Blindspot (Daydream, Colorado Book 1) Page 10

  “I am, though. You just always made excuses for me because I tried not to be an ass to you,” Mason said with another shrug of his fragile shoulders. “Until the lake.”

  “The lake?”

  Mason turned to face him, eyes wide and vulnerable. “Yeah, I… I was…god Drew, I wanted to hurt you,” he said on an exhale, hands shaking.

  Drew frowned, stomach lurching at the reminder of what he had caused. “You don’t have to explain…”

  “But I do! I was hurting and I thought it would feel better if you were too.” Drew could hear how hard it was for him to say it.

  “It did hurt,” Drew tried for a hollow sounding joke about his condition, but Mason’s glare told him it didn’t land.

  “I know. And I was the one that made you push yourself so hard you ended up in pain. Drew…”

  “It’s okay…”

  “No… it’s not. I’m sorry,” Mason insisted and Drew nodded, knowing he wouldn’t be letting go of the guilt he felt until he accepted his apology.

  Drew cleared his throat, looking down at their snow-covered boots. “You know, I didn’t think that was what you wanted to apologize for,” he mumbled and heard the breath Mason skipped.

  “The other night…” the smaller man started, and Drew sucked a breath in, the chill burning his lungs.

  “Mason…”

  “It can’t happen again. It shouldn’t have happened at all,” he said, tangling his gloved fingers on his lap, refusing to look him in the eye.

  “And why not?” he asked, knowing Mason must have felt at least a fraction of what he felt when they were together. It was impossible he hadn't.

  “Because it just can’t!”

  “So why did it happen in the first place?” Drew asked, doing his best to keep his emotions in check, but he knew Mason could hear his voice cracking. He heard it in the sharp intake of breath and the barely-there twitch of his fingers.

  “My head was spinning from reading that…it messed with my better judgment,” he said, and it sounded like bullshit to Drew. But he knew pushing would get him nowhere with Mason. He always clammed up even more when pushed, and Drew had to be careful not to cross his lines and lose him completely.

  “Right…” Drew said quietly, against everything in him that screamed to disagree. To say it was the best night he'd had in the past decade, and he wanted every night for the rest of his life to be like that.

  “We had our chance and things stopped us from using it.”

  “I…”

  “I don’t blame you, Drew,” Mason said, stopping his justifications as if he knew exactly what Drew would say.

  “I hurt you,” Drew said turning to face him directly and braving the storm inside him to clasp his small hand between his palms.

  “You did… and I spent the last ten years trying to let go of that pain. I blamed you, Drew. For so long I blamed you for rejecting me. For not sticking around to tell me you didn’t see me that way. For thinking leaving me was a better option than talking to me and staying my friend while I got over you,” Mason explained, voice wavering before he bolstered it like he always did.

  “It was never about that, Mason. Never about me not feeling…”

  Mason withdrew his hand, lifting his palm up to stop him. “No…”

  “Sorry?”

  Mason grimaced. “I don’t want to know how you felt then. I can’t…I can’t know that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…it took a long time for me to get to a place where I didn’t want to break down and cry every time someone mentioned you. I can’t go back to that. We’re…we’re different people now, Drew. We don’t know each other. And I’m willing to…I’m willing to get to know you again. As friends. As someone you can trust like you used to. But nothing more than that,” Mason said with finality.

  Drew took a moment to take that in, feeling the words settle in his heart like a stone.

  You had your chance and fucked it up.

  The thought was sobering, not that he’d never had this realization before. Hearing it said in Mason’s voice was an added sting he hadn’t been prepared for, however. But Drew wasn’t about to turn down the best offer he’d ever have. Mason was willing to move past what he had done and was offering him an olive branch. Drew wanted to run a mile with Mason, but he would take the inch offered gratefully.

  “I’d… like to be friends again.” Drew said softly. It was sincere, yet there was so much left out by omission.

  Mason held his eyes for a moment, looking like he had more to say before he broke eye contact. “Okay then. Friends.”

  “Friends,” Drew repeated.

  Silence fell between them again, weighted with unspoken words. Even still, Drew felt the most content he had been in forever simply sitting here side by side with the person who had been the most important part of his life for so long. He suddenly wished for his camera, wanting to capture this moment in time within the lens so he could look back on it and remember the feeling.

  ‘… everything of yours I have is in there.’

  Drew turned his gaze upwards, consideringly.

  “Does this thing still take any weight?” he found himself asking.

  “I’ve been up there to check on it from time to time,” Mason admitted vaguely.

  Drew smirked and looked back down at him. “Let me rephrase, will it take my weight?”

  Mason narrowed his eyes. “Was that a short joke? Friends for one minute and you’ve already got a death wish.”

  Drew laughed, following Mason as he got up and reached for the first plank. The shorter man scaled the tree with the same ease as when they were children, hands and feet sure, knowing best where to place them on the wonky makeshift ladder.

  “Coming?” he asked over his shoulder.

  Drew wanted to make a quip about enjoying the view, but the words died on his tongue, too scared to jump out. Instead, he eyed the trunk critically.

