Only the Truth Pt. 02

MASON

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It took Claire all of ten minutes to clear everyone from the house, her excuses ranging from tiredness to noise complaints from the neighbors. She ushered each person out the door with a performance worthy of an Oscar--smiles, hugs, nothing to worry about here--then grabbed a garbage bag as if she wanted to strangle it, and dived into cleaning up the place like a woman possessed.

Andy disappeared straight after the last guest had gone, announcing he was heading off to bed so the two of us could talk. Asshole knew exactly what he was doing. Not only had he avoided the whole clean-up process, but he'd passed the job of pulling his fiancée from her shitty mood on to me.

Now the house was quiet, it would have been the perfect time for Claire to start talking, apologizing, maybe groveling for forgiveness, but she seemed intent on shooting glares my way instead.

The last scowl as she stalked by pushed my patience to its limit.

I shifted one of the couches back to its usual position as she bent over the coffee table to shove some cans and paper plates into the bag. An angry action followed every one of her movements, like she needed a form of physical punctuation to remind me how annoyed she was with me. It probably would have made me smile if I hadn't been so pissed.

"Claire."

She grabbed a napkin and threw it in with the other crap, but it mustn't have made a satisfying enough sound because she kicked the bag against the leg of the coffee table.

When no answer followed, I spared the ceiling a glance and blew out a sigh, wondering why I was even bothering. The silent treatment had always been a major downside to having a girl for a best friend.

Just as I opened my mouth to try again, Claire dropped the bag and sank onto the edge of the sofa. She threw me a resigned look and hid her face in her hands, groaning through her fingers.

Well, at least now we were getting somewhere.

I stood there looking at her, trying to pinpoint the moment when she'd changed from the friendly, easy-going girl I used to know to this stressed-out version today. We'd been friends since we were ten, and I knew everything about her. No major life events had triggered the shift, I wasn't aware of any mental health issues. She'd always been popular and well liked--which in my experience didn't necessarily mean the same thing.

It made zero sense.

I took in her defeated posture, the way her blue dress dipped low in the back, her bent position highlighting all the bumps in her spine. She looked fragile now rather than fierce, and the anger I'd felt toward her and this entire clusterfuck of an evening suddenly faded to nothing.

With a loud breath, I stepped around the couch and sank into the spot beside her. She'd pulled her hair into a knot on top of her head, and a few loose strands had got tangled in the catch on her necklace. My palm came to rest between her shoulders, and I flicked the wisps free with my thumb. She didn't react.

As time went on and the silence continued, it became increasingly obvious she wouldn't be the one to speak first.

Claire and I could be as stubborn as each other, but I didn't have the time or energy to get into a standoff with her. I wanted to ease her mind, make her understand everything between Sadie and me would turn out fine. There were only a handful of people in my life I'd do anything for, and she'd been at the top of my list for a long time now. Being alone with her in my room had only solidified those feelings.

"I love her," I finally said. Sadie should have been the one to hear those words first, but I needed to get through to Claire and make it clear this wasn't just some passing thing. "I'm in love with her. Have been for years."

"I know that, doofus," she said, her fingers muffling her words.

My hand froze as I stared at her profile. I'd told her about my interest in Sadie a few times, but I'd never gone into detail about how strong those feelings were. "How?"

She lifted her head and sent me a sideways glance. "I've seen the way you look at her. It's always when you think no one's watching, and every time it just... it makes me want to go into a full-scale panic attack." She straightened, chewing on her lower lip the same way Sadie did whenever something bothered her. "She feels the same way about you. I'm guessing you know that by now."

"She talked to you about this?"

"No." Claire gave me a fleeting smile. "She sneaks looks at you as well. It's so pathetically romantic I can barely stand watching the two of you."

I frowned and tried to get my head around what she'd told me. If she could see how much we cared about each other, shouldn't that make her happy? "If you know all this, why are you trying so hard to keep me away from her? I don't get it."

She blew out a breath and shifted her attention to the blank screen of the TV. I expected her to rattle off reasons related to her and I being friends and concerns over the friction it might cause somewhere down the track, but she came out with something unrelated instead. "Because she looks at you the same way I looked at him."

