“You should know better than me, I think. Even a sibling doesn’t always know you quite like a best friend does...or a lover,” he said, looking down at me knowingly. “I really hope you don’t think the rest of us didn’t figure out the two of you are sleeping together now.”
“I figured,” I said with a shrug. “Not that we were trying to keep it a secret, but we didn’t feel the need to announce it either.”
“Poor Moira,” he chuckled. “She’s the only one left with any claim to heterosexuality. I mean, I was out a long time ago, and Milo is the only one who’s purely into dick, which we knew forever. Eli was a bit of a surprise, I guess, but I wasn’t really all that surprised, same with everyone else.”
“It seems to be working for them.”
“It’s more than working. Out of all the couples in this family, they’re the two I’d place the most money on.”
“Not you and Jace?”
He gave me a crooked smile. “We’re solid, we’re good...now.”
“Classy,” I said with a shake of my head.
“Arlo and Ward are still too new to really figure out how long that will last, but Ward definitely seems attached, and I don’t think I’ve seen Arlo so happy,” he said.
“Yes, Dom mentioned there was something he’d forgotten to tell me about Arlo and Ward, something that happened recently and involves the bruise on Matilda’s face.”
“Hmm,” Mason said, his fingers twitching, but catching himself at the last second. “That’s definitely a story. I’ll let him tell you.”
“Right, because you’re out here for a reason that doesn’t involve Arlo’s love life or the drama that came with it.”
“Exactly.”
“So let’s get to the point, Mason. This has already been an eventful night for me, and I would like to get the hard parts out of the way.”
“Mmm,” he hummed, tilting his head up to look at the sky. It was cloudy for the most part, so even without the light pollution, there wouldn’t have been much to see except the faint glow of the moon finding cracks in the clouds. “Fair enough. See, there’s something I need you to understand.”
“What’s that?” I asked, flicking my cigarette away and reaching for another. The taste had shifted from a dirtyashtray into something closer to the smooth taste of smoke, and although I would probably regret smoking back-to-back cigarettes in the morning, it was the only thing I could think to do.
“When you left, Dom did his best to keep his shit together. The thing is, Dom is really bad at keeping his shit together when the shit starts piling up,” Mason explained, his eyes still pointed up. “He wouldn’t talk to any of us about what was going on, or about where you went or why you left. I tried to push him to talk a couple of times, and I’m pretty sure that last time he would have hit me if I hadn’t backed off. I’ve never known him to be violent toward us, so I did what I thought was the smart thing, and I backed off. In fact, I think that was the last time anyone brought you up around him.”
“You warned them off?”
“Smart man, yes, yes, I did. He hadneverturned his anger on one of us before, not the violent kind. No, he always saved that for people outside the family who, if I’m honest, deserved to have their asses beat if only to learn when to shut the fuck up. But he’d never been like that with us, so it shocked the shit out of me enough that I told everyone to back off.”
I said nothing, letting that thought roll through and finding that it tasted just as bitter as any other memory from that time.
“I don’t know if it ever occurred to him that we backed off for a reason, but we did. And he never brought it up again. We talked about it, of course, how could we not? We were watching our brother suffer by himself, and we didn’t know why or how to help him.”
“I see.”
“No, Levi, you don’t,” Mason said, snapping his head down to give me a hard look. “You weren’t here to see it. You didn’t watch the months of him carrying around pain and not knowing what to do with it because the one person who was best at helping himwith that was gone.Youwere gone, and none of us even knew why you left, or why your leaving meant Dom couldn’t still be friends with you. All we could do was stand around helplessly and pray that he didn’t end up hurting himself or someone else. And he did, I know Marcus told you, but he was downplaying how bad it really was. Dom could have gone to prison, not just jail, but straight up prison. All because he was too stubborn to talk to us and because you decided...I don’t know, to up and leave.”
“It wasn’t...an easy decision, I can promise you that.”
“You know what? I believe that, because you were always a serious person, even back then. It always seemed like you were willing to take on the weight of the world, even when it was driving you bonkers. But really? I don’t care how hard the choice was, alright? Because I had to watch my brother suffer, and there was nothing I could do about it.”
“Right,” I said, because he was right. I had hurt Dom badly, and while I had known deep down that I was taking that risk back then, it wasn’t like I had devoted an excess of time and energy thinking about it. Why would I? To do that would have opened the door even further, and I’d left Cresson Point with the intention of never looking back. So I retreated into myself, nursed the loss and pain in my own heart, far from the prying eyes of others. I wasn’t as angry as Dom had been, but God, if we hadn’t both been idiots who had turned our backs on the people who cared about us.
“So look, I don’t know if you’re planning on disappearing again, or if you’re sticking around Cresson Point for a while. But don’t youdaredo that to him again. Especially not now. Not when you’ve taken the step to be with him. And I get it, back then,youwere the one with the feelings, and you wanted him. But now...I don’t know who you are anymore, Levi. We’re all pretending that’s not the case, but since it’s just you and me rightnow, I’m not going to pretend. We don’t know who you are, or what you’re like, or how you actually feel about Dom.”
“I won’t pretend it’s not complicated?—”
“I don’tcare. What you saw in there? It’s an invitation to come back to the family and be part of it again, just like you were all those years ago. What I’m saying right now is, I don’t know if you’re going to take that offer or go off and leave Dom holding the bag again. Don’t fucking do that to him again, Levi. If you’re just going to dip, then do it now, march in there right now and tell him this isn’t working and go back to your fucking life, you hear me? If you shatter my brother’s heart again, your guilt and shame aren’t going to hurt nearly as much as what I’ll do to you.”
I remained silent, digesting what he was saying, both surprised and accepting in equal measure. I had never heard Mason talk like that to anyone, but then again, I hadn’t been witness to the animosity he and Jace had once shared either. I had also never seen Mason as the protective older brother because it was a role he’d never played as far as I knew.
