The One Thing (12 page)

“What the
hell
are you doing in here?”

M
y heart clubbed in my chest, and I stood there for several miserable seconds, frozen and mute, praying for the floor to open up and suck me in.
All the while, three unfamiliar boys, all roughly my age, sauntered forward and regarded me with various degrees of interest. To my left smirked a heavily pierced, slim-shouldered boy, his eyebrows
hiked up clear to his hairline. Just behind him was a red-faced stocky kid who shifted hesitantly back and forth on his feet. The tallest of the three boys—a lanky, tattooed guy who twirled a
set of drumsticks between his fingers—ogled me as though I were a souped-up 1968 Mustang. Oblivious to his friends’ antics, Mason just stood there glaring at me, anger rolling off of
him like thick, suffocating smoke.

“I got lost,” I said finally. Which was actually 100 percent true.

“You got lost,” he said.

I swallowed. “That’s what I said.”

Mason did not answer. He just stood there, skewering me in place with his eyes. Tattoo Guy, openly disregarding Mason’s hostility, scratched his chest with his drumsticks, jerked his chin
in my direction, and said to Mason, “Bro. Been hiding your new girl from us?”

Mason shut his eyes, and I had the strangest sense that he was trying to hurdle over some sort of conflicting emotion. He drew in a slow breath, and his guitar, which hung by a strap on his
shoulder, swung forward as his chest expanded. In his exhale and with his eyes still closed, he said, “This is not my girlfriend. This is Maggie, Ben’s friend. She’s blind.”
His words were overly measured and overly quiet and overly enunciated, and I could hear implied air quotes when he said “Ben’s friend” and “blind.” Which totally
infuriated me. Why did Mason always have to think the worst of me? Why couldn’t he
ever
give me the benefit of the doubt?

I focused my gaze in the general vicinity of Tattoo Guy, and, forcing a smile and doing my best not to speak through my teeth, I said to the boy, “Nice to meet you. And you are...?”
I knew Mason’s eyes were open now because I could feel the heat coming off of them. And I couldn’t care less. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had this sort of outrage
clawing its way out of me—years ago, maybe, while fighting with my mother?—and it left me feeling dangerously out of control.

Tattoo Guy, looking oddly entertained by the animosity in the room, smirked and said, “David Slater. Pleasure to meet you, m’ lady.” He swooped a palm out in front of himself
and bowed theatrically, as though he were so grandiose that even the blind could see him.

The pierced-up kid rolled his eyes at David. Clearing his throat, he held both arms out, like he was a gift or something, and announced grandly, “But more importantly? I’m Carlos
Santiago, keyboard virtuoso.” He cuffed the shy-looking kid on the shoulder. “And this is Gavin Alexander.”

Members of the Loose Cannons. I recognized their names, even though I’d never actually seen them.

I nodded a shocked hello.

Mason threw the guitar on his bed. The strings made a discordant sound when they struck his pillow. Then he said two words, and two words only. They were directed at me through tight lips:
“Get out.”

That was when I knew I was going to tell Mason the truth.

Right now.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t take his accusations, and I couldn’t take his holier-than-thou attitude, and I couldn’t take his snide tone. I’d spent the
past several months learning how to be a person again, for Christ’s sake. Learning how to match my clothes, pour my own milk, find my way to my goddamn room. I’d had to figure out how
to
live
. And Mason? He had everything and he didn’t even give a shit.

I straightened my spine, leaned forward, stabbed an index finger in his direction, and said in a low, menacing tone, “You think you know what’s really going on, you arrogant,
self-absorbed sonofabitch? You have
no
.
freaking
.
clue
.”

He grabbed my hand and leaned toward me, daring me to continue. We were too close to each other—a couple inches. Energy ricocheted fiercely between us, and there was something burning
behind the amber flakes in his eyes, something I’d never seen before, an ache and a fury.

“There you are, Thera! You get lost?” Ben bellowed from the doorway, breaking the spell as he swung into the room. “Oh, hey, guys.”

Mason’s grip sprung free from me and we both took clumsy steps away from each other.

There was an awkward silence, which then stretched into a painfully awkward silence. David cleared his throat, the corners of his lips turned up, and then offered his fist to Ben and said,
“Hey, broseph.”

Ben, crutches and all, gracelessly fist-bumped David, and then he said to Mason, “Please tell me the band didn’t come here to rehearse.”

Mason sighed and knuckled his forehead. “Gavin’s neighbors complained about the noise last week, so, yes, we’re rehearsing here tonight.”

Ben lifted his chin. “I hereby complain about the noise,” he proclaimed, and Mason scoffed. Ben leaned toward his brother. “No, seriously. Thera and I were going to
watch-and-or-listen-to a movie tonight, and you guys are too loud and obnoxious when you practice.”

Carlos winced. “Harsh.”

Mason pinched his eyes closed for a moment. “Well, you’re just going to have to deal with it for tonight. We don’t have any other options. Carlos lives too far away,
Gavin’s mom has a book club meeting, and David’s place is too small.” Then he stood there, arms crossed, and waited for us to exit the room.

I could hear the loud voices of Mason’s bandmates as soon as I stepped into the hall, the “Dude, what the hell was
that
about?” and the “What’s the story
with the two of you?” and so on and so forth. So I hauled ass down the hallway before I could hear Mason’s explanation. It would be optimistic to the point of foolishness to believe
that Mason wouldn’t tell them I was a pathetic groupie snooping around for information on their concerts, and I couldn’t stand being around to witness it. Sure, just moments ago
I’d been right on the verge of screaming the truth at Mason, but now—as I followed Ben into the kitchen, where he pled his case to Mrs. Milton—I realized that telling Mason the
truth would have been a tragic mistake. It would have sounded like a desperate lie coming from me right now, a lie he wouldn’t have believed.

