The One Thing (24 page)

He harrumphed. “Don’t like casseroles.”

“Gramps. It’s not a casserole. It’s lasagna.”

“Looks like casserole to me.”

I blew a loose curl off my forehead, lifting a pot from the sink and groping around for a towel to dry it off. “Mom and Dad will eat some.”

“Nope,” said Gramps. “Your parents have that banquet tonight. Remember?”

“Oh. Right,” I said, although I did not, in fact, remember. Not in the slightest. All I knew was that by the time we sat down to dinner, Mason still hadn’t bothered to return
my call. The longer I waited, the more anxious I became, and the more I second-guessed myself for calling him in the first place. My mouth was dry from nerves, so I chugged my milk and then
refilled my glass, sticking my index finger inside so I could tell when it was full—slightly unsanitary, but necessary.

Gramps’s fork
tink
ed on his plate as he stabbed at his lasagna. “Don’t see any meat in here,” he said.

“That’s because Mom’s lasagna recipe is vegetarian,” I pointed out.

“I should cram some bologna in it,” Gramps mused.

The ring of my cell phone interrupted my reply. I swallowed the mouthful of lasagna I’d been chewing. It stuck somewhere halfway down my throat. Two rings. Three rings.

I didn’t move.

Gramps’s chair ground on the tile as he stood up. Seconds later he said, “Hello?”

He’d answered my goddamn phone.

“Uh-huh,” he said after a moment. “She’s right here. Eating dinner. No, no, it’s fine. It’s just a casserole.” Then he stuffed the phone in my
hands.

I glared in his general direction and put the phone to my ear. I felt like a tiny, wounded bird trapped in a cast-iron cage. Finally I took a deep breath and squeaked, “Hello?”

“Maggie.” Mason’s voice was clipped and annoyed, but damned if it wasn’t dead sexy.

My palms started to sweat. A lot. I lurched out of my seat and paced into the living room. “Um. Hi, Mason. Is there any way you could come over tonight? There’s something important I
need to tell you.”

He was quiet for several long moments, and then, still sounding not at all amused, he said, “Well, I have to drop Ben at swim practice. And later on, I have rehearsal.”

This was going better than I’d expected. He had actually spoken to me. With words. “How about after you drop him off?” I asked, unable to keep desperation out of my voice.
“Can you swing by my house for a little bit?”

He exhaled loudly into the phone. “Yeah. Okay. Whatever.”

M
ason pulled up to my house thirty-five minutes later. All he said to me when I opened the front door was hello. I didn’t know what I’d
been expecting from him—concern or curiosity, maybe?—but I was taken slightly aback by his curt tone.

He was still furious with me. That much was clear. I could sense his annoyance radiating off him like acrid damp heat on summer pavement as he followed me to the living room. He sat on the couch
while I stood stiffly, several paces away, my back to him and my arms crossed. Silence pressed hard on my eardrums. Finally I opened my mouth and started talking. Since I didn’t know where to
start, I started at the beginning.

“I haven’t been completely honest with you,” I said, my voice shaking, “but I guess you already know that. The truth is, I’ve been blind for several months now,
since I came down with bacterial meningitis.” I paused.
Hold it together.
I took in a breath, and in my exhale, I said, “When I first met Ben, I’d just fallen and hit my
head. I was lying on the floor with my eyes closed, trying to shake it off. When I finally opened my eyes, Ben was standing over me.”

As I told the story, I could still picture Ben’s wide smile that day. I could still hear him bellowing that I was his girlfriend. It made my chest ache. “I could see him and a little
bit around him, like he was a lightbulb or something. I was shocked and amazed and so freaking happy. It was the first time I’d felt normal in months.” I paused for a moment, waiting
for Mason to say something. But he didn’t. He just sat there and judged me with his silence. “At first, I thought I’d gone crazy,” I went on. “I mean, hitting my head
and seeing someone?” I exhaled loudly, shaking my head. “Life just doesn’t work like that, you know? But the thing is, I wasn’t crazy—I’m
not
crazy.” I spun around to face Mason, my entire body shaking as I grappled with the words I knew I had to say.

There was no sound from the couch. No movement. No words. Nothing. Just the musky smell that was Mason.

“I’ve seen two other people since then,” I said. “The first time was in a Chinese restaurant. The man I saw was so old. He looked...well,
wrong
, I guess? But I
couldn’t put my finger on it. When I look back on it now, I can see that he was probably sick. And yesterday, I saw another person. A woman. My mother happens to know her.
She’s—” My sentence stopped abruptly. The word
dying
had fallen from my mouth before I could speak it. It would be so much easier if Mason would just say it for me. I
wanted him to. Needed him to. To take the weight off my shoulders for me. So I silently stood there as the living room clock marked off the seconds. We stayed like that for exactly fifty-two ticks:
me, standing in front of him, a single word frozen on my lips, and Mason, sitting noiselessly on the couch.

The gravity of the situation would become desperately, crushingly real to me when I finished that sentence. It would not be a theory I’d pieced together in my head, but a conclusion. There
was too much finality in that. I didn’t know whether I could take it. Tears pricked at my eyes. I blinked them away.

“The woman I saw is dying,” I said finally, my voice cracking. “And the man I saw in the restaurant? I’m sure he is dying as well.”

Mason wasn’t stupid. He knew what I was insinuating. But he still remained silent and unreadable. And it infuriated me.

“Has Ben gone to the doctor lately?” I practically screamed. “Has he seemed sick at all?”

Mason didn’t answer me. He just huffed disbelievingly.

