Page 39 of Please Hate Me

“How’s Mason? Did she look healthy? Did you have VIP seats or regular ones?“ Leona dropped her voice an octave or two as she tried to mimic me.

“I was also high.”

“Drunk words are sober thoughts.” She sang, neglecting the fact that alcohol had never been my issue. “Plus, most of those conversations happened when you weren’t that high.”

I rolled my eyes as the farmhouse came into view.

“Do you still have the ring Mom gave you before she died?” Leona asked.

My shoulders squared as I took a deep breath, still remembering the conversation vividly. A mix of shitty healthcare, lack of money, and lung cancer took my mom before I was ready to say goodbye. When she was sick, I’d visit her a lot, and unfortunately, those trips to Columbia were funded by Mason. My father sure as fuck wasn’t going to help me spend quality time with his ex-wife.

The last time I ever saw my mother, Mason was with me. We took a week-long trip during spring break of our junior year. My mom was in hospice and said she was done with the chemoand whatever else they were pumping into her body to fight the cancer. All she wanted was a few last days with her kids, and to meet the girl who had made sure I didn’t miss a single trip back to Guatapé. So, Mason, Leona, and I flew to Colombia. I would have brought Sophia too, but my mom wasn’t exactly fond of polyamory or the Whites’ “strange” family dynamics.

Within two days, my mom was completely head-over-heels in love with Mason. She feared the world would hurt Mason if she ever ended up with someone less…protectivethan me. My mom had pushed me to propose to Mason that week. Of course, I wanted to eventually, but I was only sixteen, and she was even younger at fourteen. Looking back on it, though, our relationship was far more adult than I think either of us realized.

We were just two fucked up kids learning how to live,together.

The day we were supposed to leave Colombia, we visited my mother one final time. Mason was inconsolable. She wouldn’t leave. So my mom took her by the hands and said, “Pray with me.”

Mason was never religious—in fact, she’d teased me more than once for going to church. But in that moment, she bowed her head and prayed.

After several minutes, she calmed down enough for Leona to usher her out of the room, leaving me alone with my mom.

I sat at her bedside and held her hands, expecting to say a prayer of my own. But instead, she looked deep into my eyes and said:

“Lucian, that girl is one of a kind. Ella es tu media naranja. Give her my ring and spend your life with her.”

Then, she slid the emerald ring from her finger—the same ring that had been in my family for generations—and gave it to me.

But Mason abandoned me before I was ready to give it to her.

That’s what I hated most about Mason: when she was in my life, it was clear that she loved me. She made time for me, shelistened to me, she spitefully stepped up and helped me visit my mother when my dad refused. But if she loved me, then why would she leave? We were supposed to have a beautiful wedding, a pretty house, a family. And while my heart remained in her pocket, she had guarded hers, only letting Sebastian in.

Why did it have to behim?

My eyes burned, and I took a deep breath, focusing on the apple orchard instead of my current situation. Autumn had started to seep into the leaves, turning them brilliant shades of gold and red. If only I could run into the woods and never look back. Nature was easy and predictable. Whatever was inside the house wasn’t.

“Luci, are you still there?” Leona quipped.

I cleared my throat and rolled down my driver’s window with a squeak.

“I still have the ring… but I’m going to save it and give it to one of my kids when they get married.”

“That’s not what it’s for, and you know it.”

I hung up on my sister, not ready to hear the rest of this conversation. My mom loved Mason, and she was convinced that one day, Mason would be my wife. For the longest time, I wanted that to be true. The goal had been to ask her to marry me on her eighteenth birthday, but she left before I had that chance.

The last thing I needed was for someone to suggest Mason could still eventually be my wife. I was rough around the edges, but I wasn’t heartless. And... as much as I wanted to deny it, I wasn’t blind to the lingering warmth I held for Mason. The moment I saw her in the airport, my instincts begged for me to run to her. It was a dream come true. The love of my life had returned.

I didn’t want to have those feelings for her. I knew that if I let her in, I’d get hurt. That’s why I could never let myself entertain the thought of being with her again. The world was a cruel placeto be in love, especially with someone who didn’t give a shit about me.

When I finally worked up the courage to walk into my own fucking house, I was a little surprised to see Mason willingly sitting on the couch with Sophia. There was some trashy reality show on the TV, and I knew Sophia had picked it. She liked that mind-numbing, over-the-top dramatic shit.

Mason had huddled herself into the arm of the sofa like a scared animal. In her trembling hands, she held a book, and it was one I recognized.

Cameron was big into dystopian fantasy novels and thrillers, but he wasn’t a fan of e-readers, which meant he and Sophia often went on bookstore dates in the city so he could find new ones. These dates usually happened while I was working and the kids were in daycare, and I did my best not to feel left out. I didn’t like reading anyway.

Neither did Sophia, so it was always a surprise when she came home with a new romance novel to add to Cameron’s shelf. She’d always say she’d ‘need them someday’, but I never understood why. She started collecting more of them after Seb asked if his girlfriend could move in, and looking back on it, I wondered if Sophia knew who he’d be bringing home. She always had this bizarre way of knowing everything, like some fucked-up sixth sense.

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