his gaze. I wondered if he was searching my face the way I had searched his. Was this little happy ending of ours failing him somehow, too? That probably would have been the thing to say. To say: “There’s still something missing. There’s still something we’ve left unsaid.”

“You came back for me,” I said, “and you built Dublin Ink for me and there’s nothing more you could have done.”

Mason’s fingers interlocked with mine. He twisted my hand back and forth. I smiled till he dropped his gaze. We’d bared our souls to one another. Opened up about everything. Been honest about everything. Held back nothing. Or maybe that was just what we told each other. Maybe that was still what we both just wanted to believe. What was simpler to believe, easier to believe.

“And so you forgive me?” Mason asked.

I had a smile ready for him when he lifted his eyes to mine once more. I squeezed his hand. I tried to connect to him, to speak to him where words failed, to make him believe my answer.

“Yes.”

Because I did. Something was wrong, something was off. But my forgiveness of Mason was not. My forgiveness of him was full and complete and real. Maybe the problem was he couldn’t believe me. Maybe the problem was that I couldn’t believe him.

But that was not the problem we were going to talk about. Everything but, it seemed.

“Well, that’s it then,” Mason said, repeating my words with a gentle smile.

We smiled at each other like two people in a tiny boat who see the shore on the left but not the giant wave about to crash over them on the right.

“I forgive you and you forgive me,” I said.

Mason ran his thumb along my palm and said in turn, “I forgive you and you forgive me.”

My smile faltered, but I don’t think Mason saw.

“Come here,” he said and drew me toward him.

The tea from my cup spilled and soaked through my bedsheets. Despite the strength of Mason’s arms around me and the sturdiness of his chest against my heart, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the ground was giving way beneath us. That it was rotted. That any second we would fall through the bed. Fall through the floor. Fall and never stop falling.

This was what I wanted. What I’d always wanted. A simple explanation. A stupid misunderstanding. An unfortunate twist of fate. To know that we’d never stopped loving each other. To know that it hadn’t been us. To know that Mason was torn from me, but not his love. That I was torn from him, but not my love. That it had always been there: our love for one another.

I clung tightly to Mason. Maybe if I just held him closer, squeezed him harder, then the waves of vertigo would dissipate. I clenched my eyes shut and buried my face in the crook of his neck and hoped that breathing in his scent would steady me, wake me from this dream I insisted on making a nightmare.

Was it that I was still engaged? Was it that I had another man who I’d kept a secret from Mason? Was that the gulf between us? Was that the earthquake rumbling beneath our feet?

I wished it was. I begged and prayed and hoped upon hope that it was. That it was that simple. That easy. That a trip back to the US would fix everything, would fix us.

Or fix me.

Because I had my happy ending and I hated it. I’d gotten the answers to all the questions I’d asked again and again over the years, and they weren’t enough. I had Mason’s forgiveness and I didn’t trust it.

I could only think one thing as we held each other: it’s not enough.

Why isn’t it enough?

Something was wrong with my happy ending.

Or something was wrong with me.

Mason

I hadn’t been sleeping well.

---