Hell, I hardly believed it myself.

I huffed out a sigh, thinking about the lyrics I’d seen in Mason’s room. I suppose I couldn’t really blame Mason for being distrustful of me. Not really. He was still reeling
from the loss of his father, and it had clearly left him bruised, suspicious, jaded. And I knew that more than anything, he was just trying to protect Ben, who had been mistreated and hurt in the
past. Still, it didn’t give him the right to treat me so poorly. To sound so condescending. To make me feel so small. I collapsed into a kitchen chair beside Ben’s mom and massaged the
epicenter of the headache that was growing between my eyebrows.

“Mom,” Ben whined to Mrs. Milton, who was hunched over a recent stack of photos and a mug of leafy-smelling tea, “this is my house, too—isn’t it? I have just as
much right to be here as Mason.”

Mrs. Milton didn’t answer right away. This was one of the things I liked about her. She wasn’t the sort of parent who blurted out canned responses. Leaning back in her chair and
looking speculatively at Ben for the space of several breaths, she said, “I understand how you might be feeling unimportant.” She considered the situation for a few more moments, taking
a sip of tea and crinkling her nose at the steam. “But it isn’t as though you have to leave the house, is it?”

“Well, no. It’s the
principle
, Mom,” Ben said helplessly. “Why do I have to cancel my plans just because Mason wants to practice his crap music here?”

Well. Never thought I’d see the day. Saint Ben was jealous.

Mrs. Milton nodded as though she completely understood Ben’s plight. “Yes. Of course. The principle.” Running one finger around the rim of her mug, she said, “Don’t
you want your brother to succeed?”

Ben let his head fall backward, all dramatically, and he stared at the ceiling. “Maybe,” he grumbled.

“Hasn’t Mason supported you in
your
pursuits?” she said, watching Ben closely. “Chauffeured you back and forth to swim practices? Sacrificed many an afternoon to
go to your meets?”

Ben straightened up, looking as though he were biting back several inappropriate words. Finally, balancing his weight on his crutches and letting his feet swing back and forth, he muttered,
“Maybe.”

She took another sip of tea and smiled gently. “So I’m sure you understand then.”

Ben’s lips twisted, but he said nothing.

She smiled. “It’s settled: I’ll drop Maggie off at home and you two can watch your movie tomorrow.”

S
ince I couldn’t sleep that night, I padded down to the basement and listened to one of Mom’s old soccer DVDs. Most of my insomnia was
because of Mason—I suspected that he’d already told everyone within shouting distance that I was a fraud—but some of it was because I’d become hyperaware of my upstairs
bedroom. Whether it was my confrontation with Mason or the emotions I’d been wrestling with, I wasn’t sure, but when I’d crawled into bed that night, I’d felt my old bedroom
looming above me, dark and ominous.

Anyway, since the house had been picked through and organized and blind-proofed ad nauseam, I knew exactly where to find the DVDs—in the cabinet right underneath the TV. In the past,
I’d always watched them on mute, overly concerned that I might wake my mother. I hadn’t wanted to remind her of the past she’d buried. But now, mute wasn’t even an option
for me.

Not that it mattered. I’d felt so disconnected from my mother the past several months, so excluded from her list of priorities, so defiant, that I cranked the volume up louder than
necessary, willing her to discover me here.

For the first several minutes, I had no clue which DVD I’d chosen. All I heard were the sounds that accompanied professional soccer games—the crowd noise, the buzzers, the vuvuzela
horns. But then: Dad’s voice.

Dad used to morph into a totally different person at soccer games. Between his armchair reffing and his constant hollering, he was obnoxious enough to tick off roughly a fifty-seat radius. It
was a side of him I used to love to see, a side of him I missed desperately since I’d stopped playing soccer, and listening to it now made me feel lousy and ecstatic, all at the same
time.

The game was old, international. In Spain, most likely, given the announcer’s language. I could hear a tiny voice, my voice—God, I must’ve been a toddler—say,
“Mommy is fast, isn’t she, Daddy?”

“She’s amazing,” Dad said in a reverent tone.

“When I grow up, I’ll be amazing, too,” I vowed.

My chest twisted. I’d always believed that I could be amazing. That Mom’s magic would rub off on me. That I was invincible. And I was, at least for a little while. Sighing, I pulled
an afghan over me, yanking it clear to my chin, and, feeling small and broken and frail, I remembered my very last soccer game.

It was November, junior year. We were playing our rivals, McDonnell Prep, some swank private school just outside of town. My teammates and I had been playing with one another since rec ball, so
we practically moved together without thinking, as part of the same machine. And that night we were amazing. We won in the sort of grandiose fashion that is boring as hell for the
spectators—a 20–2 score at the final buzzer. Afterward, Sophie, Lauren, and I rolled out of the stadium on a massive high, loafing around in the parking lot far longer than necessary as
we clung to the last few seconds of the soccer season.

Sophie had just gotten her driver’s license, and her parents had gifted her with a monstrous black Chrysler that the three of us called Bertha. Bertha’s most redeeming quality was
her gigantic hood. And that night, we sprawled across it indelicately, in an unladylike fashion that is perfectly acceptable when you’re sweaty and dirty and you’ve just spanked the
crap out of a bunch of hoity-toitys from McDonnell Prep. The late-November air had a bite to it that promised winter, but the sun had just set, so the hood was still warm.