Blue Letter Night

26. Mason has three hours

No Anne. No Eddie. No Max. No Machelle. All that was left was Beth and I— and my parents, but they were pretty much distracted by wedding prep. With no one else to buffer Beth and I, I found myself spending all my time with her.

Late into the night we'd sit in the glass room and talk in hush tones despite the house being practically empty. If this were a month ago and we'd spent this much time together, the wedding probably would've been shadowed by one of our funerals, caused by nothing anyone could prove. But, I was enjoying the days and nights we spent talking about ridiculous things while I tried to sit as close to her as possible without being too obvious.

I had told her the story of my first kiss during a scolding hot day on our walk back from the ice cream stand in the park. It was with my one and only girlfriend Stephenie Garble.

"Wow," Beth said with only slight mockery, "was she pretty?"

"She had hair past her butt, so in eighth grade yeah,"

"And how was the kiss?" She asked expectingly. I wasn't as good of a story teller as Beth was, so she constantly had to ask questions to get what she classified was a good story from me.

"Oh it was so awkward. We had been dating for a day,"

"Wow!" There was a note of surprise in her humorous tone, "you were a ballsy eighth grader. Kissing her on the second day?"

"Not really. At my school, kids would be grinding in the hallways after three days. I was wayy behind," this made her laugh and made me feel content for that moment, "but I did get three whole kisses out of that relationship,"

"Three whole kisses. I'm mildly impressed,"

"And how about you?" I asked and she gave me a questioning look, "how much did you get out of your relationship with Sebastian,"

We hadn't really talked about Sebastian that often, unless it was to make fun of him because he was like an exaggerated version of a preppy bully in an eighties movie. Beth shrugged.

"I got four disgustingly slobbery kisses," she said with a frown.

"Oh no," I let out a bark of laughter.

"Yeah, it was like kissing a Great Dane puppy,"

"Wait four disgustingly slobbery kisses?"I asked after we stopped laughing.

"Unfortunately," was her reply.

"That means you're more experienced than me! I can't believe it,"

She laughed, "Man, I wish this was a victory but I would take all that experience back if I could,"

It was fun to exchange stories, we had a lot to tell after so many years I guess.

"You know," she started one night in the glass room. We had sat in silence staring up at the quiet night for a long time before she spoke. Our knees were touching, and I could smell her strawberry shampoo, "your Mom and I used to be pretty close back in the day,"

Of course I knew this; it had once made me so jealous but now, I hadn't really minded sharing my Mom with Beth if it gave her any resemblance of a mother daughter relationship.

"I remember the sleepovers you would all have," I told her. She smiled a dazzling smile but was still looking up.

"Your mom would cut my hair, and we would watch movies with candles all around us because we didn't have lightbulbs. We'd have competitions to see who could stay up the latest," her smile wavered a bit, "my Mom and I always won,"

"Really?" I asked, not really sure of what to say. I knew what I wanted to say; a question that had been one of the puzzle pieces missing of Lucy and Beth. It was a question I hadn't really thought to ask my Mom or Dad about when it mattered, and forgot about later. Beth laugh a little.

"Yeah," her voice was small, and even though she was next to me she sounded like she was a million miles away.

"Do you miss her?"

without needing further explanation Beth replied, "All the time,"

"Could you tell me what happened?" I spat it out so quickly I didn't even have time to think about a decent way to ask. There was a pause. Was I an idiot? That was such a stupid question to ask. She was happy, and smiling and I had gone and ruined the moment-

"Okay," she said. Oh.

Our heads were resting on the back of the love seat, both facing towards the sky. I glanced over at her but she kept her eyes on the stars.

"I was seven and on top of the world, mostly cuz you had just left, no offence," I had to snicker and shake my head along with her, "I think it was about two months after you guys left when I started to notice she was bonnier when she hugged me. I asked her what was wrong but she told me it wasn't for me to worry about, so I didn't. It wasn't until five months later when Mom had to bring me to her doctors appointments. It was Cancer. Terminal. I didn't really know what that meant at the time, just that she wasn't going to get better. And well, you were there for her funeral when we were eight,"

I still couldn't tell if it had been stupid of me to ask; If it was something I needed to know to advance our friendship, or if it was just something that I forced out of her and she reluctantly told me. Her dad was still a secret to me and it didn't feel right to ask.

I turned my head, keeping it rested on the back of the couch still, and looked down at her hand closest to me. I put my hand on top of hers and squeezed it in an awkward attempt to be comforting. She turned her head and looked down at our hands until I spoke.

"Thank you for telling me," she met my eyes. Our noses were nearly touching and if it was light out I'd be able to see the specks of silver in her eyes. She clasped my hand, hers was freezing. My heart was racing.

"Thank you for letting me," she squeezed my hand before standing up fully. I broke out of my daze and stood up too.

"It's late," she remarked.

"Yeah," I breathed.

"We should get to bed. We've got to travel a couple hours tomorrow,"

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right,"

We walked in silence to our rooms and I couldn't tell if it was awkward or just new. Either way, things had once again changed between us, and I couldn't tell if it was a good thing. When I closed the door of my room I emergency texted Eddie, my phone screen the only light in the entire room.

Beth and I might've just had a moment or something but idk I texted. I didn't get a reply until early the next morning.

And?!?

Nothing major

Enough for me to win this bet? I could practically hear Eddies desperation through the text.

Sorry bud

You have three hours to win me five bucks!

When I got down to the kitchen where everyone else was awake and eating, Mom and Beth were talking about the infamous cousin Lisa.

"Do you think she's going to go through with it?" Beth had asked between bites of cereal. I sat in the chair with my own bowl and she smiled.

"I don't know," Mom sighed, "but this is the closest we've ever gotten to one of her weddings,"

"This might be it then," I interjected.

"There's still twenty four hours until the wedding," my Dad told us, his eyes glued to the days newspaper.

"Either way," Mom said, "we leave in twenty minutes,"