Blue Letter Night

4. Mason is bored

Machelle's house was big and confusing, I remember that much. It had a weird design with long and narrow hallways and useless rooms. Under other circumstances it would've been a great place to film a horror movie, but as kids it was the best to play hide-and-go-seek in; that was one of the only good childhood memories I had involving Beth, I guess it had something to do with the fact that we weren't being forced to spend extended periods of time together.

The house being a weird maze of hallways and nooks meant this little tour of the things that had changed was taking forever.

To pass time I let my mind slip. I wondered how long it would take to point out all the things that were different about me after ten years. I had grown and was finally taller than all my female classmates after a year spent in the seventh grade of everyone hitting their growth-spurt before me; I was even coming up on my dad. I didn't have a bowl cut anymore, which was probably for the best because it made me look like poodle with the mess of curly hair on my head. My voice wasn't as high as Mickey Mouse's, thank god for that.

"Oh wow, you did this?" My moms excited voice pulled me out from my thoughts and brought my attention to where we had stopped. It was a small, out of the way room that was more like a strange nook off the hall way, one of a dozen we had seen, there was so many hallways and stairwells and freaking nooks. This one, different from the others, had a painting on the walls; a field of yellow flowers lined the entire top of the baseboards going up about two feet to make it appear as if you were standing in yellow flowers.

"This is incredible," my mom reiterated with awe in her voice. Looking around the room, I was bitter. Beth wasn't supposed to be good at stuff, she was supposed to suck in all aspects because that's how's I had always see her. In these past ten years one thing hadn't changed, and that was my perception of Beth Rogers, and I was not going to let some stupid Summer change that.

My dad noticed my dazed look and stood beside me.

"Good huh son?" He smiled a smug smile.

"Yeah, sure," I said dully. My dad snorted and turned away mumbling something about his 'ridiculous son'. I grumble and waited until we could leave. Even though walking around a house was boring, it was even more boring to stand around in one room. We wondered around the house, stopped for nearly all of Beth's paintings and I got more and more bored.

Just as we were about to finish off the ground floor we stopped at a stairwell; a door that was big, bulky and blue. Mom was very excited about this but I didn't understand what was different about this room than any of the others. Machelle opened the door and golden rays of light poured through the door. We all entered the room and the walls were all glass, showing us a clear view of the sunset. We were up high which let us see perfectly with no obstructions blocking the view.

Mom was chatting excitedly with Machelle about how how beautiful it was. I decided to take advantage of the very comfortable chairs surrounding a coffee table and took a seat. It was only a second before dad called me over to where he and Beth were standing.

"Look at this son," he said referring to another one of Beth's murals. This one was painted on a giant piece of plywood which was drilled to the wall on one side of the door. I tilted my head trying to understand what it was. It was a black circle against a light grey background. In the black circle was a bunch of white dots in random spots.

"What is it anyways?" I asked.

"A star map," Beth replied from the other side of dad who was studying that map. I thought I herd the slightest touch of condescending tone but she kept it under control.

"It just looks like a bunch of dots," I said looking at it again.

"It's not finished," she defended.

"If you insist," I replied. I couldn't see her but I could feel the sharp look she was probably giving me.

"I said it, didn't I?" She told me. I rolled eyes.

Finally, finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we got to the second floor. It was all the kids bedrooms, two spare bedrooms, bathrooms, and the stairs to a small room: the attic. This is where the tour ended and I got to choose my bedroom for the summer.

I chose the one closest to the stairs. The walls were painted a grey blue and everything in the room had that blue colour range. The bed was huge and looked comfortable. I was anxiously waiting to crash after traveling all day. All I had to do was bring my duffel bags up with no interactions with Beth and I be home free. Of course, my mom could never allow that to happen.

"Honey, why don't you let Beth help you with your bags," she suggested. Beth and I were in agreement for once. We both started objecting in a rapid mumble.

"Nonsense," The look in moms eye made me think this was some plan of hers. Beth let out a concealed sigh where as I took a much more direct approach and sighed openly. She rolled her eyes.

"Come on Carter, dont be a drama queen," she said heading downstairs.

"You- you're the drama queen," I called back pathetically while the adults snickered behind us.

I stalked downstairs following Beth closely, mostly because I didn't know where anything was; not even the front door where all of our bags were located. Beth grabbed one of the bags in silence and I grabbed the other. Our parents were at the bottom of the stairs as we headed back up. I was surprised Beth wasn't struggling under the weight of my bag, there was a lot of random crap I brought; I guessed she wasn't as delicate as she looked.

"So Beth," I caught up to her, "does this mean you're going to wait on me hand and foot while I'm here?" we had reached the bedroom.

"Good try Mason," she told me tossing the duffle on the bed, "I'm not your servant,"  and with that she left with out another word.