Where the hell was the guy from the night at the Strand? Had he been a mirage? A fake? Hurt and anger thundered out of me as I said, “Goddamn it, Mason. Ben could be—Can you
say
something
?”

I heard him stand up and head for the door.

“ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?” I bellowed, stomping after him. “Where are you going?”

Silence.

“Do you just leave when things get uncomfortable?” I yelled furiously. “Is that how you cope?”

Nothing. Not an answer. Not an utterance. Not a word. Just the
swuff swuff swuff
of his gigantic boots on the carpet as he made his way out of the house.

There was a bomb inside me now, ticking off seconds. Stomping after him, I answered on his behalf, sarcasm coating my every word. “Why yes, Maggie. That’s what I do. Because
I’m an egotistical, self-centered jerk who only cares about myself.”

His footsteps came to an abrupt halt. We were close to the front door now. I would be willing to bet he’d turned around and was glaring at me. I could feel his anger all around me, a sharp
electrical current quaking in the air between us. I ignored the alarms blaring in my head. The ones that were telling me to shut up. Not long ago, Mason had beaten the crap out of some kid for
almost no reason whatsoever.

And I couldn’t care less.

I said derisively, “You know, you sort of remind me of someone. He’s been assuming the worst in me for weeks now.” I paused for half a second, waiting for him to say something.
But he didn’t, so I plowed on. I was on a roll now. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the theme song from
Rocky
was playing. “You might know the guy. Lives in Chester Beach?
Sings with the Loose Cannons? What’s his name again?” I tapped an index finger on my chin, in a sarcastic parody of thought. “I’m terrible with names, but I’m pretty
sure it’s something like...Asshole.”

I heard the front door jerk open and his footsteps stride outside, and that was when I completely snapped. I stomped after him, weeks of frustration and hurt pouring out of me all at once, too
big and too wide and too explosive to be contained anymore. I reached out for him and snatched him by what felt like his upper arm. It was flexed. Tense. Ready to fight.

The air crackled between us.

We were too close. My emotions were detonating. I wanted to melt into an ocean of tears and I wanted to shake the hell out of him and I wanted to fling myself into his arms.

My hand sprang free. “WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?” I screamed. “Would it kill you to talk to me? Listen to me? Consider what I have to say? What makes you think that you are
entitled to treat other people like complete crap? Because you’re in the Loose Cannons? Do you seriously—
seriously
—think that I would go through the trouble of faking my
blindness just to get
near
you? What do you think, that you’re some sort of goddamn gift to the world?”

He was maybe a foot or two away from me. Too close. I could feel his breath. It was hot, choppy, enraged. But I didn’t step back. I leaned forward, taunting him.

A phone started ringing—some electronic ringtone I didn’t recognize. Mason’s, no doubt.

“Are you planning on answering that?” I said through my teeth.

He growled, and a second later, I heard him say in a tight voice, “Hey, Mom....At Maggie’s.” He said my name as though he were naming the dog crap stuck on the bottom of his
shoe. Silence as he listened some more, then he exhaled heavily. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. Sad, almost. “Where?” he asked. “Okay. Of course. Leaving now.”
His phone snapped shut, and then it was dead quiet. “I need to run an errand for my mom,” he said finally, almost more to himself than to me. I heard his boots slap against the concrete
walkway as he clomped away.

I followed him, fury and desperation in my every footfall, misjudging my steps and slamming into a landscape boulder that had been in our front yard since the day we’d moved in. I growled
and cursed under my breath, rubbing the sting out of my shin. I heard a sharp intake of breath from Mason that might have been concern. But he didn’t say anything.

“I’m going with you,” I informed him. “I’m not finished with this conversation.”

He didn’t answer me, but he didn’t stop me from getting into his car.

I
sat unmoving in the passenger seat, my arms crossed tightly on my chest. Silence squeezed on me from all sides, heavy and thick. I was so far
beyond mad that I could hardly breathe. I’d never met anyone as difficult as Mason. I had a handful of personas that generally worked on everyone, but none of them had worked on him. Not Deep
Maggie. Not Sarcastic Maggie. Not Self-deprecating Maggie. Not even Funny Maggie. I was fresh out of Maggies.

And I was running out of time. Correction: Ben was running out of time. His life was falling away from him, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I rubbed my temples with my index fingers and leaned against the headrest, heaving out a massive gust of air.
Think.
I was so unprepared to hear Mason speak that I flinched in my seat
as he said, “Somebody reported that a stray dog has been struck by a car off of Second Avenue. Mom wants me to bring it to the vet hospital for treatment.”

All I could do was nod. Then I counted. Twenty-eight words. The most he’d ever said to me. Realizing my mouth was hanging open in shock, I promptly shut it. Then, pitifully enough, I
analyzed his tone. As always, his words had been smooth and buttery as they’d slid from his mouth. But unlike the other times I’d heard his voice, a dozen different emotions fought for
control over his tone.

We drove in silence for several minutes. I tried to organize my thoughts. Mason obviously hadn’t believed me, so I needed to find another tactic. But what? I’d given him the truth.
He’d rejected it. I didn’t have anything else to give him.

We finally slowed on a quiet road, the car crunching to a stop on a graveled shoulder. Mason climbed out and hustled off, but I stayed planted in my seat, my eyes shut and my head leaning back.
I didn’t know where Mason had gone. His footsteps had gotten fainter and fainter until they had faded away completely. What felt like hours later, I heard him hurrying back to the car. To my
surprise, he opened my door. My eyes jerked open as he placed a tiny, shaking dog in my lap.