Reputation (Mason Family 2)

The only light in my bedroom is the glow from my phone. I scroll through my Favorites List until I find Boone’s name.

Me: Are you up?

It doesn’t take long for him to text me back.

Boone: You better be dying or in another state of emergency to text me this early.

Me: That’s mean.

Boone: So is waking me up at six in the morning for nothing.

Me: You don’t know that it’s for nothing.

Boone: So, are you having a real emergency and just not one of your famous existential crises?

Me: I wanted to wish you good morning.

Boone: My point remains.

Me: Don’t you have a job that you have to go to anyway? I’m probably doing you a favor by waking you up before your alarm. I mean, who wouldn’t want me to wake them up instead of a buzzing sound.

Boone: Me.

Me: You don’t mean that. This is the sleep talking.

Boone: I mean that. I really do. See? Now you’ve already projected your meanness on me. Good work.

With a laugh, I sit up in bed. I get situated against the headboard as my fingers fly across the phone again.

Me: I went to bed hateful. It has a long-lasting effect.

Boone: Noted. Can I go back to sleep now that you’ve cast your lousy juju on me?

Me: You could. Or you could come over for breakfast. Or an even better idea—I’ll meet you at Judy’s for apple fritters.

Boone: I’m going back to bed. Find someone else to entertain you.

Me: Come on, Boonie.

Boone: Ask Riss.

I stick my bottom lip out.

Me: Riss won’t answer.

Boone: I’m not going to again because I’m turning my phone off. Good luck with your breakfast situation.

Me: Don’t! Don’t leave me.

But he does. My last message shows delivered but not read.

“Ugh,” I say, dropping my phone on the blankets.

I waited until six in the morning to text my friends. I wanted to message them at three but held off out of respect for their normal-people sleeping habits.

I haven’t slept well in years. For some reason, my brain just decides to turn on as soon as the sun goes down, and I replay everything I’ve ever said, everything I didn’t say, and every missed opportunity and humiliating event.

Strangely, a large percentage of those things all involve Coy.

My shoulders sag against my pillows.

He’s the singular thing in my life that I can’t rectify. He just hangs out in my head like a perpetual mental hangnail—festering and unresolved.

“But there’s nothing to resolve,” I admit, my voice piercing the darkness. “It is what it is.”

It’s a natural progression of our friendship if I really think about it. And I’ve really thought about it.

Our connection was always different than mine and Boone’s. Boone and I are like brother and sister. Never once have I wanted to kiss him or gotten jealous when he dated another girl. Heck, I’ve set him up on dates lots of times.

My first regular kiss was with Coy when I was twelve. It was behind his dad’s shed after a game of flashlight tag. My first real kiss—tongue and all—was also with Coy when I was thirteen. We were on Tybee Island, and it was the first time I realized that I liked what he looked like with no shirt.

As we got older, things remained the same—just more.

Boone and I went to the movies. Coy and I would wind up at the creek behind our properties in the middle of the night to talk. I’d divide my homework up with Boone and spend the time I saved trying to see if Coy was around.

I liked Boone, but I loved Coy. Always.

It hurts when I let myself realize that. It’s uncomfortable and embarrassing because I let myself believe that Coy looked at me differently. I trusted him when he said there was something between us. I gave him my virginity in a tent in his backyard when I was seventeen and my heart on my sleeve on my twenty-first birthday three years ago.

I got nothing back either time but heartache. Watching a phone screen for a comforting text when you need it the most was more painful than I thought possible.

I need to accept the situation for what it is. The blame going forward lies on me.

I know that you can’t believe everything you see in the tabloids, but sadly, there have been too many Coy photos with too many women not to see a distinct pattern. He’s carefree, careless, and reckless—not someone I should ever pin any hopes on.

Nor should anyone else.

My conversation with Lauren is on my mind as I yank the blankets off my body. The air is cold, prickling at my skin, so I slip on a robe before heading to the kitchen.

“What am I going to do?” I ask the empty room.

I find a coffee pod and plop it in the Keurig. The delicious aroma of caffeine fills the air.