Living or Surviving?

Chapter 50

•Jess's P.O.V•
Mason has been texting me all day long.
When I left him at his apartment he was completely wasted. It was extremely hard not to stay with him when he asked me to, but I couldn't ignore everything that has happened within the last 24 hours.

When he first saw me at campus, he looked genuinely happy to see me, but then he asked me to stay at Logan's because he had other plans, which I understood, but later on I found out that those plans consisted on drinking at a bar, alone.

I thought he stopped drinking, I thought he met new people to spend a night like yesterday with... but I feel like a stranger, again. I feel like we've gone back to the time when I used to always feel like I didn't know him at all.

After calling me too many times, he shows up at Logan's apartment.

"What do you want?" I ask from the door.

"I need to talk to you" his face looks tired and the dark circles under his eyes are terrible.

"Well, I don't" I shut the door, but he stops me from fully closing it.

"Please, Jess, just give me the chance to explain myself and then I'll leave" he is almost begging me with his stare.

"No, Logan and his dad are here and I don't want you to bring this drama into their house" I try to keep my voice low.

"Then come with me" he whispers too.

"I don't want to go with you" it easier said that done.

"Jess, I'm begging you"

I don't want to go, but I need to hear his explanation, and this is totally the wrong place to have this conversation.

"Fine, but I have a plane to catch in three hours, and I won't miss it because of your complicated ass behavior"

"I promise you won't miss it"

I say bye to Logan and his dad, grab my stuff and walk to his car, where he is waiting for me.

"Drive to the airport"

"What? You said you still had three hours"

"You can speak on our way there, then just leave" I don't know if I am being to hard, but this is how I feel.

He is wearing the same clothes as yesterday and he still smells like vodka.

"I'm sorry about last night" sure he is...

"Me too. I thought you had stopped drinking" I want to yell at him, but I need to know what is going on.

"I had" he keeps staring at the road, with both hands on the wheel, instead of resting one on my leg, as he usually does.

"What made you do it again?" I wait for an answer but he doesn't reply.

"Mason, I think it is fucking time for you to realize that by keeping all this shit to yourself you are not helping us, you are in fact breaking us!"

He pulls over on Target's parking lot.
He takes a deep breath in and looks at me, passing his hand through his hair as a sign of nervousness.

"It was everything. The graduation, my family, you... it all just hit me at the same time"
He rests his hands on his tights and keeps his eyes locked on them.

"What hit you Mason?"

"Everything, it was all too much"
I move my hand to his chin to make him look at me. When his eyes meet mine, he relaxes a bit.

"When I was sitting at the graduation event, I looked around and I realized that I had made no friends throughout these four years. I've surrounded myself only with crappy people. All I've done these past four years was going out to frat parties, getting drunk and fuck with strangers"
He takes a deep breath before going on, his eyes still focused on mine "then I looked back and I saw my family; Megan and Kate, they were there for me. But my parents... I was graduating and they didn't even fucking know about it, they had no fucking clue... And I don't care"