in canon, prequel events
MASON ANDERSON HAD A PRETTY GOOD LIFE. He had nice parents, decent grades, a billion girls on his heels every time he turned around, and played starting center on the varsity basketball team as a junior. He already had a few scouts coming out to his games to watch him play and hopefully offer him places on their university's team.
Sometimes he knew he could play better when the scouts were in the crowd, jotting down notes about his form, but he could only do so much before he was taking the spotlight from Jason. So he held back, fumbling the ball every once in a while so Jason could look like a hero and save it before the other team got their hands on it. In their stupidly strong friendship, Mason found one flaw: He could never be the best. Not because he wasn't, but because Jason always had to be better.
Mason and Jason's companionship began early into elementary school, on the playground during joint recess. Mason was six, in second grade, young for his class. Jason was eight, in third grade, old for his class. Both of them were on the sidelines after being put in timeout (for eerily similar reasons; both Mason and Jason had pulled a girl's hair after being cut in line for tetherball). They sat next to each other silently for a while, but when a caterpillar crawled onto Mason's hand and he held it out for Jason to see, they introduced themselves to each other offhandedly. The second thing Jason ever said to Mason was, predictably, "Our names sound the same," and that simple observation was perhaps the entire catalyst for their friendship.
Fast forward a few years and Mason's in seventh grade, Jason in eighth, when he decided he was going to try out for basketball in high school. With absolutely no hesitation, Mason was right there with him, learning how to dribble for the first time in his life just so he could support his friend. He planned to spend the whole year Jason was in high school and he was still in middle practicing and growing his skill, just so he could make the team his freshman year just like Jason had done. His plans were interrupted when his parents sat him down and told him he was getting a sister.
The summer before eighth grade was when his mom and dad decided to foster. Mason thought it was a brilliant idea—at first. But when he met the girl they were fostering, his entire optimistic outlook was crushed, because she was the freakiest person he had ever laid his eyes on in his entire life.
Before they met Val, Mason's mom had told him about what she was going through—how her mother had just died, how her dad was neglectful and couldn't take care of her enough so she had to be taken away. Sarah had emphasized the fact that if it weren't for Mason's hospitality, Valerie would probably still be living with her drunk father and living off food scraps. She said it like Mason had anything to do with it, as if it was his idea to foster.
He knew he wasn't going to get along with Valerie the moment he met her. She was wearing a faded, oversized red-and-black flannel over a graphic T with some weird band on it. Her jeans had rips in them, and Mason couldn't tell if they were on purpose or not. She had written something in permanent marker on her hand. Her eyeliner was the most intense makeup Mason had ever seen. Probably the most normal thing about her was her hair: It was dark red and, Mason thought, quite pretty, but it wasn't long before she dyed it to a horribly bleak black. Mason had heard the term 'emo' before, but he had never seen it in action until he met Valerie.
The first time he spoke to her without his parents in earshot, she just glared at him and told him not to call her Valerie.
"It's Val," she said. Her tone was hard, but he could tell she was just covering up her real voice. She was just trying to act tough.
It was working.
It didn't take long for Mason and Val to learn their places with each other. They didn't speak to each other unless it was some sort of insult, and Val spent most of her time shut in her room. The only time they spent together was if Mason's parents forced them to do family game night or some stupid shit like that. It wasn't long before Mason and Val both decided independently that they needed to at least act civil around his parents. But in private, it was easier to hate each others' guts.
