Victoria Aspen's life just turned inside out.
She has been forced to move into the house she used to spend every summer in. It's been so long since she was welcomed back into the family and this time... they didn't really have a choice.
But thi...
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I exhale as I listen to the engine disappearing down the street. I watched Dylan from behind the curtain as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly for about a minute before trudging back to his car. I should have gone back out and apologised. I really should have, but...
I didn't.
"Tori?" I scramble to my feet, half stomping on wilted daisies as I do so. Adam is standing at the top of the staircase, dark eyes drowning in confusion.
"Yeah, hey!" I quickly change topics before he can even bring up the topic. "When did you get back?"
He gives me a suspicious look. "About an hour ago. I was about to go to bed." He gives me a one over, "And why aren't you in bed?"
Oh, yes. I forgot it's almost midnight. Suspicious behaviour indeed. Instead of answering, I scrape up what's left of my pathetic flowers and hurry up the stairs. "I am."
Before he can reply, my door clicks shut and I switch on my light, groaning. My face is suffocating in a cosmetic torture device. I turn and hit my head against the wall once, twice, three times. I need a shower and an hour of therapy.
Do you consider yourself a bad person, Victoria?
No, but I do have an honours degree in screwing up boy's lives. Does that count?
Of course!
I grunt once again before feeling the sticky sap from the flowers coating my fingers. Of course this would happen. Now my hand is itchy.
In a moment of pure irritation, I stomp to my window and pelt the stupid goddamn daisies out of my goddamn room because goddamn it.
"Hey!"
I flinch and slowly turn. Yep, just my luck. A figure is illuminated in the darkness sitting up against the branches of the tree that extends between our two bedrooms. And he doesn't look too happy to be covered in mangled daisies.
Mason holds up his hands in frustration and I bite my cheek until it bleeds. There's a pause, and I think that he's going to lecture me about mood swings and PMS and insane asylums, but he just stares at me, taking in my appearance.
Yeah, take a look at my caked face and ridiculous dress and frizzy hair and I dare you to ask how my night went.
But instead of all that, he simply asks, "Why?"
My heart deflates before he clears his throat. "Um, why are you dressed like that?" He pauses between words, a little hesitant about the situation.
I cross my arms and try not to be too dishevelled. He's wearing a green sweater despite the warm weather that, funnily enough, has tiny flowers embroidered into it. And now it has them embedded into it as well. "It's a long story."
No it isn't. It's a short, boring story that makes me want to tear my own face off. Literally. Where are the makeup wipes in this place?
"I bet it's not as long as I've been sitting here," He scoffs humourlessly and I freeze. He says it like it doesn't matter but something inside of me stirs that clearly isn't meant to. Don't think on it, Tori. He doesn't want you to think on it.
"Why are you sitting there, anyway?" The easier question. Only scratching the surface. The surface is clean and safe and things start getting complicated when I dive beneath the surface with Mason. He glances at me and then far, far away.
"I like the fresh air." He answers absentmindedly.
"Then open your window,"
"It is open."
"Open it more."
"Dammit, Aspen!" His head snaps to me in an expression of extreme annoyance. That makes me smile a little. Just like the good old days, when I hated Mason and Mason hated me and he didn't hang outside of my window waiting for me to get home from a date we both wish never happened.
You don't know that.
"Why have you got to make everything so complicated?" He half jokes. He's so right. Before I moved here he must have been having the time of his life, sleazing around with Kasey and God knows what else, and now he has to spend half of his spare time with me.
Not exactly ideal.
His gaze returns to that imaginary place and I return to my business, hunting for any method of facial cleansing. After a while, I give in and just have a shower. Mason will be gone by then. It's almost midnight. Fresh air only has its novelty for a short period of time, right?
By the time I slip into my pyjamas, I'm completely cleansed, looking dull as ever. At least my skin can breathe. I run a brush through my hair before exiting the bathroom, prepared and painfully excited for bed. I've never wanted to pretend the day didn't happen more than tonight.
I walk past the window and find that Mason is still silhouetted in his throne of branches. One of his legs is propped up as his head rests back onto the tree. He pretends not to notice me and I pretend not to notice him as I turn out my light and crawl under the covers. From here I can just make out his face before the window frame cuts out the rest of him.
I toss and squirm to find a position that I can sleep in, but there's something heavy asleep in my chest. Something that I need to get out.
"It was terrible, you know." I mutter, half expecting him not to hear it at all. "Biggest waste of a night ever."
"He take you to the movies?" His reply startles me and at the same time soothes me. I almost laugh.
"Yeah."
"Fast and Furious?" This time I really to snigger a little.
"Yeah."
I watch his expression as he chuckles, eyes still toward the sky. His grin is almost pained in sympathy. Or at least, I think it's sympathy.
After a minute I say, "Goodnight, Mason."
"Night, Tori." I almost drift off to sleep when I more feel than see him climb out of the tree and back into his room. The lights from behind my eyelids dim.
