He shrugs. “So. I was drinking at eighteen. You just didn’t know it.”
Rage continues to burn through me.
“Regardless,” I hiss through my teeth, “I’m not legal. And even if I were, I wouldn’t drink. Look at what it does to you.” I gesture my hand down his body.
With a boisterous laugh, he takes another step closer to me, leans down until he’s eye level with me, and says, “It makes me a fun night, Vroom.”
I shove him away again, and he trips over his feet and falls onto the greasy, tiled floor. Guilt replaces the anger, and I reach a hand down to help him up, but he swats it away and gets uphimself. The anger returns as my hand stings from where he knocked it away.
“Mason. You need to go home. Let me walk you out and we can talk about this tomorrow.”
“No. Let’s talk now, Karoline.” His voice rises, and I grab him by the arm to sit him down. He sits, and I move around to the other side of the booth.
“You just said you loved me. You told me a couple weeks ago that any girl would be lucky to have me. I’m trying to give myself to you but you’re pushing me away.”
I cross my arms. “Because you’re drunk, Mason! I don’t want you like this.”
He laughs with a haughty arrogance. “Well, this is me, baby girl. Take it or leave it.”
“I think I’ll leave it, thank you very much.” I stand, prepared to exit the diner, when he grabs my wrists and tugs me towards him. My side slams into the corner of the table, and I let out a yelp of pain. He lets me go, and I turn around to face him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He snarls, his usual soft, playful features twisting into an expression I’ve never seen before. “You think you’re too good for me, don’t you? Well, Vroom, you’re not. You’re just a kid. I only tried to kiss you because you said you wanted me and I was feeling in the mood. It’s not because I like you. It’s not because you mean anything to me.”
As shock settles in at his words, I find myself frozen in place, unable to move. To my horror, he laughs at me, then his phone begins buzzing like crazy on the table. Picking it up, his eyes widen and his jaw drops open. He hurriedly maneuvers his fingers, swiping and pressing and typing on the screen. “I can’t believe this,” he whispers. Then he turns to me and stands.
Holding out his phone to me, he scrolls through thousands of social media comments on his “Boyfriend Without Benefits” music video that we’d uploaded the night before.
“And look here,” he says, opening up several different emails with requests to represent him and sign him. The screen goes black as he clicks the side button, then he tucks his phone away in his pocket. He reaches for his milkshake on the table and sucks it dry. Then, he drops the glass. It shatters at my feet, the real-life sound of my lively heart stuttering to a stop and splintering.
“Looks like we don’t need to talk about anything in the morning, Vroom. I’ve got better things than you in my future.” He smiles sardonically and marches across the diner, barrels through the door, and disappears into the night.
My dress billows around me as it catches a breeze from the closing door. I collapse into the booth and focus on the dust in the window sill as the lights dim around me. The pain in my chest is as if someone reached a hand inside and squeezed my heart. My throat burns as I gasp for a breath that doesn’t come. I’m stuck like he hit the pause button on my life when he walked out that door.
I’ve got better things than you…
Chapter Fourteen
Karoline - Present
Aversion of whoI was died that night.
I sat in that booth all night, staring straight ahead, not moving a muscle. I was numb and shattered all at the same time—the shell of a girl who had walked bravely and confidently into the diner that night ready to confess how she felt. Though I knew there was the possibility he wouldn't reciprocate my feelings,never in a million years did I think he would say the things he said to me that night.
“We’re here,” Mason says, pulling into a parking spot outside the trailhead leading to the Bluffs.
I awaken from my nightmare, trying to remember the drive here. “Did I…?”
“Yes, you fell asleep. But I figured you needed it if you would let yourself fall asleep in my presence.”
That’s an understatement. He is the reason I didn’t sleep during normal night-time operating hours.
I tilt my head back and forth, stretching my neck out when something falls in my lap.
Mason’s sweater.
“Oh, I, uh…” he scratches the back of his neck, “took it off, bundled it up, and placed it between your head and shoulder so that you could have a pillow.”
“Thanks.”
