Mason (Fallen Crest High 0.5)

I glanced to Logan and saw him watching. He was frowning, gazing at where I had been sitting too. When his gaze caught mine, he nodded and stood from his table. Walking to us, he stood next to me, blocking Kate’s view again.

She let out a disgusted sound. “So because the big bad Kade brothers are standing up to me, you think you can tell me what to do?” She turned that chilly smile to me. “All you do is preach about how I have no claim on you. Every time I’m dumb enough to fuck you, you leave me with the same message. Message received, Mason, but it goes both ways.” She glanced to the guy whose lap she vacated. “I’m with Tim now and I won’t be coming around anymore.”

I didn’t care. “Yeah, okay. Whatever makes you feel better.”

Tim didn’t stand up. As Logan and I looked at him, his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. When he wiped his palms on his pants, I told him, “Relax, Cosello. I have no beef with you.” Then I lowered my voice, “Kate, leave the girl alone. All I did was sit with her at lunch.”

She lifted her chin up. “Like I said before, you have no business telling me what to do. I’ll do what I please.”

I sighed. Tate was standing too, but she remained at her table. Recognizing the gleam in her eye, I suppressed a curse. If I said anything more, I’d make it worse. Tate saw a new victim. Kate was distracted. As I stood there, my jaw clenched. I hadn’t realized this would happen, but both groups were looking at Marissa like she was prey they could both enjoy.

I turned around. Marissa was watching us, her face pale.

Kate started laughing. “Christ, look at you. What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you actually care about the girl?” I thought the only person you care about is standing next to you. He’s all you protect. Even Monson gets the shaft sometimes. She gestured to the side where Nate had stood, but he was waiting for my call. I shook my head. If he came over, it would be worse. Kate would become even more determined and Tate would be even more relentless, seeing a distraction from her own torment. Then Kate distracted me when she said, “Don’t beat yourself up, Mason. It’s not the first time that girl’s stepped out of place. We had a little round with her at the beginning of school.”

“Stop this, Kate.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Not your problem. Remember? Those are the terms you’ve always set. What I do is none of your business.” Then she walked away.

A sick feeling took root in me, but I didn’t know what to do. Kate controlled the girls. She had for a long time and I knew things went down that the guys never knew about. When I glanced to Tate, she was smug. Her gaze collided with mine and I knew she was remembering my promise. I was going to break her how she had broken Logan, but still I hadn’t done anything.

Logan was following my train of thought. “She doesn’t care.”

“What?”

He glanced at Marissa too and frowned, then turned back to me. “Tate. You told her that you’d hurt her. She’s going after that girl because of that now, to hurt you back.”

“I haven’t done anything to her.”

“Yeah, you have. Kate wouldn’t have gone after Tate if it wasn’t for you. People know what happened, Mason. They know she came onto you. It was obvious even though we didn’t say anything. They figured it out. Tate blames you for what Kate’s been doing to her.” He nodded in Marissa’s direction. “If you want to help her, distance yourself from her. The girls will do what they always do. You can’t stop them.”

He was right.

Then he said, “Mom called last night.”

I stopped thinking about Marissa. “What?”

He nodded, becoming closed off again. “She wants us to stay with her before she moves to L.A. permanently.”

“Mom’s already there. She’s going to stay there the whole time now?”

He frowned. “She hadn’t told you?”

“No.” She always told me things first.

Logan shrugged. “She’s been calling me a lot lately. I don’t know why, but yeah, I'm giving you a heads up.”

Even the thought of Mom wanting us to stay with her brought the old weight back on my shoulders. Our dad would fight that. Things were tense at home anyway, but it would get worse.

“Mase?”

Hearing the concern in his voice, I flashed him a grin and shoved all that shit down. Fuck it. I didn’t give a damn what happened. “Yeah.”

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.” I nodded at him. “You?”

“Yeah.”

We weren’t. Being at home was a nightmare. Dealing with our dad and his women, and now our mom wanted us to stay with her more often? The nightmare was going to get worse. I could feel it in my gut. I shook my head. I couldn’t worry about anyone else. Football. Logan. Me. That was all I could deal with. I was going to sit where I wanted. No one was going to control that. Marissa would be fine. Kate couldn’t do much to her anyway. I’d sit with them if I wanted, but glancing around the cafeteria and sensing the change in the air, I was tempted not to even come to the cafeteria anymore.

Life was just…hard sometimes.





13


ANOTHER YEAR

Things didn’t get better. They got worse. I sat with Marissa a few more times at lunch and then stopped. Those times were a breather for me. Her friends didn’t have an agenda, but the tension in the cafeteria was always too much. After a while, one of her friends told me to stop.

“Paige,” Marissa hissed, “it’s not his fault.”

Her friend turned to her with a hard expression on her face. “He’s not stopping it either.”

“It’s that bad?”

Her friend snorted. “Look at her. She’s lost twenty pounds. She didn’t have twenty pounds to lose. She’s a stick.”

I gazed around and saw that Kate was acting normal. She and Tim had broken up, but she was already flirting with someone else. Then I glanced where Tate was sitting. She was watching Logan with a wistful look on her face. Fuck no. She couldn’t have him, not again. I didn’t know what to do to help Marissa, though. I didn’t know if I could do anything. They were girls. This was a girl fight. I asked her friend, “Did you talk to the principal or the counselor at all?”

“Yes.” Near hatred flashed in her gaze. “They can’t do anything unless there’s evidence. So far, we don’t have enough.”

“Mason, just go.” Marissa smiled at me. She wore a brave front. “I’ll be fine.”

She wasn’t. I stopped sitting with them after that, but it didn’t matter. Over the next few months, Marissa began to look unhealthy. She stopped coming to school towards the end of the year and when I heard she was transferring, I was relieved. Her friends blamed me. Paige told me when she passed me in the hallway one day. She held onto her books tightly and she glared at me. “Don’t call her. Don’t email her. Leave her alone. That’s the only thing you can do to help her.” She started to walk off, but turned back around immediately. “She’s going to email you. She’s going to try and keep a friendship with you, but if you really want what’s best for her, don’t answer any of those emails. Let her think you don’t care. Trust me. She’s better off that way.”

I stood there and took it. I deserved that. People were watching and somehow, because I didn’t handle her after being told off, that girl gained some credibility in school. I was glad. Nate told me that Marissa’s friends had become targets during the year as well, but Kate and her friends had backed off.

I asked him, “You’ve been hooking up with Parker this whole time?”

He grew guarded. “Was I not supposed to?”

I didn’t know. Most days I just wanted to get away from my dad. My phone buzzed then and I silenced it. When he saw it was my mom, he asked again, “Are you avoiding her?”

I shook my head. “I feel like I’m avoiding everyone right now.” Shit. The battles were coming. I felt it. My dad had stopped bringing women around, but I knew what that meant. There was one woman. I only hoped it wasn’t the one I remembered catching him with a long time ago. She was cold, but my gut told me we hadn’t heard the last from her.