Her shoulders tensed at the mere mention of 'him'. Pity I had no idea who she was talking about. She'd been with Andy for the past six years, and I knew without asking that she wasn't referring to her fiance. "Who?"

Claire shoved her hair from her forehead and gave me a look that made me think of a cornered animal. "Do we have to talk about this? I really don't want to talk about this."

The way her gaze kept bouncing from one object to another said otherwise. She wanted to get it over with, to experience the relief of no longer carrying it around. It was just the first step that scared her, and she needed a push. "Fine. Let's not talk. I could be sleeping anyway." Or calling Sadie, or a million other things instead of sitting here testing how long my patience could hold out.

When I made a move to stand, she grabbed my forearm right on cue and stopped me. "Wait. Just... wait. I need a second. If I don't get this out now, it'll be hanging over my head for the rest of my life."

A tad dramatic, but since we were making progress, I held back from commenting. I sank back against the couch cushions again and waited for her to kick off a conversation I hoped would make everything clearer.

"I'm referring to Justin," she said, keeping her eyes averted.

I didn't need a surname or a physical description to jog my memory. She was talking about Justin Roberts, the idiot she'd had a thing for back in high school. Spiked black hair, leather jacket and a shit-eating grin came to mind, along with the familiar urge to punch his weasel face. The combination of him and Claire had never made sense, but I'd given up trying to figure out teenage girls back when I was still a teenager myself.

"Funny, you never told me why that ended. You were together one minute and then just... nothing."

The minute they'd stopped seeing each other, Claire had refused to talk about him. She avoided looking in his direction at school, stayed away from the areas where he normally hung out with friends. He'd been all she could focus on for months, to the point where I got seriously tired of hearing about him, then the guy slipped off her radar.

If I hadn't despised him, I might have been concerned.

"There's a good reason for that." Claire gave me a tight-lipped smile. "I got pregnant."

"What?" A jolt went through me as I scrambled to process the information. How the hell could I have missed that? I assumed he broke up with her for some trivial reason because he was a dick. We were sixteen. My thoughts almost exclusively revolved around girls and sports. It never would have occurred to me to ask if it was something more serious. We were so close, she would have shared news like that with me. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She squeezed my forearm and tried to smile, but it only came off looking pained. "I didn't want to dump my problems on you. I knew how you felt about him. I told Justin," she said. "He was the only guy I'd slept with, but he turned into an embarrassing cliché and said it could have been anyone's. He wanted nothing to do with me after that, wouldn't even look at me. It was like if I didn't exist, neither did the baby."

She couldn't disguise the hurt in her voice. It might have happened over ten years ago, but a protective urge came over me, and my hands still clenched into fists. "You should have told me. It would have given me a good excuse to beat the shit out of him."

Her mouth turned up on one side. "You were always looking for a reason, and I didn't want you to get in trouble over me. They would have expelled you for something like that." She glanced down at her hands, spinning her engagement ring around her finger.

"So, what happened?" I asked, already having a fair idea about the answer. She'd never looked pregnant, and she hadn't taken any extended leave from school.

Claire pulled in a long breath and blew it out slowly. "Two weeks after I found out, I started cramping at school on a Monday afternoon. It got worse on the way home, and I lost the baby that night. I cried so much, my parents didn't know what to do with me, and I couldn't go back to school for the rest of the week. I thought I loved Justin. I had this idea that if I kept the baby and he got to see it, that maybe... maybe it would have changed his mind." She let out a shuddering sigh. "I was such an idiot."

I took her hand and squeezed. "You're not the idiot. I'm so sorry you went through that. I wish I could have been there."

She sent me a fleeting smile. "You were in a way, without even knowing. My parents knew the truth, but we told everyone else I had the flu. Remember when you came over on that second day and made me eat the chicken soup my mum had been trying to force on me all afternoon? Then you sat with me on my bed and told me funny stories until I snorted it out my nose."

