Page 63 of Escape Velocity
Mason sighs. “I do a piece on the whole team. Callum’s the quarterback, so yes, he gets more attention sometimes,” Mason clarifies, shooting daggers at Joel, who seems to be reveling in Mason’s misery.
“And the player profile on Callum, of course.”
Mason wants to lunge at Joel, especially as Joel smirks before he eats a mouthful of pot pie.
Mason knows he’s one sentence away from his secret being revealed to his parents and when everything comes crashing down. He should have known that he never should have said anything about his degree to Joel. Joel likes to manipulate everyone to his own advantage, and this is probably making him so happy.
His mom takes this moment to try to get him to change his mind again.
“Mason, you should really try for another section of the paper. Reporting on Callum?—”
Mason has to hold himself back from yelling at her. She thinks she’s protecting him, but she’s just infantilizing him.
“Mom. It’s fine. I’m in university now. I’m eighteen. I can hold my own.”
“Is there something I don’t know about Callum?” Joel asks innocently, even though he already knows the answer.
“Nothing. It was awhile ago,” Mason answers before anyone else can.
“Huh. Guess he and Mason don’t matter as much to each other than I thought,” Joel says, stabbing his green peas and shoveling them into his mouth as he chomps on them and stares with his steely blue eyes at Mason.
Mason fantasizes about hurling a saltshaker across the table at Joel, tackling him down, then picking him up and throwing him out onto the concrete, along with his Aunt Josie, who seems to be loving every minute of the tension, but then it would only make things worse for him. He’d never hear the end of it.
“Excuse me,” Mason says as he wipes his mouth andgets up, the wooden chair screeching across the floor as he walks off to the kitchen.
He stands in front of the sink and puts his hands on it, bracing himself as he takes deep breaths. He has to remind himself that it won’t all come crashing down. He won’t allow it.
Joel doesn’t have all the power over him.
His parents would have no reason to believe Joel if he told them about him majoring in physics instead of journalism. He’s on the paper, and he’s doing well. It would mean nothing coming from him.
Mason whips his phone out of his pocket and brings up his text thread with Callum, hovering his thumb over the message bar.
He thinks about Callum’s dinner table now. How quiet and tense it must be. Devoid of warmth and coziness. How Callum must be wishing could be anywhere else.
He sighs and starts typing.
Mason
I need to get out of here. Meet at our place?
He paces around the bathroom waiting for a response. He wonders if Callum even cares this much. What if he was overstepping? What if everything that happened between them was not as important to Callum as it was to Mason?
His phone buzzes and he picks it up immediately, biting his thumb nail.
Callum
I’ll come pick you up. Same house as always, right?
Just say when.
Mason’s chest clenches as he glances through the hallway to the dinner table. Would he even be able to leave? Maybe if he comes up with some kind of lie.
He watches as Elena and Joel snicker and laugh at something Aunt Josie says, and he hates looking at it. It’s a picture that makes his stomach churn and fear for his future. That he’ll be stuck in this house and stuck with his unsaid words forever.
He can’t let that happen.
Mason
