Vicious Circles (28 page)

***

I had finally forgotten all about Mason and his creepiness. A lot of that had to do with the fact that he’d gone off to film a role and I was swamped with school work. It was all I could do to get my homework done each night before passing out face first on the bed. Usually, I woke up the next day with my clothes from the day before still on.
 

When the last final before Christmas break was done, I breathed a sigh of relief. My life was my own again. I baked; I watched ridiculous old Christmas movies and bawled. I did everything I wanted to do and it felt good. It felt
good waking up rested each morning. The scars of what I’d been through were still there but I could look at myself in the mirror and acknowledge them. I’d come to realize with Mason away on location that I was self-sufficient. I was finally strong enough to be the woman he deserved and damn if it didn’t put a smile on my face every day.
 

Mason came home on Christmas Eve by sheer luck only. He’d missed the flight the day before and I was sure I wouldn’t see him for at least a few days. Instead, he was standing in our kitchen eating the ‘F’ from the sugar cookies I’d made. Some things never change.
 

“I missed you,” he said with a mouthful and a wink.
 

“I missed you too. Although I think
Martin and Pilgrim were more miserable than I was.”
 

I expected a bold middle finger in response but instead he kept his eyes trained on our tiled floor. The half-eaten cookie was pressed tightly in between his thumb and index finger.
 

“Mason?” I started to move closer but stopped.
 

“Fallyn, baby.
I want to ask you something and this isn’t the time or place.” He dropped the cookie and ran that same hand through his hair. “Fuck, this isn’t even how I planned this, but I can’t wait.”
 

I looked at him wide eyed and confused. “Is something wrong?”
 

“No, nothing is wrong. Actually, everything is right. It’s nothing like I imagined it but it’s so right.” His eyes were pleading as he stared me down from across the kitchen.
 

“Mason, you sound like an idiot.”
 

He crossed the space separating us and kissed me on the forehead. “You couldn’t be any more right. You have no idea. I’m an idiot and I’ll always be an idiot but this idiot loves you.”
 

I smiled and I could feel a blush rise in my cheeks. He stroked my flushed skin.
 

“There was a whole plan for this and it wasn’t my style at all but I thought it would make you happy. Then just now, I realized that you’re happy already. I can look you in the eyes and see that you’re happy.”
 

“I am,” I said with a nod of my head.
 

“Fallyn, I need you to marry me.”
 

The breath I’d been sucking in stopped and I feared my throat would close. I didn’t react or cry or anything. I stared at him.
 

He nodded slowly with his hand still resting on my heated cheek. “You’ll marry me, right?”
 

My lungs sprung back into action and slowly, a shy smile crossed my lips. “That’s a silly question.”
 

I leaned in and he met me halfway. He kissed me. Somewhere at our feet Pilgrim cried, but that time he would have to wait. Nothing would interrupt our lives and the fact that Mason wanted to throw his last name into the mix was a clear sign that we’d keep fighting the good fight no matter what.

Chapter 25

Mason proposed to me two years ago…today actually. I woke up this morning and stared at my ring until my eyes were just about crossed. So many people, Lynn and his mom to be exact, expected us to get married right away but Mason and me; well we don’t agree.
 

The first house we lived in is long gone. We actually bought a house together, in the same neighborhood but with a pool this time. I really felt like I needed a pool.
 

The last two years have been amazing and I don’t think I could have planned anything better in my wildest imagination. I know it seems like my craving and my need for the drugs was easy to get over, but it wasn’t. I just figured that I had spent enough time going on and on about how devoted to them I was that it was time for a change. That’s why I’m working on becoming a psychiatrist or a therapist.
Maybe an interventionist.
 

The point is I know how those people feel because I’ve been there. I lost a friend and I almost lost my life. I almost lost my Mason.
 

“You’re up early.” Mason rolled over in bed to glance at my computer screen.
 

“I couldn’t sleep. Inspiration hit.”
 

He read a little of what I had written and smiled lazily. “Is this the last chapter?”
 

“It is,” I sighed. “I’m a little sad that I’m almost finished.”
 

Mason rolled to his back and rubbed his eyes with both hands. “No one has a story like us, baby. We own our tale of life.”
 

“Well,” I moved the laptop off of my lap and moved to get out of bed, “I have to make food for the party this afternoon. I better get moving.”
 

He laughed but let me go without a fight.
 

The past few Christmases our house had become the gift exchange meeting place. I was a damn good cook after having so much time to practice. I didn’t mind cooking for our friends. Mason thinks it’s hilarious that I’m so domestic. I am not beyond flipping him the bird, ever.
 

Martin
followed me through the house, rubbing against my bare legs whenever I slowed down enough for his liking.
 

