Page 53 of Escape Velocity
He picks up a rock and grunts as he throws it into the river, hoping that somehow it will change the fact that he might not see Callum or Mrs. Brown again.
Maybe he can try to make Mr. Brown happy. Maybe he can cure Mrs. Brown from being sick. Maybe then he won’t have Callum taken away from him.
Maybe holding Callum’s hand and kissing his forehead will keep him with him at all times. He isn’t sure why his love isn’t enough to keep Callum with him.
Mason sighs, picks up his bag, and walks out of the clearing, turning one last time to look at it.
It might be the last time he sees it.
He picks up a stick and draws his and Callum’s initials into one of the trees with two crowns underneath it.
M.F. + C. B.
“There. Now it’ll forever be our kingdom. We’ll always be the rulers. No matter what,” Mason whispers to himself as he smiles at his drawing, trying to swipe away at his tears.
He sniffles and storms off back to his mom, hoping that no matter how much times passes or how much the Brown’s want to keep Callum away from him that they will always have this place to come back to.
That it will always be theirs.
15
MASON
Callum was everywhere before.Now, he’s nowhere.
By Mason’s choice, but that’s the way he likes it.
Before, it was like Callum had managed to seek Mason out like a missile, and now Callum has no discernible target.
Mason has essentially gone undercover.
Mason takes every long way out of his classes, the library, the dining hall, going three flights up to just go into another building he has no business being in and exiting.
He’s quickly learning the whole layout of the school—fueled purely by his avoidance of Callum.
It’s already pained Mason enough to finish his article that praised Callum to the high heavens, but it had to be done. No one will want to read it otherwise, and he doesn’t want the possibility of losing his spot on the paper or to lose the opportunity of receiving praise from strangers. It keeps him stable.
College has a lot less opportunities to receive prestige and praise compared to high school, and he’s having a hardtime navigating it. He holds onto the praise thatThe Goldberggot him with an iron fist.
Despite his intentional space from Callum, Mason feels his absence, like a scab that’s beginning to heal, but Mason is picking at it over and over again.
That drunken night was a realization that was years coming.
He hasn’t gotten rid of his feelings for Callum, and all the pain that the lack of reciprocation and betrayal he brought came back up, and he had released it on Callum.
Mason almost thinks it’s unfair to place so much responsibility onto him, but Callum had it coming. Maybe Mason could have been nicer about it, but he was drunk, hurt, and vulnerable, and Callum refused to leave him alone.
Mason keeps thinking about how Callum said he always thought about that day in the cafeteria since it happened. He knows what he did, and he felt bad about it, but not bad enough to make up for it.
He wonders what could have warranted such negligence and lack of regard for Mason’s feelings. What happened to Callum to make him not stand up for Mason, his best friend all those years ago in his freshman year?
By the time it happened, they had clearly started to grow apart without being able to hang out at each other’s houses after the Brown-Fanning family schism, but only because Callum was choosing his football friends and popular crew over Mason.
Callum was changing, and Mason kept trying to hang onto the old Callum, and that was the final nail in the coffin of their friendship. Callum had made it clear that he didn’t want to be friends anymore.
And just like that, Mason was alone for a few months,with nothing but his textbooks, calculator, and his dignity to keep him company until Jenna came along.
Despite his vehement dislike for Callum, Mason still considered Callum as someone who was important to him.
