Page 85 of Escape Velocity
“He asked me about my day and how it went. He said he was excited for the block party on the Saturday and how he said he could drive me to my next practice the next day since Tammy was out of town and that it would be no trouble.”
Callum inhales. “And then we’re home like nothing happened. Like I didn’t lose my game. And as we walk inside, I hear it. That slam of the door. Like it was an explosion. I nearly jumped out of my skin. That change in demeanor. It was like he was possessed as soon as he walked in our house.”
He rubs his face. “And I feel it. That white hot pain across my face. The tears immediately come out. I was already crying. It was like I was holding it in for so long. That entire car ride. And that backhanded slap. The sheer force of it just knocked them all out of me like a broken water dam.”
Mason’s throat stings but stays silent.
“And then he does it again. My face goes one way, andthen he slaps it in the other direction. Again. And again. And again. I remember thinking, how am I going to hide the red marks on my face for school tomorrow? What story do I need to tell? Is anyone going to believe me? Can I make it believable?”
Callum rubs his cheeks.
“Like that was all I could think about. Not the fact that my dad just kept hitting me. But how I could hide it. How I could cover it up. Like it was my blessing to hide,” Callum says, laughing sarcastically.
“And then it finally stopped. And he walked away. He didn’t say anything. He knew he had gotten the message across. Nothing needed to be said. He gave me a pat on my back and left for his office, closing the door softly behind him, like all the slamming and loud noises were reserved for me. Because I lost. I failed. I deserved it all. The door to his car didn’t. The door to his office didn’t. He closed them all quietly. But me. I didn’t deserve tenderness or kindness. I had failed. I was worth nothing if I was losing.”
Tears threaten to fall out of Mason’s eyes, but he tries to hide them. He refuses to interrupt anything.
“And when he closes that door I want to cry. I want to run and scream and never come back. I want to call you and make your family take me in so that I never have to come back. But I don’t. In my thirteen-year-old brain, all I can think about is that if I get you involved that he’ll just do the same thing to you. He always hated you. He’ll do the same to you. Mason’s weak. Mason’s a sissy. He doesn’t know how to play sports. He’ll hold you back. That’s all I could think about. How if I got you involved that he’d do the same to you. And I couldn’t let him do that. Never.”
Mason now realizes why he wanted to tell him this. Why it was so important. It all makes sense now. Howscared Callum would be of inviting Mason over and how he slowly started becoming more distant after high school started for him.
“And then I realize that whenever I win my games, he doesn’t hit me. He says nothing. He doesn’t say ‘good job’ or ‘congratulations.’ It’s just silence. It’s tense silence, because I don’t know if he’ll change his mind and decide I didn’t win enough. But it’s silence. And it’s not slapping or punching. And I knew that if I won, I wouldn’t have to deal with it. And that was all I could ever think about after every game and before every game. I had to win. And anything or anyone that kept me from winning would just make me keep getting hurt over and over. That they’d drag me down into an endless whirlpool of pain.”
Callum finally snaps out of his daze and looks at Callum. “And then I see you at that table in the cafeteria. And I’m around all my asshole friends that make me win at football and will take me to heights that can get me out of my dad’s house if I make enough money and… I hear thatterriblecomment about you.”
Callum’s eyes turn to mist and his lip trembles, his eyebrows creasing like he’s remembering something somehow even more painful than his father hitting him.
“And I want to step in. I want to shut them all up, but I just hear it. That sound of slaps and punches. And my dad insulting you. And all I can think is that I can’t deal with it again. To be away is to be safe. Those asshole teammates will take me away from my father and his tyranny, and it’ll keep you away from this cyclone of… pain and—andmisery.”
Callum chokes and he whimpers slightly, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands.
Mason finally lets himselfcry too.
“And I hurt the person I cared about the most. Just to keep you and me safe. Out of faith that someday, some fateful day, I’d be safe from him and his wrath. That we could find our way to each other again and just—justbe.”
Callum finally collapses and starts sobbing, his body shaking. Mason rubs his back and tears stain his jacket. Icy wind rushes through them and wakes Mason up again, having forgotten about the cold.
He’s always wondered what happened to make them not be friends anymore. It haunted all his sleepless nights and endless days.
He finally got his answer.
How much he wishes he hadn’t.
It was never because of him. It wasn’t because he was too nerdy. It wasn’t because he was awkward. It wasn’t because Callum knew he had a crush on him. It wasn’t because Callum was too popular. It wasn’t because he had outgrown him.
It was because he was trying to run so fast from his pain that he had to leave Mason in the dust and catch up with him later after the rubble and dust had cleared.
Mason rubs his forehead as he realizes that he had wasted so much time hating Callum and himself.
So much time spent being bitter, hurt, and angry over all of it. But now he knows. He knows all of it.
Mason finally takes Callum and hugs him, trying to wrap as much mass as he can into his embrace. Callum’s large, but Mason tries to cling to him like a barnacle and envelop him like he’s a warm blanket. What he should have gotten as a kid instead of what his dad gave him.
And they sit there. Callum cries, and Mason does the same. Not a word is uttered.
Callum doesn’t say sorry because Mason doesn’t need him to.
He understands why. He thinks about how much is out there wanting to hurt them, down on the concrete and back in Northwood.
