“I’m not thirsty,” I tell him.
“Oh well,” he says, “more for me.”
He goes back to his liquor and his decades-old cartoons, and I’ve got to get out of here.
Chris promises to change more frequently than anyone I’ve ever known, and I’m not stupid enough to think things are going to be hunky-dory from here.
Still, on the off chance this is some kind of genuine breakthrough, I don’t want to stick around and let him see all of the doubt written across my face. He’d probably end up using that as an excuse to blow up his end of the bargain.
I’m walking now, no particular direction or destination in mind.
Chris said what he said to avoid getting kicked out, that’s plain. The biggest change is that this time, I’m not going to accept his excuses.
If he fails, he’s out and this time, I’m not just going to give him warning after warning.
This is the most ambitious I’ve ever been in trying to get Chris to stop doing what he’s doing before things take a turn that can’t be fixed by a drunken week or two at “little bro’s” house. That doesn’t mean anything if I’m not willing to follow through, though.
For now, I just walk and try to find something else to put my mind.
Immediately, my thoughts turn toward Ash. She’s at school right now, but we have plans to get together later.
As soon as I’ve got the image of Ash in my mind, though, the last half hour comes crashing back into my thoughts.
She knows about Chris, but that doesn’t mean it’s fair to drag her through all of this. If I know my brother, he’s going to try to weasel his way out of this every step of the way, and this is far from the last argument he and I are going to have about it.
Do I really want to ask Ash to deal with this when we’ve only been sort-of dating for a couple weeks? It doesn’t seem fair.
Conventional wisdom says it’s her choice whether or not to have this be a part of her life, but she doesn’t know Chris like I do and I don’t want to have him take off one day, only to find he’s sold her some kind of sob story and made off with her life’s savings.
Maybe the best thing for both of us right now is to break it off, but at the same time, I’m really starting to feel like those walls between us are beginning to come down, and I don’t want to miss out on knowing her better.
I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Chapter Eight
Reminiscing
Ash
I’m just leaving for class when I find Jana standing outside our building, smoking a cigarette.
“Hey,” she says as I come within speaking distance.
“I thought you quit,” I say, walking up to her.
“Don’t worry about it,” she says.
“The apartment’s empty,” I say.
Jana looks down at her cigarette and then back at me with a smirk. “I am outside smoking,” she says.
“Where is she?” I ask nervously. If Starbright—I’m getting tired of even thinking the name—could push Jana to picking up the pack again, I’m not sure I even want to know what she’s done.
“Oh, she’s out at a cooking class with some people she met earlier today,” Jana answers, flicking her cigarette before taking another drag.
“That sounds uncharacteristically normal of her,” I say.
“Today,” Jana says, blowing out a cloud of smoke, “they’re making an herbal lube that’s supposed to enhance pleasure and stimulate—”
“Why do I ever ask for more information when it comes to your mom?” I interrupt, smiling.
“Yeah,” she says. “Anyway,” she flicks her cigarette and when she looks back, her demeanor has changed, “how’s it going with Mason?”
“Oh, could we not do this?” I ask.
“Do what?” she returns. “I’m just checking up on my roomie. Things not going so well?”
“Things are going fine,” I tell her. “We haven’t hung out in a couple of days, but we’ve both been pretty busy. We’ll get our schedules figured out.”
“That’s good,” Jana says. “You off to class now?”
“Bio chemistry,” I tell her.
“Ooh,” she says, “that sounds like my idea of hell. Have fun!”
With that, she flicks her cigarette into the street and walks back into the building.
When I get to bio chemistry, I can’t focus.
The professor is going on about valence electrons, and I can’t stop thinking about Mason. It’s true that we’ve both been busy, but it’s really starting to feel like he’s actively avoiding me.
He’s got that tournament coming up, and I know he’s got to focus a lot on his training; I just wish he’d pick up a phone and call every once in a while.
None of this would be an issue if it weren’t for Jana. At first, I had to deal with the mental image of my longtime friend with my new boyfriend, but she doesn’t talk about that so much anymore.
Actually, for a little while there, Jana was really great about everything. I asked her to maybe ease up on the fond remembrances of their past sexual dalliances and she did.
The problem is that she’s developed this strange habit where she feels it necessary to inform me every time she remembers yet another woman in town she’s heard Mason’s been with.
The list, at this point, is still manageable, but every time she adds a new name, I start feeling a bit less secure in my relationship.
Stupid Jana.
The last time I did talk to Mason, he told me that he’d dated a lot of women, but hadn’t slept with all of them. He said that a lot of what people spread about him isn’t true.
I don’t know whether to believe him.
One could argue that a person who’s sewn such wild oats would say he hadn’t in this situation, every time the question comes up. One could also argue, though, that a person who’s innocent would say the exact same thing.
It’s not the end of the world; it’s just harder now to feel like this is something that has the potential to last.
The professor takes a detour from the regularly scheduled lecture to answer a question about Breaking Bad. You wouldn’t believe how often this still happens.
I wish I could just skip class today, but this isn’t an elective. Bio chem is required for my major and I’m not going to jeopardize my perfect attendance because I’m having relationship worries.
The closest I’ve come to convincing myself Mason’s sexual history, whether Jana’s version of it is true or not, doesn’t matter is by speculating that so much experience may be to thank for his uncanny ability to make a woman achieve climax.
That is pretty cool.
I don’t know. It’s in the past and I guess it doesn’t really matter from an objective standpoint. Mason’s not the first man I’ve been with, and while I don’t think my own history, even were it to be exaggerated, would hold a candle to his, I also don’t think it would be fair for him to judge me by the people I’ve been with in the past.
At least I know he’s clean.
Mason’s got a fight coming up, the first one of the tournament, and so he had to go in for a blood test before they’d let him enter the ring. I went with him and the guy’s clean as a whistle. I got one too, just for the hell of it. No surprises: I’m clean, too.