Not a Reunion

Chapter 43

Mason

Thea is already crying before she even says anything more. The fork in her hand falls to the ground with a loud bang. She wipes at her eyes, but it doesn't help the tears that are falling rapidly down her eyes. She is feeling so strong that I start to feel hurt as well. For her. I can't see her cry.

"Mason," she says through a sob, and the noise is so awful that she needs to put a hand to it. "I lost my dad," she whispers, barely audible. But I could hear her very well as everything around me stopped. Not even the clock can be heard ticking. It was just me and her right now. "You didn't answer me."

I want to say something, but she is so hurt. She doesn't wait for me to say anything. She just has to say her part as fast as she can. She places a hand on her heart, and I take notice of how it still shakes. Her eyes find mine, and I almost break at how emotional they are. Her eyes are glass, and the reflection I'm seeing in them is me. It was me who had broken her right now. It was hard to see that.

"Mason," she says again, and every single time she calls out my name through her sobbing, the more my heart tugs. It keeps tugging more and more, until I can't bear anything but the pain. "I called you a thousand times," she said, wiping at her eyes. She places her hand on the table and says, "So many times. I told you about what happened. I told you about how much it hurt. I think for a minute I just repeated that. I just repeated that it hurt."

It hurt.

I can hear her say it in my head as she would've in her grievance. I can hear how broken she would sound. But I didn't need to imagine that; she sounds so broken right now across from me.

Another tear tears out of her eyes, and she doesn't even wipe the black tear. She let it fall down, disappear, and disappear under her jaw. She makes another sound, one that grips my heart tightly,  and she says, "I told you I needed you, and you didn't show. I told you that all I wanted was you, but you didn't come. I told you that I would pay for your ticket. I begged you to tell me where you were."

She shakes her head and says, "I told you that I was going back home. And at home, I called you for a week straight. I called you first thing in the morning when it felt like my heart was being stepped on in the absence of my father. I called you late in the night when my mind wouldn't work and sleep wouldn't take me."

"Thea—"

"No!" she shouts out loud, her voice echoing off the walls of the quiet room. She presses her hand harder onto the table and says, "No. You left me alone. You left me to grieve my own loss. You couldn't even pick up your phone. I would have been fine if you couldn't come home, but you didn't even answer your phone. You left all my calls unanswered."

She closes her eyes hard, and I can see that she wasn't hurt anymore. She was angry. I could see it in the way her hands were fisting up. When she opens her eyes, I'm scared to look at her. I feel like I could die from the way she was glaring at me. "Not once," she says, her voice gone of the shaky tone from earlier. She picks up a hand and points a finger at me. "Not once, Mason. You left me to grieve my father alone, and then you left me to grieve you."

Thea is staring at me, and all I can do is stare right back at her. Thea is looking at me as if I were the person she hated most, and all I can do is look at her. I cannot pull my eyes away from her. I cannot look away from the person who just told me that she had to grieve for me.

Grieve me.

Oh, my God.

Thea had been grieving her dad, and then she had to grieve for me.

Tears leak out of my eyes. I thought I was stronger, but upon seeing her cry, I was crying as well. I could feel my heart clenching in my chest; I could feel the way it was hurting. for her. I was hurting for her. I hadn't known I could reciprocate someone's feelings so much. I hadn't known that, upon seeing her cry, I could as well.