Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

It was late into the night. Mason had just gotten out of the shower after finishing his daily chores and sat down on the bed with his phone in his hand. He paused when he heard something hit his window. He shook it off. It was probably a cicada or some weird ass bug like that.

Thunk.

Okay, what the hell? The noise persisted, and Mason begrudgingly got up. He turned his light on and yanked the window open. To his surprise, Isaac was the source of the commotion.

“The fuck are you doing?” Mason leaned out the window a bit to glare at his friend. Why didn’t Isaac just text him or use the front door like any sane person?

“Throwing rocks at your window,” he said casually. Mason had to fight back a smile. It was amusing to see Isaac acting so boldly. Usually, Isaac would claim that throwing rocks at someone’s window was rude and that it was better to knock. He would worry about accidentally breaking the glass, but not that night.

“It’s annoying as fuck.” It was. Mason was trying to sleep and not think about how their summer was ending. Yet, the curly-haired boy had to show up to bug him anyway.

“You have a foul mouth,” Isaac teased.

“Yeah? What else is new?” He couldn’t stop the smile from appearing on his face. Isaac had always complained about his language. Mason started cussing in elementary school. Mason could count all the times he heard Isaac cuss on one hand.

Isaac looked away from him and started walking to the back side of his house.

“The hell’re you doing now?” Mason called. Isaac started moving a ladder. Was he going to climb up there?

“Coming in.” Well, that answered that question.

“What’s gotten into you?” Mason had never seen Isaac act this way before. He wasn’t opposed to the change, but he knew there had to be something bothering Isaac for him to act this way.

“I’m leaving in the morning.”

Mason felt like the world stopped around them. He was leaving in the morning? No, it was still summer. Isaac was staying for the summer. Why was he leaving early? It was still …

One look at the calendar on the wall showed Mason that it was indeed the last day of August. It would be September when Isaac left, just like he had been told.

“Okay? So why are you here?” he huffed, crossing his arms. He made sure his expression didn’t reveal any of the hurt he was feeling.

“I always wanted to leave Stoneybrook, to leave North Carolina?—”

“Oh, here we go again?—”

“Mason, let me talk,” Isaac cut him off. Mason froze at the unusual harshness in his voice. He was ready to say more, but decided against it. Isaac seemed determined to get his point across.

“I always dreamed of leaving. I always wanted to travel. Since I was a kid, I have always had that dream, but even then, there was always a part of it that felt wrong.”

“And what was that?” Mason wasn’t sure if the words were even audible.

“You won’t be there,” Isaac’s voice wavered like it did when he was about to cry.

“What does me being there or not being there have to do with anything?” Mason was confused. What did it matter if he was there or not?

“Do you remember how we would watch the stars in the clearing?”

“We did that, like, last week. What are you on about?”

“I knew something was different about me from a young age.” Isaac looked away from him. Mason could see the unshed tears shining in his green eyes. What was this really about?

“Why?” Mason prompted, nervous. He wasn’t one to be anxious. He wasn’t afraid of anything, but the way Isaac was acting was unsettling.

“Because every time we watched the stars, I couldn’t stop watching you.”

What. The. Fuck?

He couldn’t stop watching Mason? What did that even mean? Even when they looked at the most breathtaking constellations, Isaac watched him ? There wasn’t anything special about Mason. He was rude and short-tempered. He wasn’t that attractive, either. His hair was a dull shade of blond. His eyes were brown, and his face was littered with small scars from his own recklessness. Why in the hell would Isaac prefer to watch him unless he?—

“I knew something was different about me from a young age.”

Mason had heard that being gay was wrong countless times growing up. His parents always assured him to love who he loved, and Isaac’s mama did the same for him. Even with their parents' support, it seemed like almost everyone else in their town claimed it was a bad thing. That had to be what Isaac was referring to. There was no other explanation. Holy shit.

Before Mason had the chance to voice one of the thousand thoughts running around his mind, Isaac was standing in his doorway, throwing a soft “I’ll see you around, Mason” over his shoulder.

Isaac was gone by the time he finally broke out of his trance. Mason rounded the corner in time to watch his front door slam close. He turned to see his mother sitting on the couch, looking confused.

“What did you do to that boy?” She set her book down, sitting up.

“Mom,” Mason whispered. He stared down at the floor, his vision blurring with tears. He wasn’t sure when the last time he had cried was.

“Oh, honey.” She walked over to him, wrapping her arms around him.

Even though Mason towered over her at that point, he felt like a little kid again. He gripped the fabric of her sleep shirt tightly in his hands. She shushed him, swaying him back and forth in the middle of the room.

At some point, his dad came downstairs. Mason was afraid he’d get told to man up or something along those lines, but no, his father silently walked up behind him and wrapped his arms around both of them.

Mason wasn’t a crybaby. He didn’t cry. Isaac cried all the time, and Mason always teased him about it. However, Mason cried like a baby in his parents' arms that night.

“Isaac made it to Atlanta,” Auntie broke the silence during dinner. Every Friday night, they would all have dinner together.

Mason pretended not to care, but he was relieved Isaac had made it there in one piece. That morning, he kept stumbling upon videos of car wrecks and it was driving him mad.

“That’s good. When does he start working?” Mom asked.

Mason excused himself from the table, claiming he was going to bed early. He didn’t want to hear about Isaac’s fabulous new life. He should be working there, on the farm with Mason. Also, how dare the bastard leave after dropping a bomb like that on Mason?

No matter what he did, Mason found his mind drifting to his childhood friend. Everything he saw reminded him of Isaac. The farm was tainted with his memory. Every DeKay’s brown snake, every damn star, the creek, the stupid cats, everything brought up some memory of Isaac. Mason hated him for leaving. He hated him for having such an impact on his life.