“I agree. We'll find a way,” Chase insisted. “I just don't want it to end up like it did before. When we were in college, you just got so upset about us not seeing each other, and—”
“I was impatient, and I wanted to see my husband, the man I loved.”
“Then what's changed now? Have you become more patient all of a sudden?”
Mason smirked. “No, I’m definitely not any more patient than I was back then. But I just know that I would rather be in pain knowing there’s a chance of seeing you again than be in pain knowing I might not.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t have seen you at all?” Chase asked.
“You only came back to see Emery and Pa. If it hadn’t been for them…”
“I didn’t just come back for them, Mason. I love them to death, but do you really think I didn’t want to see you? Or that it didn’t hurt just as much for me to know I didn’t get to see you again? I spent years telling myself that it’d get easier to move on, and it never did. I want this, Mason. I always have. I'm just nervous about all the unknowns, and then there's the fact that we still haven't told your family. I was thinking about that when we were playing baseball yesterday.”
“Well, we definitely need to do that sooner rather than later.”
“We should wait till after the wedding. Emery and Pa have enough on their plates right now, but I’ll feel better when I don’t feel like we’re keeping this from them. No more running around. And we can just work through this together after that.”
“Which means?”
“I can come here to visit more frequently, and maybe you can come to LA. I mean, it's clear that we're not going to be able to, at least in the beginning, have a situation where we can see each other all the time.”
Mason was disappointed with the reality they were going to have to face. “It’d be too easy if one of us just hated our careers enough to give it all up to be with the other, wouldn’t it?”
“That’d be ideal, but I want to believe that if we really work hard to figure this out, we can. Don’t you think that could be enough?”
“Any more time that I get to spend with you is enough. It’s not going to be easy, but I'd rather have you in my life in some way than not at all. That's worth it to me. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make this happen… to makeushappen.”
“I don’t know how we’re going to do this, and it scares me… but I love you, Mason, as much as I always have.”
“I love you too, Chase. I've never stopped.”
“I've never stopped either,” Chase admitted, and they kissed again, enjoying the cool breeze that rushed past them in the night.
Mason knew that the moment couldn't last, so he savored it and clung to it in the way he wished he could have clung on to Chase back when they were kids.
When they pulled away from their kiss, Mason said, “Now let’s get back home and really make tonight something special.”
As Chase smiled, Mason felt his happiness return, his true happiness, something he hadn't felt in so long. But it was easy to feel good since he had his Chase back.
MA LAY STRETCHED OUT ON A RECLINER, A TUBE RUNNINGfrom the port in her chest to the IV drip beside her.
Her face white, she wore a beanie to cover her bald scalp, which she’d shaved when she’d begun her new chemo/radiation treatment three months earlier.
Mason sat beside her on a stool with wheels.
The routine was familiar for them since they had endured a similar routine two years earlier after her first diagnosis.
Everyone helped around the dairy as much as they could, Mason especially, trying to keep things running smoothly without her, a real chore since Ma had played such a pivotal role in the day-to-day responsibilities. It’d taken two new farmhands as well as Mason and Chase’s efforts to keep things running as per usual since Mason and Chase could only work in times when they got off from school. But since they’d cut out all their extracurricular activities, that had made things easier.
Emery sat on the floor on the other side of Ma next to Chase as they played dollhouse together. He was always so good at distracting her, and Mason was appreciative of his strength because he was having a difficult time with keeping himself together.
And he hated himself for that.
Pa sat back in his chair reading a book as Ma listened to one on audiobook in her CD player. When Pa got up to refill his Styrofoam coffee cup, Mason turned to the window behind him, gazing down at the city below.
“Hey, Mase,” Ma murmured, her usual clear tone faded because of her weakness, pain, and hurt.
He turned back. She smiled, but he knew it must have been forced, as indicated by the bags under her eyes and her sickly pale complexion.
