Page 191 of Mason

And somehow, impossibly, they’ve made space for me in it.

Not because I’ve earned it.

Not because I’ve proven anything.

But because theychoseto.

I press my lips together, trying to swallow the emotion clawing up my throat.

Maxine is still watching me, steady as ever, and I wonder if she sees all the ways that I’m unraveling.

I’ve spent so long feeling like I don’t belong to anyone.

Like the only thing I could count on was my own shadow.

But maybe...maybe that isn’t true anymore.

Maybe now, I belong to something greater.

Something real.

Something I didn’t even know I was allowed to want.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

Maxine shrugs. “Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t seen Brando and Mason try to put together IKEA furniture. That’s when the real horror begins.”

I laugh.

It’s small.

But it’s real.

And for the first time, it doesn’t feel borrowed.

It feels like my own voice again.

49

MASON

It’s been weeks.

Weeks since she left.

Weeks since the house stopped smelling like her shampoo. Since the silence grew teeth and started chewing through the walls. Since I started talking to her ghost more than I talk to the living.

The kitchen’s quiet. Too clean. The kind of clean that doesn’t happen when life is happening inside it—just when a man’s trying to control the only thing he has left.

The coffee brews, but I won’t drink it. I just need something to do. Something to fill the space where she used to stand—barefoot, sleepy-eyed, wrapped in my hoodie and soft in a way the world never let her be.

I rest my hands on the counter. Stare at the floor.

And then I hear it.

Three knocks.

Sharp. Steady. Final.

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