  “The preservation spell keeps the wood from weakening, so your giant self is safe, I promise,” Mason told him, as if reading his mind.

  “Easy for you to say, you’ve never fallen out of it,” Drew grumbled to himself, as he reached for the first plank.

  He looked down to adjust his footing, tentatively testing it would, in fact, not snap off the tree as soon as he stepped on it. He gasped as a rain of snow fell down on top of his head, creeping into his collar and down his back.

  “Oops, sorry, just cleaning some floor space, the snow got in.” He heard Mason say from above him.

  “You don’t sound sorry,” he said, shaking his shoulders to try and rid himself of the chilly snowflakes.

  “What was that?” Mason asked, poking his head through the hole to look down at him. He had another handful of snow.

  “Nothing,” he said hastily.

  Mason hummed, then gifted him a smile. “Thought so. Now get your ass up here!”

  He disappeared from view again, and nostalgia hit Drew like a blow to the head.

  He began his ascent, eager to see their old haunt. It was the first time since he had been back that he had felt that way about a place.

  His head had barely crested through the trapdoor when his foot slipped on one of the planks.

  “Shit!” he exclaimed, scrambling for purchase.

  Mason dove for him, catching him by the collar and dragging with all his strength. “Damn, Drew, why do you always have to make such a song and dance about getting up here,” he grunted.

  Drew used his upper body strength to heft himself the rest of the way upwards, toes of his boots scratching the trunk, rolling onto the leaf and snow-covered floor finally. He sighed out, staring at the wonky ceiling above him that leaned left and the metal lantern swinging with the disturbance.

  Mason entered his vision, staring down at him with a scowl.

  “I always said we needed a ladder,” Drew said.

  “No… I always said we needed a ladder. You just kept promising you’d build one. Idio
t.”

  He disappeared again, and Drew sat up with a groan, searching for him before getting momentarily distracted. Mason really had preserved this place exactly how they last left it… no, there were tiny differences. He spotted a plastic container in one corner next to a stack of books and old toys that were never there before, and there was a blanket and cushion that were also new.

  He looked around, following the string lights on the ceiling around the central tree trunk to where they connected to every lantern they had collected over the years; small, big, metal, paper, intricate and simple. They were snippets of time, now with snow and dust collected on top of them.

  He rubbed his hand over the place where their initials were crudely carved into the trunk.

  Property of Mason and Drew

  He shuddered out a breath. They were a pair once: Mason and Drew, Drew and Mason. You couldn’t find one without the other. Drew wasn’t sure how to exist in this space as separate entities now.

  He dragged himself away from the names and looked for Mason on instinct. The space wasn’t large, even when you added up all the little passages and chambers Drew had built to it over time. Each new structure leaned into the existing one making the space resemble a honeycomb rather than a house. It was a bit crazy, a lot claustrophobic, but it was theirs.

  Mason had sat down on the cushion while he had been distracted, turned out towards the tree line on the very edge of the platform that served as the floor, the blanket pulled over his lap. His favorite spot. He joined him there like he always had, only now there was space between them.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked eventually.

  Mason shook his head, and Drew turned away, not wanting to push this tentative thing between them. The view was still out of this world. Snowy treetops as far as the eye could see. Drew had about a hundred pictures of it, but he never got tired of it.

  “I never even noticed,” Mason finally said.

  Drew glanced at him again in question, there were many things that could fall under that umbrella.

  “Your brother…”

  Drew looked back out at the trees quickly, trying to school his face. “I didn’t want you to know.”

  “They took that choice from you,” Mason growled.

  Drew swallowed. “They…” he said but winced at the sharp pain.

  “Drew?” Mason asked, worry clear in his voice.

  “I still wouldn’t have wanted you to know.”

  “Why the hell not?!” Mason demanded, growing red in the face.

  “You think I wanted to admit to you that I was so desperate to be normal I let my—” he cut himself off with a hiss, losing his breath for a second.

  “Are you okay?” Mason rushed to ask, small hand grasping at his arm.

  Drew used that as a grounding point as he clawed his way back from the stirrings of pain. His last bout of it was still too fresh, and even scratching the surface of those forbidden topics felt like poking at an open wound.

  “I’m… as good as can be expected.”

  “I can’t believe they did this to you,” Mason spat out. “We need to tell the Mayor, get the other two taken in or something.”

  “They skipped town before we even had the funeral, I’m assuming they never came back?” Drew said.

  “That doesn’t mean they can’t be found,” Mason said, dangerously calm.

  Drew smiled despite the bleak topic. Mason was a spitfire; he always had been, and it warmed him like nothing else could.

  “Do your parents know?” came the next question, rapid fire.

  “It was hard for them…when Troy died…” Drew swallowed the lump that formed in his throat as his body refused to allow him to make excuses for them.

  “How did Troy die anyway?” Mason asked and Drew shrugged.

  “I don’t really know. That’s what hurt my parents the most. The lack of answers,” Drew said.

  “I get that, but did they know about what he did to you?” Mason asked again and Drew shook his head.

  “I tried…but…” he gestured towards his throat.

