“No, I’m fine. Scar’s just worried; he hasn’t stopped vomiting. She thinks it may be alcohol poisoning.”
He’s nothing like your mother.
I drop my head, staring at my lap. Vinny shouldn’t have to lie for me, and now I’m sat absorbing information that isn’t intended for me. It’s just as bad as what he did, looking me up.
“Okay, let me know if you need anything. Drive safe, Mason,” Vinny says calmly, then hangs up.
“I’m sorry I put this on you.”
“Send him your number, Nina,” he tells me, holding out the phone.
I don’t question it, typing out my number and hitting send. My phone rings moments later, and I stare at it, not wanting to answer.
“I won’t tell you what you should do,” Vinny starts.
“But?”
“I haven’t ever seen Mason act like this. He seems to care for you very much.” He shrugs as if it is that simple.
“I’m damaged goods, Vinny. I prefer to be alone.”
It’s what I know.
He nods, smiling smugly. “You don’t think one day though, if you found the right person?”
I glare at the side of his head as he throws my words right back at me.
I check my clutch for my keys, hoping I have spare clothes in the studio. I need to get lost for a while.
“Can you drop me at the studio, please, Vinny?”
Unexplainable calmness. It seeps into me and makes me forget about everything that exists outside of the room. I’ve only had my studio a little over a year, but it’s the sense of belonging here, that I’m not alone. It doesn’t make sense really, but I figure to have a place I’m so proud of, something I built on my own, having people who depend on me for a place to come and express themselves— it gives me purpose.
I don’t get to dance. I didn’t have a change of clothes. Instead, I climb up on the piano and lay on my side, looking out on my purpose.
I won’t give up on it. On any of it.
Lucy picks me up from the studio midmorning to take me home, and I change quickly while she waits in the car. She knows something is up. I don’t go to the studio on a Sunday—especially not in men’s clothes. But she doesn’t question me, doesn’t ask anything until after lunch, laying ourselves out on the garden swing seat we’ve spent many days of our childhood and teenage years chatting on.
“I think Mason’s dad is an alcoholic,” I eventually voice.
Lucy’s hand finds mine between us. “But that’s not what has you going to the studio on a Sunday morning?”
“No.” I roll my eyes at her perceptiveness. “He fucked it up, Luce. He’s such an idiot.”
“He’s a male. It’s their thing.” She smiles.
“He had me looked up, looked into my mum and the studio.”
“What?” she asks, taken aback.
I nod my head. “I took it on the chin too. I promised myself I wouldn’t leave. We had the most incredible sex. God, the sex, Luce,” I groan, making her laugh. “He prepared a beautiful date, said all the right things when I freaked about the gifts he bought me, then when I needed space, and for him to shut up so I could process the wholehim having me looked upthing, he crushed me. Told me I would run my studio into the ground if I didn’t stop helping Mum and pay back my loans.”
Tears well in my eyes as I prepare for what comes next.
“How did he get that much information?!”
I shrug. “I told him to stay out of my business, that he could have sex with me, but he’d get nothing more than my body.” Cringing at the memory, I close my eyes.
