Cute Voice

POV: Jason

Jason stared at the sleek, black-cased phone in his hand, everything else blurring to bring it into sharp, panicked focus. His navy bedding, shorts, the throw blanket folded neatly at the edge of his bed all became fuzzy. I love you. Jason's mind, usually a catastrophe of pictures and voices, memories and feelings, was on overdrive, playing the words again and again. 

He'd said it. He'd said it to a girl he didn't know, had never seen. But what scared him most was that it didn't feel like a lie. It didn't feel like a lie at all. It felt out the demeanor of control he always put up. It felt like a betrayal, somehow. It even felt like a fear he'd laughed at so much in other people. 

But a lie? No. Shelly, with her cute voice, and insecurities, and deep thoughts, and fears, and humor and attempts at teasing, and grudges, and- Jason dug his fingers into his soft hair and clamped his eyes shut. Stop. Stop stop stop. But why stop? Why not go on forever this way?

Jason shoved his blankets away, standing up abruptly. His bare feet slapped the floor all the way to his bathroom. It was one big square, in Jason's opinion. Square windows, a square counter with a square faucet and square knobs. A square toilet and perfect, and marble square tiles that were always way too cold in the morning. 

Jason slapped his hands down onto the square counter, hunching his muscular shoulders and looking up into the mirror. His tousled to perfection hair stuck up in awkward, light brown chunks. His tanned forehead was creased with the lines of his raised eyebrows, and his pale, nearly see-through blue eyes fell on their twins in the mirror. They were twinkling. Again. They were always twinkling these days. 

"Damn, what am I doing?" He muttered to himself. 

When he was done, Jason picked a tee shirt and jeans from his bedroom-sized closet, and gave the mirror a once-over. Olivia, an ex-girlfriend, once told him that no matter what he was wearing, he always looked like he was wearing a tee shirt and jeans. She said that was the kind of guy he was, and that he shouldn't try to be different. And yes, maybe Olivia had a point - it was after all that very outfit that oddly attracted girls eyes up and down him wherever he went - but for once, Jason didn't want what everyone wanted of him. Jason, actually, wanted to don the white shirt with a low cut neck and expensive navy jeans, and hop on the nearest bus to Seattle. 

"Loser," He said to himself. 

He always wanted to hop on the nearest bus anywhere. So he'd told a girl he loved her. So he'd connected with her a way that took up enough of his brain space to push out thoughts of his father and running away. So he wanted to dress up for her. It was normal. It was all normal.

"Good morning, Jason."

Jason looked up, spotting Barbra. Or was it Whitney? No, definitely Karissa. 

"Good morning," he said pleasantly, then promptly began to sweat. He wasn't like his father. It was an oath he'd took on a long time ago. He remembered the names of the various workers cleaning their house. He said good morning to them, and treated them like something more than hired robots. 

Barbra/Whitney/Karissa watched him, amused. "It's Haley."

"Oh, yeah, I knew that," Jason assured her. "By the way, Hayley, do you know if my dad's home for breakfast?"

"He is, actually," Hayley responded, her green gaze darkening. "He's in the marble kitchen, if you want to eat with him."

"Thank you, M-" Jason's tongue tripped, and for the millionth time that day, his thoughts flew back to Shelly. "Hayley."