Page 56 of Most Valuable Player
I couldn’t handle it. The way he was holding me was too sweet.
For a moment, I was convinced that he cared about me.
I realize I’m smiling widely and my hand is rising to cover it. I know I shouldn’t. The gallery opened an hour ago, and it’s a Sunday morning, so I’m alone. The painters like to leave their calm, unbusy mornings and evenings to me.
I love it here. The vast windows overlook the lake, and autumn-gray light floods the building, making the need for overhead fluorescents unnecessary. Plus, I get to study my favorite paintings and imagine where I’d make room for them in my house. Or in my college dorm room, if I go. Though, I’m not sure what I’d pursue—I’m a good student, but my aspirations…When I try to come up with something, my brain gets hazy and sluggish.
What do I want to do with my life? I’ve never thought about it because a future has always been promised to me. I never knew what it would look like, only that it involved us being together. Married. Moved in. And I’d be free to do what I wanted.
Within reason.
I massage my ring finger, loosening it before reclaiming the paintbrush. The picture isn’t innovative. I haven’t painted in months, so I’m just doing an exercise to rekindle the warmth in my frigid hands, depicting a sun sinking into ocean waves. Part of me hopes Cameron will see it. Maybe I’ll bring it to our next study session.
Maybe he’ll show me his old rock collection.
The door jingles. Immediately, I lurch off my seat behind the register and plaster a friendly smile on my face. “Good morn—”
It’s him.
His ice-blue irises carve through my body and inject frost into my veins. My limbs lock at my sides as his glacial presence washes over me, plundering me of warmth.
“Mason!” His grin stretches the skin around his sharp, stubbled jawline. “Your mom said you’d be here.”
He’s wearing a wool trench coat atop a collared sweater and slacks, as though he’s prepared for a formal event. The only thing he ever leaves in disarray are his fine, soft dark-brown curls I could never stop running my hands through.
“This place is so cute. Definitely your vibe,” he says with a gentle laugh. “But are you here alone? That doesn’t seem safe.” His gaze wanders the establishment, hands nestled in his jacket pockets, eyes tinged with disapproval. “You’re only seventeen. And small. Shouldn’t someone help you watch the shop?”
I don’t realize how tightly my hands are clenched until a dull ache pulses up my wrist. I’m holding my paintbrush so fiercely it’s causing my knuckles to throb.
He’s wandering closer, one step at a time, pretending the artwork is intriguing. My eyes flit to the swinging glass door—it’s the only exit, and he’s in the middle of my route to it. The left side of the cashier counter is cemented into the wall, so I have to loop around the right unless I vault over it.
He props himself on the edge of the counter farther from me, expression pleasantly chipper. “That’s cute,” he says, nodding to my picture.
I look down at it. The sun is too misshapen. I oversaturated the color of the waves.
“You’re not going to talk?” His dark, kempt brows meet at the center of his forehead. “I thought you were going to start responding to my texts, but you still won’t even do that. Why are you acting like we’re strangers?”
His desolate tone spears through the cracked, frail defenses encircling my heart. Guilt leaks from my chest, pouring into the rest of my body.
“Have you at least thought about what I said?” he pleads. “Won’t you consider my apology? I don’t want everything to be thrown away because I made poor decisions during a bad time in my life. You used to be excited when you saw me.”
His marble-white hand inches over the counter toward mine, still clenched painfully tight around the paintbrush.
“You told me you wished you could wear your ring in public,” he whispers. “You told me your mom finally seemed happy about something. I know I’ve made mistakes, but I also know I meant something to you. And maybe I still do.”
The more he talks, the further I fall into a daze, slackening my grip on my mental fortifications. His voice is so low and compelling. I used to joke that he could spend his life narrating books—that his voice could draw any reader to any genre. He’s good at luring.
“The ring looked good on you,” he says softly. “It made me feel incredible. Knowing you wanted to spend your life with me…”
“Or knowing you had me on a more permanent leash?” I mutter.
I don’t know where the words come from or why they sound like that, varnished with an anger I’m incapable of feeling. They leave a scorching hot feeling in my lungs, like they were coated in bile.
“That’s how you feel?” His voice quiets. Unlike my mom, whose voice rises with her anger, his does the opposite. I’d always considered it one of his green flags. “That I proposed totrapyou? Don’t be immature. You broke our engagement off without batting an eye.”
The word “immature” clangs around in my head, sparking irritated heat. “You thought you could do whatever you wanted the moment you had me tied down,” I snap. After all the things he said and did, simply because he thought he could get away with them since we were secretly engaged, since my mom supported us…
“Don’t do this, Mason.” Aggravation flashes across his irises. They’re always so cold in contrast to the warm, inviting atmosphere he brings to everyone else around him. “You always assume the worst of me. I loved you in every way that I could. I drove all the way home from college just to get you out of your parents’ house at night. I brought you gifts, took you on extravagant dates, listened to you rant. How can you think that way about me?”
