“He’s not okay, though,” I said. “He was talking about how it wouldn’t be so bad if he crashed his car and made all his problems go away, and I’m soscaredfor him.” My voice crackedand gave way, and I blinked against the sudden dampness. “It’s like he gave up.”
Mr. Conrad sucked in a sharp breath. “Where is Mason right now?”
“Asleep,” I said.
“Okay, good. That’s good,” Mr. Conrad said. “And where are you?”
“At the vet’s in Goose Run.”
“All right. Here’s what I want you to do. Text me the address and then go and check on Mason. I’m on my way over. And Cash? You were right to call me.”
“Okay,” I whispered, my hands shaking.
My feelings were a tangled mess. Was I making a big deal out of what Mason had said? Maybe, but my gut was screaming at me not to ignore this, and I remembered what it was like to fall asleep hoping tomorrow wouldn’t come. So yeah, I might be making a big deal out of nothing, but it was still a thousand times better than ignoring the giant red flag Mason had waved without even knowing it.
Would Mason be okay with me telling Mr. Conrad? That was a selfish thought, and I didn’t like it. What mattered was getting Mason help, not whether or not he was unhappy with me after. Would Mason beokay? Not knowing the answer to that scared me. But I’d done all I knew how to do. I just had to hope it was enough.
I texted Mr. Conrad the address, then went back upstairs and checked on Mason. He was still asleep and unlike when he was awake, his expression was peaceful, making me realize how stressed he’d been looking lately. Dog was lying across his shins, and he raised his head for a moment when I opened the door, then put his head on his paws and went back to ignoring me.
I pulled the curtain aside and peered down the street, but there was no sign of Mr. Conrad yet. Behind me, Mason stirred.
I turned to find him propped up on one elbow, watching me in the dim morning light that filtered through the gap in the curtains. He blinked at me but didn’t say anything, just ran a hand through his messy hair. I wasn’t surprised or offended when he lay back down and pulled the blankets back up over himself until only the top of his head was visible. If it had been me that someone was threatening to sue, I would have been buried so deep under the blankets that you would’ve needed a GPS to find me.
When a car pulled into the driveway, I hurried downstairs. There was a knock on the front door moments later, and I opened it to find Mr. Conrad standing there with a familiar plastic box tucked under his arm. “Hey, son. You doing okay?”
I seesawed my hand.So-so.I stepped aside to let him in and led him through to the kitchen. Mr. Conrad set his box of Lego down on the table, and I nodded at it. “I don’t think Mason needs Lego.”
“I know,” Mr. Conrad said. “It’s for you. Mason and I might be a while, and I figured you’d be a little twitchy. This might help.”
I let out a shaky breath. While I’d been worrying about Mason, I’d been ignoring how shaken I was, but my fingers itched with the urge to bury myself in the soothing, familiar routine of assembling plastic blocks. “Yeah.”
“So why don’t you go and check on Mason and see if he wants to talk?” Mr. Conrad said. “I’ll wait here.”
“What—” I stopped and took a breath and forced out the words. “What if he doesn’t want to?”
Mr. Conrad gave me a sympathetic look. “Why don’t you go and ask him before you start borrowing trouble, hmm?”
I nodded and hurried up the stairs.
When I got to the bedroom, Mason was sitting in bed with his knees pulled up against his chest and his arms wrapped aroundthem, hugging himself. The haunted look he’d been wearing earlier was back. When he saw me, his eyes widened slightly, like he’d maybe forgotten I was here. I sat on the bed next to him and reached out and put a hand on his forearm, rubbing it up and down in a soothing motion.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
I took a couple of deep breaths, nice and slow to calm myself down, and said, “Don’t be mad, but you scared me before, talking about how falling asleep at the wheel wouldn’t be so bad. So I called my friend Mr. Conrad and he’s downstairs.”
Mason’s brow creased. “Isn’t he your Lego buddy?”
“Yeah, but he used to be a psychologist. He’s helped me a lot. And I thought maybe if you talked to him, he could help you too.”
I braced myself instinctively in case he started yelling at me, but Mason didn’t get angry. He just stared for a really, really long time. And then he blinked rapidly, and his voice shook when he said, “Yeah. I think that maybe I need help, Cash.”
The hard knot of fear that had been sitting in my gut loosened, overtaken by a wave of relief at Mason agreeing to talk to someone.
Chase always accused me of being an optimist like it was a bad thing, but that was just because he was afraid. I was afraid too, but I dealt with it by hoping for the best. Like, I wasn’t stupid. I knew a conversation wasn’t going to magically fix everything going on in Mason’s life. But it was a step in the right direction, and the fact that he was willing to take that step gave me a glimmer of hope that maybe, with the right help, Mason could climb his way out of the dark hole he’d fallen into.
I was sittingat the kitchen table sorting the Lego into piles by color and trying to figure out if Mason and Mr. Conrad talking for so long was a good or a bad thing when I heard the front door open. Kayla appeared in the kitchen a minute later, stopping short when she saw the piles of Lego.
