Mason
It had all been going so well, and in true Mason form, I fucked it all up. I had forgotten, my mind surfing on the edge of abandon, and I had become engulfed in the allure of my wife. Then she had said my name, and the memory of the day she had sat on the edge of the bed, held my hand and said, ‘Mason, our baby is dead,’ flooded back in as clearly as if I was laid back in that hospital bed, broken and bruised, and back from the dead. That was the one memory that refused to bate and give me any peace. The emotions that had coursed through me at the time had been so powerful that I had relived them every day since. For the first time since meeting Ava, I had hated her, abhorred the sight of her, and the feeling had been so intense that I could still feel it now.
But she didn’t deserve this. She had done what she thought was right. Blood for blood was a rule we lived by. George had murdered Ava’s best friend, been the signature on the contract that had killed his sister’s husband, and destroyed his own family when he handed me over to those men. There had been no going back for him, and in the end, he had known that and had taken the responsibility away from his sister and mother and blown a hole through his brain. I knew Ava blamed herself for George, and in retrospect, I would have done the same. Yet, my heart still ached to hold my son once more, my mind still wondered if we could have made him better, and my soul would never recover from the loss of losing a son.
The look on Ava’s face when I had pushed her away was now a new painful memory that would never leave me. However, I had the chance to make this one sit slightly easier in the back of mind. It was time to stop being selfish and make it right.
Ava was sat on the sofa where I had left her when I walked back in, high and mildly drunk, a few hours later. Dusk had turned the bright day into clear night, and a slight frost sparkled on the ground. The lights were off in the cottage, and it was only the glow from the log fire that blushed the room in a soft light.
Pouring a shot of whisky, I downed it in one, placed my glass on the table and went to sit beside my wife.
She didn’t look at me, keeping her gaze fixed on the fire, and she didn’t move when I shuffled closer to her. “I’m sorry, baby…”
“I kissed Danny. Twice.”
She was so forthright with her confession that I wasn’t sure if my brain had interpreted her words accurately, and I took the time to digest each singular syllable.
‘I kissed Danny. Twice.’
When she turned to me, the look of utter defeat in her eyes poured ice on the fire that had sparked inside me, and it all of a sudden occurred to me that I had lost her.
Swallowing heavily, she ignored the single tear that rolled down her face and secured her gaze to mine. “I can’t do this anymore, Mason. We’re killing each other, slowly and painfully. I’ve tried, you’ve tried, but it’s just not working. We both went to battle, baby, but nobody won. Only grief and regret. And I have so much of that that I just don’t know who I am anymore. I’m not your little warrior, I’m not a mother to my babies, I’m not anyone’s best friend. And I’m certainly not Ava Fox. I have become who I was. Ava Fucking Stone, all over again. The frightened, timid, ugly girl that was too afraid to fight for anything.
“When my baby blew that hole through his fucking brain, he blew a hole straight through my soul as well, and nothing I seem to do fills it back up. Every part of who I was fell through that hole, my soul bled out through it, my heart disappeared into it, and now you, you have become swallowed up by the void inside me too. We left our lives to find ourselves again, but we only succeeded at losing who we really are.” Leaning forward she placed her glass down and stood up. “I’ll always love you, Mason, you know that. But, sometimes, love is just that little bit too cowardly, and I’m tired of being a coward.”
She walked across the room and picked up her bag and jacket from the hook, and I sat in silence watching her as her words sank in. I had brought us here to make things right, but it wasn’t the venue or an old haunt that could fix us. Only we could do that. If I allowed her to run again, then I knew that we were finally over. And that wasn’t fair.
“No!”
She stopped with her hand on the door handle but didn’t turn back around. “No?”
Her little body jumped when I came up behind her, grasped the tops of her arms and spun her around. Her eyes widened when she saw the white sheen of my wrath glaze over the steel in my eyes and the telling sign of the vein on my temple throbbing. “You don’t get to do this! Who the fuck do you think you are!? What gives you the right to determine our future?”
“Then what the hell do you want from me, Mason?” She was angry. Good. So was I!
“You don’t think I wouldn’t erase time for you, that I wouldn’t sell my soul to the devil to heal yours? I would trade my last breath to make it all go away for you, Ava! But I won’t allow you to give up.” I grabbed her jaw, squeezing tightly at the thought of another man’s lips tasting her, of her mouth caressing another man’s. “You’re mine, Ava. You always will be!”
“You can’t do this, Mason. I’m at the end of trying!”
“So, you what? Go out and fuck someone else just because you’re feeling left out? Poor little Ava. Woe is me! Life is hard, so I’ll go out and make it even harder! Because that’s what you do, Ava. You keep your finger pressed against the trigger ready to detonate life and blow it all up around you!”
“Oh, grow up! And I didn’t fuck him!”
Rage was slithering dangerously along my veins, waiting to burst free at any moment. I was struggling to keep it contained. If I allowed it free after being pent up for so long, I knew the trouble we’d both be in.
Sliding my hand down her neck, I rested it at the base. I could feel the frenzied stammer of her pulse against my thumb and the feel of it excited me. Fear stared back at me, exhilarating me. Like a jolt of electricity had been pumped into me, I was suddenly alive.
“But you wanted to. Didn’t you?”
Her throat bobbed under my hand, the strength of my hold denying her the need to swallow down the lie that was on the tip of her tongue.
“DIDN’T YOU!”
Unable to speak, she answered me with a single nod of her head.
And there it was! My wrath exploded, and hell broke loose.