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For months, I let him initiate it, only responding with a picture if he sent me one first. Playing it cool. Acting like I wasn’t checking my phone constantly, hoping for a new notification from him.
But eventually, I got a little braver and started sending snaps without waiting for him. Be it photos of random sights along the road, objects with meaning only he’d understand, or, once, in a moment of weakness back in November, a selfie.
Not because I’m so full of myself to think he just so desperately needed to see me, but because it was me who was so desperately in need of seeing him…
And my foolish, impulsive ass actually thought that by extending the olive branch that is my face, he’d extend his face back.
No such fucking luck.
He ghosted me for over two weeks after that.
Lesson learned—the hard way, as always. I made sure to never show my face again.
Simple. Safe. Boring.
The unholy trinity of all things I’m allergic to.
But it’s the way he wanted things, so again, I bit back my stage-five clinger tendencies, and respected it. Even when I found out back in October he’d met someone, and it took everything in me not to say to hell with the rules.
Not that it amounted to anything…
At least, according to what I gathered from Phoebe and Ivy back around Thanksgiving.
To say I was relieved would be an understatement.
Relieved and…overcome with a renewed sense of purpose. Determination.
So while it’s been rough, having nothing but random photos to rely on—ones that would disappear within seconds—I can’t complain too much, seeing as it was the only way I got anything of him at all. Rather than nothing, like I expected. Deserved.
Like me, he’d send me cool sights he visited, like museums and landmarks and hundred-plus year-old pubs.
He’d also send me random objects that either I understood, or had not a single clue about, but found myself staring at for far longer than was probably warranted, trying to decipher some hidden truth behind them. As if through the chip in the corner of an old window pane, I could find the key to fixing this mess between us.
“Mason!”
Yanked out of my thoughts, my head snaps up, a grin overtaking my face when I see my little sister beaming back at me from where she stands near the door.
Shouldering my way past the remaining bodies, I let my bag fall to the ground, and spread my arms, catching her just as she launches herself at me.
“Hey Squirt,” I say, lifting her off her feet like she’s still a little kid, and not nearly sixteen.
She squeezes her arms around my neck so tight, it hurts to breathe, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Fuck, I’ve missed you,” I say roughly.
Being that she’s still so young and the only somewhat nearby shows we played were on weeknights in 18+ older clubs, she was only able to make one show. Last I saw her was show number three—the one in Philly; Will and Ivy brought her along—and that was over two months ago.
“Well, maybe next time…” she says, dragging out her words pointedly, “Mom will let me tag along.”
I arch a brow down at her. “What about school?”
“There’s this little thing called cyber-schooling, and?—”
“Not happening,” Mom singsongs, nudging her to the side so she can pull me into a hug.
My arms wrap around her, and my face instantly falls to her shoulder.
“Hey, kid,” she says, rubbing my back. “Welcome home.”
