Victoria Aspen's life just turned inside out.
She has been forced to move into the house she used to spend every summer in. It's been so long since she was welcomed back into the family and this time... they didn't really have a choice.
But thi...
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All I can think about is everything. Everything about Mason. Everything that defines Mason Donovan. My confusing, annoying, broody neighbour who I never would have thought I could even consider as a decent person.
This is the boy that pulled me out of the swimming pool on my first day. The boy that remembers the book I was holding when he first saw me in the library, and apologised when I called him an ass after walking into him. He told me I was a total brat the next time he saw me.
Mason almost murdered me when I put glitter in his hair gel, and as payback he basically ballooned me with pee and milk. He started a paint fight because I kept singing Christmas carols and ended up making a memorial of it on my wall. He pulled me into his pool and didn't even demand to know why I was afraid. He practically waged war on Dylan for looking at me, and to be honest I wish the battle had happened long ago, before I had the chance to get hurt by the blonde jerk.
This boy heard me crying in the middle of the night and wanted to be there for me, even though I pushed him away. He took me to sit in a palace made of flashing fireflies, and was the only one there for me on my mother's birthday. He scooped me off of the sidewalk and held me until I deflated. He almost got kicked off the football team for me.
He kissed me and then shattered my heart and then started a fight for the same reason.
"Tori?" He waves a hand in front of my face and I realise that I've been staring at him for a while now.
What do I do, what do I do?
I do what every normal human being would do in this situation.
"'Tis the season to be jolly, tra la la la la, la la la la!" I burst out singing and Mason stumbles back in shock. And then horror.
"Oh no, not again."
I continue belting out lyrics, switching carols when I forget the lyrics as he tries to shout over me, block his ears, anything to ease the suffering.
Finally, he lunges toward me and I jump out of his range, never stopping the songs. "Jingle bells, jingle bells, Mason get away!" I squeal, as he corners me and attempts to clamp a hand over my mouth.
As soon as the silence settles, I think we both notice our heavy breathing, the crazed glint in each other's eyes. I can only inhale through my nose, which is torture because all I can focus on is his peachy cologne.
Mason is only an arm's width away from my body, and I'm on vibrate, buzzing and humming to life.
His eyes drop to his hand over my mouth and I think he realises that he's almost suffocating me.
Mason pushes away from me and I almost exhale in disappointment.
What is wrong with you?
I don't know, hormones?
"So, it looks like we're done here." He says quickly, and both of our attention moves to our surroundings.
It really is finished. It's over. Everything is perfect.
There are Christmas lights draping from the ceiling, picture frames gracing the walls. I have every piece of furniture, every luxury I need to survive. It only took us four months and an entire Saturday to do it. But the splatter wall is completely empty.
That's when I remember two things. Two very important things that this room couldn't be mine without. The first is face down on my dressing table, and the other is buried deep inside of my otherwise empty suitcase. I couldn't bring myself to take it out until now.
"What are you doing?" Mason mumbles as I frantically dig for the painting.
It was my mother's. It was the only piece of décor that she took anywhere with us, she said it was the most important thing in the world to her.
Words, she'd say, are sometimes the hardest thing to say.
With Mason hanging over my shoulder, my fingers find the corners of the frame.
It was when my mother read Wuthering Heights for the very first time, and she had to write it down somewhere. So she found an old newspaper and scrawled the letters over the print.
First, I find the approximate centre of the wall and hang the photograph, the one Alex gave me just yesterday. I take more precision with these frames, balancing them perfectly. An entire wall doesn't do them justice.
I stand back to admire them and feel warmth radiating from behind me.
"Haunt me," Mason begins to read aloud, "Drive me mad. But do not leave me in the abyss, where I cannot find you."
His voice, those words, everything breathes fire into my blood.
When she died, I sat and stared at that excerpt for days on end. When my Aunt May was trying to move me out of that horrible, tainted hotel room, I just sat on the floor, unresponsive. I read and reread and rewrote those words in my head until they collapsed inside of my heart.
I would call them out in my mind to her, hoping that she would hear them and know that they were the truth. I couldn't have her leave me, all alone in a world where we were the only misunderstood ones. I wanted her to come back, I wanted her to sit at my bedside, nothing but a ghost, just like in supernatural movies.
"Thank you, Mason." I whisper, even though I'm unsure exactly what it is I'm saying. I suppose this is my admittance, that I have enjoyed his company, that over the months I've grown these unbearable feelings for him that I cannot explain. But I wouldn't have taken it back for the world. I think I understand that now.
But I guess he doesn't. "I guess I'll see you around, Tori."
My head snaps around at his farewell, and I have the overwhelming feeling to do something that I will regret. But I wouldn't. Not one bit.
Instead, he smiles softly, all blue eyes and jawline and rich, infant curls, and leans forward so that I'm inhaling peaches. And when I say inhaling, I mean the fruity scent is making it to my nose but not my lungs and he's so close that I'm suffocating the best way possible.
It's like an elastic band, stretching slower and slower until he reaches my cheek and presses his lips to the arch, lingering for an excruciating million heartbeats.
He's trying to kill us.
Hot and cold and fire and hail is all Mason is and all he'll ever be as he sends me a sad smile and climbs out of the window for the last time.
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Yeeeeh, okay! There are around 5 chapters left, guys before the end and I'm so excited!!! Thank you all so much for sticking with me (Those of you who did) and I love every single one of you. It would mean the world to me if you could vote or comment, just so I know who's reading, and I do try to check out and follow all of my new followers! <3
