The Separation Situation: Sequel to The Renovation Complication

36. Another Point

                  

Mason

I don't get much sleep once the pain medication wears off. Nothing can relieve the pain in my chest.

Yeah, I'm a wimp, I know. It's time to get over it, so goodbye pride. I shouldn't have shouted at Tori. I don't know what I was thinking.

That's a lie. I do. I was thinking that the girl I love is sacrificing her future, her life all just to be with me. She would go to some shitty school in Atlanta rather than actually have a life. She spends so much time thinking about me that she doesn't even know what degree she wants to do.

Dude, you don't even know what degree you're actually doing.

Shut up, brain. It has something to do with anatomy. And sports science. Which reminds me that I have an exam in an hour. Just perfect.

The thing that keeps tickling the back of my mind is how she was crying. It's always bothered me when she cries, because it means that she's in pain. Something weird happens to me, like everything I've ever known disappears. I feel like a helpless child.

But this time was worse. She wasn't crying because she lost her mom, or because she missed me, or because she couldn't find her favourite Ben and Jerry's ice cream. She was crying because of me. Because of something I'd done to her.

I'd hurt her, maybe not the same way that Stanley had hurt Katherine, but another kind of pain.

Last night when Max pulled me off of Callum, they said that I'd hurt him a lot more than his imprint on my eye and shin. And though he didn't re-tear the ligament, it did hurt like a bitch. I hope his re-shaped nose hurt more.

Anyway, the reason I lack in the medically-treated area is because I refused to be put in the same wing as him. If I woke up in the middle of the night to him chastising or taunting me again, the nurse may have just found a pile of meat in his bed the next morning. So I just took some asprin and went to bed in my dorm after they checked out my leg.

It still smells like her in here. Like vanilla. I think I like her perfume even more than I like mine. And I like peaches a lot.

Even though it's seven in the morning, and I'm somewhat injured, someone thinks it's a great time to bang their fist against my door. When I crawl out of my bed toward the noise, I'm about to shout at Max to leave me alone, the words die in my mouth.

It's not Max, it's Alex. And he doesn't look happy. He stares at me for a moment, face devoid of expression. He doesn't mention the bruise around my eye.

"Is she –"

"She's gone." He cuts in placidly, revealing that indeed, he did lie to me when I called him last night. I can't really blame him. I wouldn't have told me either – I'd probably just screw even more things up.

"She wouldn't tell me what happened," He goes on, stepping into the dorm. "Now you will."

"Will I?" I reply glumly, not really having the energy to put up much of a fight.

"She was crying pretty hard. In our bathroom, when the rest of us were supposed to be asleep."

"I would have told you anyway, no need to torture me." I growl at him. How is it that everyone knows exactly how to get to me? Am I really that obvious?

He leans up against the wall, arms crossed tightly against his chest. "Fess up, man."

"She said she applied here." I say darkly.

"And what's so bad about that?" He asks dumbly. I narrow my eye at him. Doesn't he get it? She's his sister, shouldn't he get what's happening?

She's only been his sister for two years, I remind myself, and I realise that funnily enough, I probably know more about Vic than he does in a way.

"She only wants to come here because I'm here. She's doing it for me, not her." I'm making angry hand gestures again, like I'm arguing with a statue.

"Maybe it's for her, too." He shrugs.

"How? She's acting like a child." I snap, "She doesn't even know what she's doing."

"So?" He laughs, as if I'm the one who doesn't understand. "I don't know what I'm doing. Do you?" He takes my silence as an answer. "We're all still kind of kids, aren't we? She'll figure it out, and so will we."

He takes this as his queue to leave, like everything seems sorted out to him. His brotherly duty is over, which means that he trusts me enough not to beat the crap out of me for making his sister cry. I think I'm beginning to understand better, too.

"Dude, we're nineteen. She's even younger. We don't have to know everything yet." He opens the door. "And, seriously, you have got to stop stressing so much. It's un-Mason like. You never used to be like this. And the both of you need to stop fighting."

He has a point.