My head moved from left to right. “I’d be selfish if I were. I know it won’t last, and I know I won’t be put in the middle, if anything does happen.”
“It won’t last. You’re right there.” She chuckled again. “What’s up with your roommate?” She took a drag and gestured to the house with the cigarette. “She and Logan got a thing going? She texted me from your phone earlier. I forgot to mention it to you.”
“She did?”
Heather murmured, “Said you could use a friend, but I was already coming.”
“Oh.” I sat back. That’d been nice of her. Remembering her question about Logan and Summer, I shook my head. “Not yet anyway. Why?”
“She got all quiet when he came over after the game. I caught her looking at him a bunch during dinner, too.”
“Really?” Summer’s football boner was for Mason, but I shrugged. “She’s a big football fan. If she’s got something for Logan, I have no clue about it. Logan hit on her the first day I moved in, but that was it. She used to be a model—”
Heather’s top lip curved up. She spoke around the cigarette, “I was going to say, she could be a model. She must have guys galore crawling all over her.”
“She does.” Come to think of it… “I know she gets hit on a lot, but she doesn’t talk about the guys.”
With Dex, there’d been no word about him until the night we needed the gym, but there were other incidents. Pizza would be delivered from guys when we hadn’t ordered any. She would have flowers show up, too. I’d teased her the first few times, but she’d claimed there was no card. She’d said the flowers were for both of us, but I knew Mason never sent them. I’d asked him the first few times, and he’d denied it and asked if he needed to worry about another guy being in my picture. The whole thing was laughed off.
Now that Heather was bringing it up, I frowned. “Is that weird? I think she gets gifts from guys, but she doesn’t make a big deal about it at all.”
“Nah.” Heather tapped on the end of her cigarette and leaned back in her chair. “Just means she doesn’t want to deal with jealous chicks. She doesn’t have to worry about you, though. You ever been jealous?”
Marissa. “Yes,” I said matter-of-factly and quickly.
Heather was startled by the vehemence in my voice.
I added, “She got to go to school with him when I couldn’t. I hated her for that.”
“Oh.” Heather grew quiet. “Well, the chick got hit by a car. I’d say that was karma.” She grinned, waiting for my reaction.
I thought about it. I envisioned the truck hitting her and the look on her face in the hospital when she’d told me she loved Mason. I pressed my lips together. “I never thought that was funny.” But the laughter was boiling up in me. I tried stifling it. It didn’t seem right. I couldn’t. I laughed. And I didn’t stop. “You’re right.” Some more came out. I shook my head, wiping at the tear in my eye. “That’s hilarious to think about.”
Heather chuckled with me before she grew serious again. “Okay, for real. Where is that chick? Tell me you don’t have to see her, do you?”
“She was going to come back, but Mason told me she transferred. She’d e-mailed him during the summer to let him know he wouldn’t have to worry about seeing her.”
Heather groaned, throwing her head back. “That’s the worst. What a passive-aggressive piece of shit. Good riddance. The psycho chick can move on to someone else.”
It was nice. Marissa was a headache last year, but she’d been quickly forgotten with the migraine of Park Sebastian.
That reminded me. I said, “He cornered me at the post office on campus.”
“Who?”
“Park Sebastian.”
Heather swore under her breath. “Did Mason rip his head off?”
I started to feel a little numb as I shook my head so slowly from left to right. “I didn’t tell him.”
“You didn’t?” Heather lowered her arm. It had been propped up on her elbow, her cigarette dangling in the air. As she watched me, she took notice. She swore again before asking, “Are you going to tell him?”
More numbness. My head moved again from left to right.
I was lying to Mason by not telling him. I should. We should have a united front, but it wouldn’t have worked. Mason would’ve been upset by that mere conversation. I was scared of what he might do.
I asked Heather, my voice slipping to a whisper, “Was it the wrong thing to do?”
She frowned. Her eyebrows bunched, and she studied me, thinking. “No.”
I held my breath. “Really?”
I didn’t need the validation. It was me, myself, and I. I was the only one making these decisions, and the terror was almost paralyzing. I hadn’t been thinking about it because I couldn’t deal with it. But what if I were wrong? What if I were playing into exactly what Sebastian wanted? There was a wedge between Mason and me. It was small, and it was on my side, but it was there. I lied to him. The other choice was to let Sebastian win. He would hurt Mason.
No. There was no choice.
I said to Heather, “I think Logan’s doing the same as me.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re both keeping things from Mason.”
“To protect him?”
“Yeah.” That was it. It really was all about protecting Mason. That helped reaffirm my decision. “I was right with what I did?”