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“Convince me you weren’t trying to kill yourself, or?—”
“Fine,” I grit. And then with no warning whatsoever, I blurt out in a rush, “Not all of us can be like you and Izzy, okay?”
He rears back at that, clearly no more expecting my words than I anticipated saying them. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Cheeks heating, I quickly try to backtrack. “Nothing, I just?—”
“No. Don’t do that. Tell me. Explain it. Make me understand.”
Wetting my lips, I shrug. “I just meant…you guys are different. You’re not like me. You can…feel things, and-and you’re brave about it. Honest. Open. Even when it consumes you.”
Mason goes to say something, but I keep talking.
“And you have each other,” I utter quietly. I give my head a little shake. “All three of you do. Even though Waylon’s like me—he keeps it all inside—he still somehow managed to…to have you. To be normal.”
“Jeremy—”
“And I know it’s partially my fault,” I rush out, my voice on the verge of breaking.
I look down, staring at some spot on his chest. He’s wearing a Pearl Jam t-shirt today under his blue and gray flannel—white with black lettering.
“But I’m not…I’m not like you guys. I can’t go out and hang out with you, and smile like nothing’s wrong.” My breaths quicken, pumping out of me heavily. “Everyone stares. That’s what it feels like. Like everyone’s w-watching me, and dissecting every little thing I do, waiting for me to slip up, and….” I shake my head. “It just gets so loud in my head. And trust me, I wish I could ignore it. I wish I could turn it off.”
When I look up, I find Mason staring at me with pained eyes. He nods, telling me he’s listening, and it encourages me to keep going.
“It just…it feels like it’s too late for me.”
His frown deepens.
“And I don’t mean that in an, ‘I’m going to kill myself’ way,” I tell him quickly. “I just mean…you, Izzy, Way, and me…it is what it is. It’s you three on one side, and me on the other.”
He shakes his head. “No. No, Jer?—”
“It’s okay,” I say strongly. “It’s okay.” My lips curve with a small smile. “Maybe…maybe this is just how it’s meant to be. Maybe next year, I’ll?—”
“You’re coming to New York with us.”
I stare at him.
He’s frowning. “You know that, right? I mean…” He looks around the bathroom, as if realizing…
They never talked to me about it.
Izzy said we’d be together, but no one ever actually talked with me about it. Asked what I wanted.
“Am I?” I say not unkindly.
His eyes widen, and then with a fierceness that hollows my gut, he says, “Of course you are.”
My mouth thins.
“Fuck, I know in a lot of ways it looks like it’s always been the three of us one side, and then you?—”
“Because it is.”
“But there’s me and you too,” he argues back. “You know that, right?”
Frowning, I stare at him.
