Page 59 of Escape Velocity
He thinks back to those days he saw her in the hospital. When she kissed his forehead for the last time and told him he was going to do great things. When he went to her funeral and saw Callum sadder than he’s ever seen him.
Mason sniffles. He wants to kick himself for spying on Callum.
Now, Callum surely would never want to talk to him again. Even if he feels bad for what he did, Callum holds hispride. He doesn’t know how to admit to his mistakes or how to make up for them.
He would never admit everything he said to Mason himself, and now Mason has torpedoed that possibility if it was ever there in the first place.
“I have to go, April. I’ll see you soon. I’ll take care of Callum.”
Mason kisses his hand and places it on the tombstone. He pats it twice before blowing out the candle, his shoes crunching on the dead leaves surrounding Mrs. Brown’s grave.
He has no choice but to talk to Callum now.
They will always be in each other’s orbits, and now it is up to Mason to close the distance between them.
17
MASON
Mason
We need to talk.
Mason sighsas he sets his phone down on his bedside table.
All night, he dreamed of Callum, and he woke up thinking of him. It’s like his brain is set on a film reel of all memories and fantasies of Callum he’s had over his lifetime and decides to play it on the silver screen in his mind.
Mason rubs his face as he stares around his room.
It’s something foreign for him to consider it his childhood room now. That this room watched him read books under the covers with a flashlight to solving quadratic equations to getting accepted to Montgomery, and now he’s back in it and feels dread instead of nostalgia flood through him.
His parents are likely wondering why it’s taking him so long to get out of bed. Mason looks at his analog clock as it reads 9 a.m., so he finally decides to face the day. He swings his legs over the side of his bed and stretches.
He isn’t necessarily chomping at the bit to see the rest of his family. If his parents are bad, then his relatives are only worse when it comes to prestige and expectation. As if it isn’t enough for his mother to be a renowned editor and his dad to be a bestselling author, the other relatives have to be just as competitive and expectation heavy, especially when all of it is put onto him.
Mason rubs his face. He wishes he could crawl back into bed and wake up when the weekend is over and he could go back to being himself again, but who is that?
Someone who avoids his childhood best friend like the plague? Who pretends to be someone who he knows he isn’t and writes article after article about things he doesn’t care about? Lies to his parents over and over?
It can’t go on like this. Something needs to change, and that familiar feeling in his ribs is telling him that Callum has something to do with that change. If there’s anyone who can understand, it could be him, even if they come from two different worlds now.
His phone vibrates, and he snatches it up.
Callum
Now?
Mason grips his phone in his hand and bites his fingernails. He can’t, not now. His parents would know something was up and wouldn’t allow him to just slip out without getting all their questions in.
Mason
Later? After dinner?
Mason sighs and watches as the text bubbles appear and disappear. He thinks about what it must be like in Callum’shouse. Quiet dinners, with his explosive father and his placating stepmother.
Callum
I’ll see if I can sneak out.