With a smile, I thought back to that day. When I turned up to check on Claire, her mum dragged me into a hug and held on like she didn't want to let go. She pulled back, sent me a long look, and told me how lucky her daughter was to have a decent guy like me for a friend. Her words seemed overly sentimental at the time, and her tears made me uncomfortable. Now it made sense. "You should have told me."

"I didn't want anyone else dragged into my mess. Sadie didn't even know. She still doesn't."

"Does Andy?"

Claire tucked her hair behind her ear then dropped her hand into her lap. "I told him not long after we got together. He's been great, Mason. I'm really lucky to have him in my life."

I slanted her a look, wishing she could take the credit for her good decisions just as easily as she could blame herself for the bad ones. "It's not luck. You learned from what you went through with Justin and picked a better guy the next time around. Some people never figure it out and keep repeating the same patterns over and over."

"I guess."

I heard the shrug in her voice, and the tension in her features remained. Her secret must have been weighing heavily on her all these years, but she didn't seem any lighter for having shared it with me. Her eyes kept darting away from me, like she couldn't bear to look at me for too long. It set my nerves on edge.

"What else?" I asked.

She focused on her thumbnail polish, picking at a minor chip until she'd turned it into a bigger one. The silence only grew more intense, and I knew without asking that whatever else she had to tell me wouldn't be anything I wanted to hear.

"Spit it out, Claire."

With a tortured groan, she rose from the couch and smoothed the hem of her dress. Her hands twisted in front of her, and she sent me a pleading look as if I might suggest we take a break and pick up the discussion again another time.

No chance. I stared at her and waited.

"I... God, Mason." Her body vibrated with tension, then she opened her mouth and blew up my world.

"I started the rumors. About you. It was me." Her gaze flicked to the hallway, and it didn't take a genius to figure out she hadn't shared this little nugget with Andy. He never would have let it slide if he'd known.

My eyes closed, and I focused on my breathing. "Why?"

"Because I wanted Sadie to concentrate on school without being distracted by you. What happened with Justin threw me off track for a long time, and I saw how much she wanted you. I couldn't just sit by and watch her make the same mistakes I did."

"Jesus." I opened my eyes and stared at her, keeping my gaze so steady she at least had the grace to look ashamed. "Do you have any idea how you sound? That wasn't your call."

Claire rubbed her upper arms, her eyes shining with unshed tears. "I thought I was doing her a favor."

"Bullshit. If that was true, you never would have kept it to yourself."

"Mason, you don't understand. She was sixteen when I noticed her really watching you. I thought it was just a phase, and she'd get over it, but it only got worse. Then you told me you wanted her, too. The rumors gave you something else to focus on, and she thought you were moving on with other girls. It was the perfect solution--for everyone."

I couldn't let myself think about what it must have been like for Sadie to watch women throwing themselves at me, and all because of a reputation Claire had created for me without my knowledge. It would have driven me insane if our situations were reversed. The fact that she even wanted to speak to me now floored me.

"So, I'm like him?" I asked Claire. "I'll use her and treat her like crap. Get her pregnant and leave her to handle it by herself? You think Sadie's too stupid to figure out how life works without her big sister making all the decisions for her?"

Although I had no immediate plans of becoming a father, I'd never run from the responsibility if I  ever found myself in that situation. Had Claire's opinion of me really dropped that low? I stood and paced the living room, shoving my hands in my pockets so I wouldn't be tempted to wrap them around her neck.

"You're not like him," she said, causing me to turn and face her. "Not in that way, but I know what girls are like. Being around guys we're into makes us do the stupidest things. You take over our entire worlds, and we can't even see farther than the next time we get to be with you--and you're seven years older than her. It was a big age gap back then. It still doesn't feel all that different now."

She stopped talking to compose herself, which suited me fine. Hearing her draw even vague comparisons between Justin and me only fueled my anger.

At the sound of her shaky, indrawn breath, I looked away, refusing to see her as vulnerable. She sure as hell wasn't the victim here. She could have come up with a hundred different ways to deal with her anxiety than the one she'd chosen.

