Burning Desires

Chapter 11 : Let Me Paint You

    Cherry Creek., Denver, November 26, 2016

    Saturday

Elysia Rosalie Lockwood

    I've just returned home from a tiring day of class, work, and the gym. Mason is home and lounging in the living room on the couch. I plop beside him ready to go to town on a fat juicy burger I picked up on the way. My stomach growls hungrily, ready to burst.

    I sigh, peeking at the T.V. He's watching The Vampire Diaries, one of our favourite shows. Klaus is making his appearance so this is where it gets really good. I return my attention to him, I think about all the things he knows about me. Everything. He knows everything. But lately, things have been different. I feel like he tells my mother everything I do, and this is something I really hope she never finds out. Everything inside me wants to tell him every detail of these past couple of weeks yet I know I can't, and now I was going to be SEEING Lucien, and the small lie I told is about to become a little bigger. Guilt nestles, getting awfully comfortable in the pit of my stomach.

    "Are you okay?" Mason asks, noticing I'm staring at him.

    "I love you, you know that?" I tell him. I don't say it enough I feel. He grins his boyish grin and wraps an arm around me.

    "I love you, too, kid." He goes back to the show before casually mentioning, "Julia and Daniel are visiting next weekend."

    My eyes widen and I nearly chock on my side salad. My heart races and my stomach aches at the intense anxiety radiating throughout my body. My mom is a lot of work and so much comes up emotionally when she's around but I don't necessarily want to see her husband, Daniel. I respect and appreciate him for being there for my mother, and paying my way through college, I just don't prefer to see him. He resembles my father in ways I deject, and I know that comforts my mother in a lot of twisted ways but it does the opposite for me.

    "Daniel's a nice guy, he's great to your mom. Why don't you like him?" I narrow my eyes at Mason, my heart clenching painfully and hot anger shooting around in my body like ping pong balls. He knows why, but I'm guessing that he had hoped after enough time my feelings would lessen.

    "Why don't you like your father?" I snap cruelly, feeling horrible immediately after saying it. It's a low blow, one I should never go for. Mason and his father haven't talked since we moved here. He'd been waiting to get away from his cruel drunk father for years. I know I've hurt his feelings and I cover my mouth in horror.

    "I'm so sorry, Mas," I grab his smooth hand in mine and peer into his eyes, pleading with him to forgive me. "I think of him every time Daniel's around. I think of it." I struggle to say the words, to admit them aloud. Mason pulls me into his lap, wrapping around me protectively. He feels like the most familiar thing I have. He keeps me grounded. Just then, Harlem's bells chime and he leaps into my lap.

"Are you okay?" His chest vibrates beneath my cheek and he warms my entire being. I snuggle in closer, remembering Mason as the protector he's always been.

"Yeah." I say, retreating into my own head.

    My first day in LA my parents and I had moved from New York and I remember seeing Mason playing with his trucks and Ninja Turtles as I roleplayed as Snow White. I asked him to play and he agreed, from then on we were inseperable. He told me all his secrets, even the one about his abusive dad. I told him what I could, but I didn't have many secrets back then and eventually when there was a secret to protect, a secret so big and devastating, he kept it.