Page 36 of Tell Me I'm Enough

Ava is dating one of the Sig guys now—Ryan—so she should be keeping those wandering hands to herself, but she doesn’t seem to care today.

They put their hands around my arms and dance on me from both sides. When Ava reaches up and whispers in my ear for me to grab her another drink, and kisses me on the neck, I pull her into me so my mouth is near her ear.

“I’ll grab you a drink, but I’m not getting my ass kicked by Ryan, so you might wanna go find someone else to dance on, love.”

She rolls her eyes but still smiles. “You could probably show me a better time than him.”

“Oh, I could. But you won’t be finding that out for yourself.”

She pouts a little before taking the hint and pulling Brittany away with her through the crowd.

I grab a beer from one of the coolers when I hear Get Low by Lil John start playing. Not even two seconds later, I hear Tank screaming the lyrics and look up to see his fully sober ass dancing, becoming the center of attention. I have enough alcohol in me to join him, and we slide into step beside each other, dancing and laughing. When ‘to the window’ hits, we get serious, and you would have thought we had a planned choreography for the song with how in sync we are. People form a crowd around and start hyping us up. I grab a girl nearby as the song switches to London Bridge by Fergie, and she obliges, smiling and dancing with me.

When I’m in party mode, you can’t stop me. I’m here to have a good time. I don’t know what embarrassment is, and as long as the drinks are flowing, my body is moving.

The song changes again, and the girl goes from jumping around and dancing to turning and grinding on me. I let her,hyping her up as she takes my hands and places them on her waist before she bends over, rolling her hips on me. I pull her closer to me, laughing into her hair and giving her the attention she’s looking for. I play the part and enjoy her wild energy.

College girls are fun. None of them are looking for relationships, just a good time. I can give them that. And when they try to go further, try to take me back to an empty room and do more, I always find a way to gently let them down without ruining the image that people have placed on me.

I’ve perfected the art of playing the part of the wild party boy without having to lose myself to one-night stands and meaningless sex.

It’s just never been my thing.

Eventually, I slip away, stepping onto the porch of one of the beach houses and watch the crowd of people partying as the sun starts to dip lower in the sky. A guy and a girl stumble up the stairs together, faces attached to each other as they try to make their way into the house, no doubt to defile someone’s room in there by the looks of it. I just tip my drink back, taking small sips, and relax for a moment. I tilt my head up and sigh, looking out at the darkening sky, wondering if my mom would even recognize me anymore. Would she want me to be living it up like this, or would she easily see through the facade?

She always wanted me to be happy, to have fun, and to live life to the fullest, but I’m slowly starting to also become everything she taught menotto be—reckless, shallow, and lost to the world.

The truth is, I don’t really know how to be anything else. When I’m alone, the quiet eats me alive. When I’m with people, the noise drowns it all out. So I live somewhere between the two—tipsy enough not to care, sober enough to still feel it anyway.

11

Mason

The days have blurred together since getting to Florida, and I’ve never been more tired. My eyes want to close on their own as I make the drive from Fort Lauderdale to Naples. I have to turn the music up and chug some water to help the pull of exhaustion I feel. It’s only a two-hour drive, but the headache I have makes it feel like five.

When I pull up to our house in Pelican Bay, everything looks…the same. I don’t know why I thought after being away from home for the first time that it would feel so different being back, but I just feel…back, like no time has passed, like I haven’t been trying to escape what this place holds for the last eight months.

I walk up to the big, black, window-paned double doors, and before I can get my hand on the doorknob, it’s yanked open. My brothers are on the other side, pulling it with all their strength.

“Mason! Mason!” Easton shouts.

“Mase!” Asher screams right behind him.

I bend down to hug them, and I don’t care how big they’ve gotten; I still wrap my arms around them and scoop them up.

What’s the point of all these workouts and football training if I can’t still hold both my boys?

“Did you bring us your football from school?” Asher asks.

“Of course I did. What kind of brother do you think I am? I brought youbothone,” I tell him with a smile.

The footballs are definitely from the store, but they’ll never know that.

When I left for school, they told me I had to bring them the football we use on the team. It’s just college football, but they treat me like I’m some big-shot player now.

Rose walks over to us when she sees me. “Hey, Mason. How was the drive?”

“Hey, Rose,” I greet back. “It wasn’t too bad, just felt like a little cruise.”