"She had her whole life planned out," Claire said, pulling me from my thoughts, "and you wanted her right when she was ready to go off to university to make it all happen. You would have changed everything without even knowing what you were doing, without even meaning to make her push away all the things that were important to her before you came along."

I stared at the ceiling and shook my head in disbelief. Could anyone say projecting?

Claire had kept her distance from guys after her relationship with Justin went to shit, to the point that she wouldn't let anyone new in her life on a more-than-acquaintance basis. This continued for years, and it took meeting Andy when she was in law school to change her mind about dating.

Her worries about Sadie following the same path were based on the two of them being similar, when they couldn't have been more different. Sadie's focus had been solid all the way through school. She was in her third year of an Applied Science degree, studying to be a physiotherapist who specialized in working with chemo patients. Her eyes lit up whenever she talked about her passion, and I got a kick out of it every time.

Even if I lost my mind and tried to throw her off track, I couldn't stop her from following through with her goal.

"Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds?" I asked. "You don't know her at all. You're too busy treating her like a kid to see how smart she is--about everything. Your anxiety isn't her problem, Claire."

"I know, I know. I get it now. You have no idea how much I get it. Seeing the way Sadie looked at me tonight, the way you're looking at me now, I can barely take it."

Her tears fell in streams down her cheeks, and a few tense moments passed while I tried to keep a lid on my frustration, and she worked on breathing without making those little choking sounds.

Eventually, she swiped the dampness from her chin with the back of her hand and asked, "Have I ruined our friendship?"

She stared at me like I held her happiness in my hands. One word from me could put her out of her misery or kill the hope in her eyes in an instant. Seeing her cry gave me no pleasure, but she'd done a shitty thing and it would take some time before I could trust her again. I wouldn't be manipulated into making decisions tonight that might turn into regret later.

"I can't lose you," she said, taking a step closer to me. "The idea of you and Sadie not making it and then me having to choose sides... I can't..." The desperation in her eyes nearly cracked through the barrier I'd thrown up between us. "I can't lose you, Mason."

The rest of it didn't make sense, but I understood this part at least. I rubbed the back of my neck, unsure where to go from here.

We'd always been open and honest with each other, sometimes to a fault, but we'd been friends for so long, I couldn't imagine not having her in my life, no matter how much of a pain in the ass she'd become the past few years.

I reached out to squeeze her shoulder, about the only comfort I wanted to offer under the circumstances. "We'll figure it out, okay?" It might take us a while to reach that point but given our history, I had hopes we'd get there eventually, even if it was only for Sadie's sake.

Claire watched me with a guarded look on her face, like she couldn't quite believe I'd be willing to put in the effort.

Something between us had shifted tonight, and neither of us seemed to know whether it would turn out for the better or worse. One thing I did know for sure, seeing her tears dry up made it clear the time had come for me to get out of there.

I needed to talk to Sadie, to try to repair the damage we'd done.

With a forced smile, I turned and headed to my room to grab my wallet and keys.

The urgency building inside me had me breaking into a jog, and when I returned to the living room, Claire still hadn't moved from her spot in front of the couch. It frustrated me seeing her this way, eyes red, skin blotched and puffy. She'd been through an emotional ordeal, but I didn't want to be the one responsible for consoling her.

If she needed comfort, she'd have to look to Andy for that.

Her eyes dropped momentarily to the keys dangling from my fingers. "Are you going to see Sadie?"

I nodded and waited for her reaction. We shared a lengthy look, and when it seemed she had nothing further to add, I pivoted and made my way to the door.

It was only when I'd grabbed hold of the handle that she decided to speak again.

"Mason?"

With my back to her, I closed my eyes and answered, "Yeah?"

During the pause that followed, I braced myself for what was coming next, prepared to ignore her wishes and leave regardless. "I was wrong. About everything. You're perfect for her... and I'm so, so sorry."

~ * ~

SADIE

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The first time I remember reacting to Mason in a purely physical way was at my parents' holiday home on the shores of Lake Helen about three years ago. Up until then, he'd just been my sister's best friend, the guy I adored and idolized in a teenage-crush kind of way, and I'd never entertained thoughts that it would turn into anything more than that.