✨𝕃𝕦𝕟𝕔𝕙 ℂ𝕝𝕦𝕓 𝕀𝕞𝕒𝕘𝕚𝕟𝕖𝕤✨

✨So Long Ago || Mason x Female!Reader✨

Thank you for 15k! I don't know how you guys do it but I can't ever thank you enough for the amount of support on this book <3

Requested by: Whereamilmao

~Your POV~

I never understood how much a bond can withstand until it had lasted for years. To know we met in our first year of school and were friends ever since still blows my mind. Mason and I clicked immediately, and to this day, I don't know how we still are friends. The amount of fights, arguments, heated discussions, times we made each other cry, you'd have thought we'd be done for.

But there was always one person who managed to bring us together again, and we'd click once again and forget about the anger and the sadness. Ever since we were young, Carson made us hug to make up. There was something about my personality mixed with Mason's that didn't quite mesh, but it did at the same time. He was a jokester, he always has been. I am very sarcastic, and I take things too literally. It's to a fault, and I know that, but my sarcasm has hurt him and his jokes have hurt me more times than I can count. But no matter how bad it got, Carson made us hug, and we'd cry and apologize and hold each other. It's how it's always been.

Mason, Y/n, and Carson. The trio since Freshman year, always seen together, always working together, eating together, laughing together. We did everything together. Hell, our parents would let us all have sleepovers together because they knew how much we loved and cared about each other.

Until the fight that changed everything.

It was our Senior year of high school. The year was coming to a close and I had gotten a letter that I got into a really great school in Boston, Massachusetts, for film and cinematography, which had always been my passion. I would make short films with the boys, who were great on camera, and one of the ones we did I submitted in my portfolio with my application that got me in.

I thought having them over to hang out and tell them the news would be a great thing. That they'd be happy. And Carson was thrilled, since he knew how much it meant to me to go.

Mason was, destroyed. I never understood why, but he was. And he got angry. He said cruel things, and while Carson tried to get him to stop, he wouldn't. I got angry at him for not being accepting of the fact that I was moving out of state to go to college, and Carson walked out.

I've suppressed the majority of what was said that night, but I distinctly remember the moment when we both stood, staring at each other with wide eyes, and we both broke down sobbing. I remember him leaving and Carson drove him home, leaving as well. I remember graduating and feeling our trio truly being ripped apart. I remember calling Carson every night from Boston and checking in on him, seeing how things were in Indiana. I'd never ask because I was stubborn, but he'd always tell me how Mason was doing. I'd watch their streams and admire their growth on social media as I befriended Ted in real life and grew closer to the Lunch Club boys without realizing it.

It's been three years since that fight. I attended Ted's graduation (and cried knowing he wouldn't be here to get me through my senior year) and we all knew we had to celebrate. Carson texted us saying we're going to fly out to California to hang out at Noah, Travis, and Cooper's new house to have a graduation party with the Lunch Club Crew. I was so happy to know I was invited.

~

"GUYS, OVER HERE!" I hear a familiar voice, and I spot Charlie with a smile. Ted and I walk over to the boys and I notice all of the Lunch Club boys. Mason included. I greet all of them and nod at him with a small smile. I still don't really know where we stand and I haven't seen him in person in years.

"'Congrats grad' signs, really?" Ted laughs as he reads the poor handwriting on the posters. I chuckle, too.

Arriving at the new house, we all sit down and start catching up. I have always been closer with Travis, so I mainly spoke to him. When Carson arrives, the whole house lights up, and more and more people start showing up. I'm really not a party person, but of course I want to be apart of something meant for my friend. It sucks that this is all during quarantine, but the party was mainly outside and everyone invited had made sure they were tested or at least had no history of being around someone with the virus.

"Hey, Y/n," Carson comes up to me with a smile, and I smile back, wrapping my arms around him.

"How have you been?" I ask him, and we set off on catching up, mainly on things that generally don't come up during our deep late-night conversations. Really late-night conversations for me, since it'd be three in the morning for me when it was barely midnight for him. But it was always worth talking to my best friend.

"I gotta go talk to the guys, I'll see you around. Let me know if you need anything!" he waves as he walks away, and I'm soon left alone, standing against the wall of a house barely decorated, a solo cup in my hand. I sigh and grab my phone, seeing no new notifications.

"Y/n?" I hear a voice call my name, and when I turn to my left, I see Mason in a doorway. I look at him and he rubs the back of his neck. "Can we talk?" My heart stops momentarily as I nod and follow him into the room he was standing in. He closes the door and looks at me.

"I'm sorry," we both blurt out, and chuckle when relief floods the room. "You first," I tell him, and he nods, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"I shouldn't have gotten so angry at you, for wanting to pursue your dream. I've known for years that this was all you ever wanted to do, and you got into the college of your dreams! That is fucking amazing! And you were so excited to tell us, to tell me, because we were your closest friends and we told each other everything. When you told me you were moving to a different state, that you'd be gone for years and be with new people away from our small corn-field town, I was terrified. I didn't want to lose you. I was... I was in love with you, and I didn't want to let you go, let you meet new people and guys that are much hotter and more athletic than me, to fall in love with someone that wasn't, me." I don't know what to say. Everything clicks so suddenly that I am left in shock. He was angry because he loved me and wouldn't let me go. I got angry that he was angry, that he wouldn't let me go. I was heartbroken that he wouldn't let me pursue my passion. I was heartbroken to leave him and to know leaving him hurt so much.

My actions get the better of me as I walk up to the man I've been in love with for years and grab his face, kissing him. His hands find me and hold me desperately, like I'd disappear if I let go.

"I loved you then, too. I was so heartbroken that I had to leave you, and I had hoped you would be happy, that I could at least leave knowing you were happy for me, happy I was pursuing what I loved. But the fact that it broke you to let me go made it so, so much worse. And I debated staying, because of how much I hated the idea of hurting you. But I knew I needed to create a future for myself and I don't regret my decision. I regret not reaching out, not telling you how I felt, still feel. I regret losing you," I look into his eyes and he wraps his arms around me.

"You have me, again. And I'm not letting you go. I mean, of course you can go back to college but I'm not letting you out of my life again," he tells me, running a hand through my hair, and I bury my face in his shoulder.

"That's perfectly fine with me," I mutter, and he lifts my head to kiss me again. And all of those feelings from so long ago came rushing back.

Hi. Uh. So. Sorry for being so weird and awful lately lmao I've been up to some pretty sketchy shit with my friends, and it takes up the majority of my night so I don't have time to write. Tonight is a night we're taking to catch up on sleep and I am completely and utterly exhausted. I hope you all have a good night, I love you all <3

~Abbey