Unwritten

Chapter Four

When I get home, I start making myself busy. I put on mind-numbing music and start writing my pandemic essay. I finished it about two hours later. It didn't take much to write about something you hear about all the time. After finishing the essay, I busy myself with deep cleaning my bedroom. My phone goes off every two minutes and I try to ignore it.  As my cell phone vibrates every two minutes, it is hard to focus on cleaning and trying to find mindless tasks to do.

I glance at my phone and see three messages from Bri, two from Mason, and one from my mother. I chose to read my mother's first, although I knew what it would say. Since Kate passed away, she had spent most nights in a bar, drowning out her guilt for the death of her child. It wasn't her fault. She didn't know that when she put her on the school bus that morning a drunk driver would ignore the stop sign on the side of the bus and hit her. Going to be out. There is money for pizza on my nightstand. Love you.

It had been this way for years. Most nights, I ended up at Bri's house. I look at Mason's texts next. I imagined that they would say that he didn't want to let me go or some variation of the statement. However, his text makes me stop breathing. I cannot believe that you're doing this. You know how much you mean to me, the first message read. The second was what stopped my breath. I'm telling her.

Full of panic, I decide to quickly glance at the messages from Bri to see if there is any indication that she knows before I can stop him. Hey. We have nachos if you want to make your way here. Delivered three minutes after the former message, she mentions being bored, because she was being forced to watch a movie that she had already seen three times, as Kacie was not interested in anything else. The last message was four words that no one wanted to hear, as it meant that it was always bad news. We need to talk.

Rather than texting her back, my instinct is to immediately call Mason. Maybe he hadn't told her yet... and if he had I could always express my feelings to him about it. He answers on the second ring. "Yes dear?" I scowl at his greeting.

"Did you tell her?"

"I have no earthly idea what you are talking about. Who would I have talked to and what would I tell them?"

"Mas."

"My name is Mason." His response is short, stern, and almost cruel. The anger and frustration he felt was beginning to come out. I had been calling him Mas since I was four years old playing in the sand pit on the school playground.

"I know that you don't like it. But I need you to talk to me." He releases a deep sigh.

"No. But I will." I hear her voice in the background, asking him who he was on the phone with. He ignores her question and continues. "This is completely up to you."

"Don't. There is no reason she needs to know. We aren't going to have a relationship so she doesn't need to know about it."

"I disagree. If there is no relationship, why should there be anything to hide? We aren't doing anything. She will just have all of the facts." I groan and make a comment about being blackmailed before hanging up the phone. I didn't have much of a choice at this point. She already had something that she wanted to speak with me about and I needed to make sure he didn't tell her. If she found out... well I cannot imagine what her reaction would be. I told her once that I loved her brother when I had a massive crush on him and she didn't speak to me for two weeks.

I carelessly throw on a pair of shoes, not bothering to see if they matched, and walk out the door as fast as humanly possible. Although she only lived two minutes away, he could tell her everything in a matter of seconds. And I needed to make sure that it didn't happen.