Page 6 of Escape Velocity
Callum whips his head to Joel, who is holding a framed picture of him and Mason from when they were kids at the swimming pool.
Callum coughs and rubs the back of his neck. “We aren’t.”
He takes the frame from Joel and puts it in his drawer, wanting the picture and the subject of Mason to be filed away and stay forevermore in Northwood without following him back to Montgomery.
Joel laughs, likely on the verge of teasing Callum, like he tries to at any opportunity he can. “Then why did you bring a photo of you both to Montgomery?”
Callum inhales sharply, shaking his head as Joel’s voice grates in his ears. It doesn’t matter that he still has the picture and brought it with him.
His mom is the one who took the picture, and that’s the only reason he still has it.
He and Mason just aren’t friends anymore.
They used to be. Now they aren’t.
They are on different paths, and that’s all there is to the story.
Why did everyone else think there is more?
“My mom took the picture,” Callum decides on saying,taking some of his football posters from the box and starts to tape them onto his side of the dorm.
Joel quirks an eyebrow at him. “Tammy took this?”
Tension runs through Callum’s hands as he tapes the posters.
“No. She didn’t,” he says, his voice surprisingly even.
“Oh,” is all Joel can muster out, which is a remarkably empathetic response from him.
“But why this picture? Why not bring one of you and your… real mom? Instead, you brought a picture of you and Fanning, who I haven’t seen you talk to… maybe ever.”
Callum sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Why does he keep bringing Mason up? Why can’t Joel leave anything alone? He knows Mason and Joel had some classes together at Northwood High, but he didn’t know Joel had Mason on his radar to this extent to be pestering him so much.
“Look, man. Mason and I used to be friends when we were kids. We grew apart, okay? Happy?”
Joel smirks. “Sort of. I just find it hard to think that you and that dweeb were ever close. You couldn’t be any more different.”
His jaw ticks at Joel’s choice of moniker for Mason but he doesn’t let it get to him. Any mention of Mason sets him on edge, and he doesn’t want to talk about him anymore. Saying hi to him at practice was enough.
Callum just wanted to show Mason that he was on campus and to be on his merry way. That’s all it was.
As far as he knew, Mason was still considered a high schooler. He was a sophomore at Montgomery, and the quarterback of The Montgomery Hornets now, so why would he care about some old childhood friend from his hometown anymore?
“Whatever, he’s probably off to Harvard doing physics problems on Friday nights or something,” Callum grumbles as he starts opening his dresser and rapidly throwing his clothing out of it.
But it’s a complete lie. He knows that Mason isn’t going to Harvard. He’s at Montgomery, and he just spoke with him not two hours ago.
Montgomery had been Mason’s dream school his entire childhood. He might have gotten offers from Harvard or any Ivy League; he wouldn’t be surprised, but Mason would have accepted Montgomery over any of them.
Joel was in Mason’s grade, and Callum only became friends with Joel after he got onto the football team. Callum set his eyes on Joel right away as someone to be friends with. Joel’s uncle had been in the big leagues, and it had been a topic within the first week of practices.
Going pro is all Callum wants, and all he’s important for, according to his dad, so he jumped at the opportunity to be Joel’s friend, despite him not being the nicest person to be around. Callum doesn’t have anything else going for him other than football. At least, that’s what everyone told him.
“God, that kid gets on my nerves. He just thinks he’s so much better than everyone cause he was a physics and math whizz. He always used to give me this face like I was stupid or something,” Joel says with a grimace on his face, like Mason is standing in front of them himself, looking at Joel with his big-framed glasses balancing on the end of his nose.
“Well, you won’t have to deal with him anymore, yeah?” Callum says, his voice strangely annoyed.
