Disabled.

Twenty Seven

"Selena, I honestly thought of her as a friend." 

Chris's words rang through Nadia's mind as she lay in bed that night. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't find herself believing anything that Chris had said about Selena. After all, she was the one that caused the entire school to use her disability against her. 

She found herself unable to sleep and decided to pick up her phone, hoping that she would eventually feel sleepy as she scrolled through Facebook. But the moment she picked it up, it vibrated as she received a text from Mason.

"Are you up?" she read the text out loud. She immediately felt her fingers move across her screen as she typed a one word reply,

"Yeah."

"You can't sleep either?" he replied a few seconds later. She attempted to reply to the message but before she could even type a letter, her screen changed as she received a call from him. She answered.

"Hey," she said.

"Sorry to call you so late, I couldn't sleep," he said, his voice sounding sad.

"Is everything alright?" she asked him. He sighed deeply.

"Honestly, I don't know."

There was a moment of silence between them. 

"I just-- I can't forget the look on Selena's face when I pulled her out of the tub," he said, his voice breaking at the end. Nadia felt her eyes sting suddenly. 

"She just looked so hurt." 

A picture of what Selena had looked like flashed across her mind just before she felt a stray tear fall across her cheek. Neither of them said a word for the next five minutes, the silence between them getting bigger and bigger. But neither of them felt the need to fill it because in that moment, it was what they needed; the comfort.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" Mason suddenly said.

"What?" Nadia croaked out as she wiped the tears which had fallen.

"Can we meet?" 

"Right now?" she immediately asked, removing the phone from her ear to look at the time. 11:15pm.

"Yeah."

And even though she knew her parents would probably flip out if they found out that she had gone out at that time, she couldn't find it within herself to say no. The only thing she could think of was the fact that Mason needed someone to talk to, to the point of asking her to meet him at that hour. 

"Okay," she finally said. 

"I'll text you when I get to your door. Don't go outside until you get my message." 

"Okay," she replied. 

They hung up and Nadia turned on her bedside lamp before transferring into her wheelchair. She pushed herself to her closet to take out a sweater and her jacket. She quickly put them on before wheeling herself to the washroom to fix her hair. When she finished, she pushed herself out of her room and into the living room. She stayed quiet as she listened for any movement from her parents. When she didn't hear anything, she pushed herself to the door.

After wearing her shoes, she stayed behind the door as she waited for Mason's text.

- - -

Ten minutes later, she and Mason were at a park close to her house. A light breeze blew around them, carrying the cold of the snow on the ground into the air. Nadia shivered slightly as she pulled her jacket closer to her body.

"Are you cold?" Mason asked from where he sat on a park bench beside her. She shook her head as she smiled. A small smile appeared on his face as he removed the scarf he was wearing and inched closer to her. 

"I'm okay Mason," she said as he tried to wrap the scarf around her neck, putting her hands up to stop him as she felt her heart beating quickly, her cheeks heating up. But he gently pushed her arms out of the way before wrapping the scarf around her neck. 

"I'd feel better if you were wearing the scarf," he said simply. She didn't have anything to say to that. 

"Why did you want to meet up so late?" she asked after a few moments of silence. 

"I'm sorry if I disturbed you," he said.

"It's okay, I couldn't sleep either."

"It's just--talking about Selena, I felt like I should talk to you in person. Talking over the phone didn't feel the same as having someone physically in front of me," he said. And once again, Nadia noticed his voice cracking at the end. She wanted to ask if he was okay but she didn't know if it was the most appropriate thing to do at the moment. But she couldn't stop herself from reaching out to him as she asked,

"Are you okay?" 

Mason turned around with tears in his eyes, catching Nadia off guard for a moment. 

"Every time I try to sleep, I keep seeing the sadness in Selena's face. And I just don't know what to do about it," he said, his hands balling into fists. Nadia watched him as he cried silently with his back now turned to her. She took in a deep breath before she pushed her wheelchair to be in front of him. She reached out to him and wrapped her arms around him in a hug.

To her surprise, he immediately wrapped his arms around her too and pulled her closer to him as he continued to cry. And as Nadia heard him crying, she felt tears of her own falling down her face. 

And although to an outsider, the image of them crying as they held each other may have looked sad, to Nadia it felt like a source of comfort. Knowing that Mason trusted her enough to share his feelings about what had happened and also to cry in front of her was very reassuring of the fact that they truly were friends.

* * *

A/N:

Thank you very much for reading this very short chapter! I hope you enjoyed it. I know it's a bit short compared to other chapters but it just felt right to end it where I did. So once again, I hope you enjoyed it. Please let me know your thoughts about how the story is going, I'd really love to hear it!

~candysweet101