Not a Reunion

Chapter 7

Thea

The sentence he just uttered makes me want to punch someone, and that's when I figure out that I was mad. I was angry at the world for putting me in this predicament.

I want to tell him why he didn't call me to ask me how I was doing. I wanted to ask him what could have stopped him from contacting me in the six years we didn't have any form of contact. It wasn't fair as to how we got here, and it definitely wasn't fair as to how nonchalant he was, as if the one who stared at me hadn't chased for my heart to seize hard in my chest.

"What?" I whispered, not believing what he had said. Mason only kicks his eyebrows up in the slightest, and a sec later, he turns his hand toward the waiter that was arriving with our drinks. He places both of them out in front of me, and with my heart in my throat from not wanting to talk to him sober, I decide to take a sip.

A sip turns into chugging the whole glass, which, to be fair, wasn't big in the first place, but with the way Mason was watching me, you would think that I was chugging a whole bottle. But I wasn't. As soon as the contents slip past my stomach, I can feel my shoulders loosen from the tension that they once carried.

I lean forward in my spot and cock an eyebrow at him. "So, what do you want to know?"

I watch as his eyes slip past my face and down to my hand again, at the ring that rested there. I let an easy smile make its way onto my face as I said, "I'm engaged, Mase."

I hadn't meant to say that. I hadn't meant to use the nickname, which makes this conversation harder than I would've thought. His eyes move back up to my face, a little surprise passing over his face that pales slightly. He was as surprised as me with the use of the name I had only called him back in high school, a name that had slipped out of my mouth in a soft way that I would have used back in high school as well.

Mason swallows, his Adam's apple bopping down and showing up again at the action. His eyes flash back to normal as opposed to the awestricken pose as he brings himself. "I see."

"Yes," I answer, taking another sip of the drink. "After I realized you weren't going to be part of my life anymore, I moved on."

I moved on.

It took me a full year and a lot of heartbreak to do so, but I did. I had to move on; I couldn't hold my heart together on my own. I couldn't deal with waking up every morning with an ache in my chest from missing him and wishing he was here. It was too much, and I wasn't in the state of mind to let myself wallow in misery.

I had other things to grieve over at this time as well.

Mason cannot keep his eyes on me as they slip into his drink. He leans forward, his body not even close to mine, yet the alcohol is working for me to feel his warmth from here as he grabs his drink. He slips two fingers in between the tiny handle of the glass as he takes a sip of the drink.

He picks up a napkin and wipes at his mouth, taking a moment before saying, "Tell me about him."

Again, he wanted to know about the guy I was involved in now instead of asking the million other questions he could ask me. He could ask me a whole bunch of questions, but he doesn't; he only asks me about the one question that wouldn't require him to dig too hard, as the diamond on my finger is public. It is public enough for him to ask without it being too deep, and definitely not too personal.

I smile into my wine glass, feeling that my smile is more strained than it should be when talking about this topic. It was because my heart had once been broken in reasoning with Mason for not contracting with me for too long. "I met him in class during my sophomore year. I didn't know if I was 100 percent sure of what I was doing, but I accepted his invitation for coffee."