  “You couldn’t tell them, obviously,” Mason nodded, quiet for a moment before his eyes went wide. “They read the journal?”

  “Yeah, I… wanted to show it to them after the funeral… I knew where it was. They wouldn’t let me into his room… said I was disrespecting the memory of him, that I didn’t care…”

  “Fucking assholes,” Mason muttered under his breath.

  “They cleaned out his room recently, found it. Read it and hired a guy to track me down,” Drew finished off the story, relieved it was all finally out in the open.

  “It took them this long…” Mason shook his head in disbelief. “What did they even say?”

  “We haven’t talked… I mean… obviously. They just want things to go back to how they were. I know they feel guilty—”

  “They should!” Mason cut in. “They were the ones that got their hands on that grimoire first whether they used it or not. They’re as culpable as Troy and his idiot friends.”

  Drew shook his head, a laugh escaping him.

  Mason scowled. “Why the hell are you laughing?”

  Drew shrugged. “I don’t know… I just remembered old times I guess.”

  Times when Mason would defend him to his dying breath even when he was in the wrong. Drew hadn’t had that in his life since he left. No one had ever been in his corner, ready to throw down at the slightest insult other than Mason.

  “The way you reacted when you tried to tell me that day… is it always like that?” Mason asked, driving forwards like always.

  “Things change when you get older, your tolerance for things grows,” he said, unable to discuss the spell at all.

  “Is it just the pain?” Mason asked, and Drew shook his head.

  “No, I… I get these blackouts sometimes,” Drew said, making Mason frown.

  “Like… you faint?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And they’re also from what Troy did to you?" Mason asked.

  Drew shrugged. He'd asked himself the same thing a million times before. Maybe he was sick and wasn't getting it treated because he kept thinking it was because of magic.

  “I’m not sure really. They come at random times, not just when I try to…” He flailed his arm to depict what he was saying, not really keen on pushing himself to get past the pain anymore. “And I can talk about these, whilst the rest…”

  “You can’t,” Mason finished off for him. “How did you realize you can talk about them in the first place?”

  "I went to see a doctor. A few years back. And I was able to answer all the questions they had on the sign-up sheet they give you when you arrive. They did all these tests and didn't find a thing."

  "Yes, but they're non magic doctors. Did you see anyone who knew about magic?"

  "No, not really a lot of magical doctors where I lived," he said wryly.

  "Right... okay then, we're calling Darian and having him check you out. He knows all there is to know about magic causing illnesses. And if he doesn't, then I know someone who does... he knows all there is to know about everything, the annoying twat... and then we need to..."

  "Mason?"

  "What?"

  "What are you doing?" Drew asked and Mason rolled his eyes.

  "Organizing your damn life, that's what I'm doing."

  "Like always?" Drew asked, suddenly transported to his childhood when things were simple between them, and Drew was happy to let Mason take the lead.

  "Yes...like always." He stood up and walked a few steps towards the trapdoor before turning to him. "Well... are you coming?"

  "What, now?"

  "Would you rather wait for Mercury to enter Aquarius?" he asked.

  Drew tilted his head in mock consideration. "When is that?"

  "Tuesday."

  "How the fuck do you know that?"

  "Orson got super into astrology when he was dating this woman a few years ago. I picked up a l
ot of useless crap. Now... coming or not?"

  "Yeah... I'm coming."

  Mason turned to climb down again, and Drew stared after him for a moment, reveling in the feeling of them being them again.

  "Hey, Mason?" he called out.

  Mason lifted his head. "Yeah?"

  "Are we going to be okay?" he asked, dreading the response, but needing to hear it anyway.

  "I don't know," Mason said and Drew's heart sank. "But we can try.

  “Where are we?” Drew asked after a few moments of tense silence that wrapped around them in the car. They may have agreed to mend their burnt bridges and try their hand at being friends again, but it would take time.

  “Darian’s farm… or well, driving to it,” Mason said, taking a sharp right and continuing down a long dirt road, leading them a bit of a way out of town. The woods around the road were evergreen, lush and casting a dark shadow in the pale morning light.

  “Right…” Drew breathed quietly, and Mason nodded, concentrating on the road. The clock hadn’t struck seven yet, which meant the streets of Daydream hadn’t cleaned themselves for the day like the houses had. The fresh fallen snow still coated the surface, making driving just a bit more dangerous than Mason liked.

  “Who’s Darian?” Mason heard Drew ask a few moments later, and he sucked in a breath, painfully reminded of the decade that spanned between them.

  “Darian… He moved here after you left. He’s the town healer. He also keeps an eye on the woods and the greenery in town in general. His magic is pretty much connected to the nature in and around Daydream. It’s all pretty fascinating,” Mason babbled, trying to hide the sting.

  This road had been built to connect the town with the large farm Darian had started, and the trees lining the road were planted and had grown in that time… with a little magical nudge.

  “I missed out on a lot, huh?” Drew said.

  Mason nodded, a little stiffly. “You did.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and Mason sighed, now feeling horrible for making him feel guilty. He knew now what drove him away, and as much as his own pride and heart hurt, he had to try and let go. Their friendship wouldn’t work if he held onto his resentment.