“The cats are hungry!” I yelled loud enough for Mason to hear.
 

If anyone had suggested to me that I would be almost married in a nice house with a pool and two
cats years ago, I would have laughed in their damn face. I mean, my future was bleak for the longest time. Since I began writing the story of our lives, I thought about Mason a lot.
 

We had both gone through so many changes since that night in Philadelphia when fate took over. Jill was gone from this earth of course, but I remember her before she was totally lost. She was horrible to me, but she was someone’s daughter and sister. She was a person and that is how I think of her these days. I’m sure my desire to save every lost soul is secretly in honor of Jill and the part she played in the story of me.
 

I went from having no one to having an abundance of people to love me. Lynn is my partner in crime, though that isn’t news to anyone. She’s that bright light in the crowd that everyone gravitates toward. She is also my pseudo wedding planner.
 

The piles of fabric and color swatches have been strewn about the living room for weeks, but Mason knows better than to complain. I could always bring up the fact that there was always a band of men in the garage banging around and making far too much noise for our upscale neighborhood.
 

“When is your mom flying in?” I asked Mason as he shuffled into the kitchen with no shirt on.
He watched me moving around the room effortlessly. “Next Thursday. Hey, can I ask you something?”
 

I placed a bowl of cereal in front of him.
“Absolutely.”
 

“Do you feel differently now that you’ve written that book?”
 

I actually stopped and thought hard about my answer. “I feel like me now.”
 

Mason eyed me over his cereal bowl.
 

“Think about it this way…I can say that I truly
know
who I am now. I can admit my faults and accept myself.” It was hard to put into words after writing it all down. I was never a deep, emotional person until I started writing my story.
 

“Do you think you’ll ever publish it?”
 

“No…it’s ours and ours alone. It’s us.” I blew him a kiss and went back to pulling odds and ends from the cabinets.
 

“I wouldn’t be opposed to you going public with it,” he mumbled through a mouthful of cereal.
 

I stopped what I was doing and turned to face him. He’d always been such a private person, and so had I, but I think he realized how much it meant to me; helping others in the same position.
 

“You’d sign the release? I mean you-“
 

“Fallyn, I’d do it for you. If it saves just one life, then mission accomplished.”
 

I threw my arms around him in happiness. We’d talked about my book so many times and I never felt the need to push him on the subject. The fact that he would sign the release and let it go to press was equivalent to him wanting to marry me.

***

“My feet are killing me,” I whined as I
flopped onto the couch.
 

Lynn sat in the recliner across the room and Mason sat down next to me, taking my feet into his lap. I moaned slightly when he began to rub gently. Lynn laughed at the look on my face.
 

“You two are like an old married couple.”
 

“Just think,” I said thoroughly enjoying my foot massage, “this time next year Mason and I will actually be married.”
 

“It’s about time!” My best friend made kissy faces at me from across the room.
 

“Lynn, you’ll never guess what Mason bought.”
 

He grinned but kept rubbing my feet.
 

“He bought a new car. It’s so close to a van I almost died.”
 

“What? Mason you are whipped. Do the others know about this soccer mom car?”
 

“Hey,” he warned, “it’s not a soccer mom car. It’s fuel efficient and good for the environment.”
 

The fact that I was sitting around on the day after Christmas and talking about the environment and new cars was crazy. It was always surprising to me when normalcy invaded our lives considering our extended family was anything but. Our Christmas tree was glowing angelically from the corner as Pilgrim batted at a ball on the bottom branch.
Martin had taken up residence in Lynn’s lap and that’s exactly how we spent the entire afternoon.
 

Mason ran off to play with his friends after Lynn left for the night, so I hopped in bed and pulled my laptop out to finish the last chapter of my book. For some reason, the bad shit had been much easier to write. Writing the amazing things that I’d been bombarded with after the fact was the hardest part about the whole project.
 

How does one put Mason into the right words? In my eyes, there was no way to describe what he meant to me, then and now.
 

He’s not so patient, but he’s always kind. He never leaves the toilet seat up so I fall in when I have to go at three in the morning. I love blueberry pop tarts and he despises them, but there is
always a box in the cabinet when I forget them at the store. He loves that I make Christmas cookies for him every year and he hasn’t once complained that they’ve never been in holiday shapes. His mother was taken aback at the swear words spelled out in the container on the counter but he just laughed it off.
 

Mason is a gentle soul wrapped in many different layers and I’ve been lucky to see them all.
I pretended to sleep when he tiptoed in at two so he wouldn’t feel bad. I could hear him stripping his clothes off and then the bed dipped on his side. He slid under the covers and rolled toward the wall. When his breathing evened I sat up in the bed and looked down on him.