Reputation (Mason Family 2)

Mom pats my shoulder before turning towards the door.

“You do what you have to do, Coy. We’ll take care of Bellamy.” She stops at the door. A soft smile spreads across her cheeks. “If you need anything, call me. Understand?”

As I watch her smile grows more expansive, I think I know what she means. And I think that if I let myself dwell on that too long, I might do crazy things.

I’ve already been rejected once today. There’s really no sense in getting it again.

“I get it,” I tell Mom as I tug my suitcase off the bed. “Thanks. I’ll call you when I get home.”

“Be safe,” she says as I walk by her.

I don’t stop until I’m at the rental car. I don’t stop moving at all until I back out onto the road.

And I don’t look in my rearview mirror as I drive off toward the airport, either.

There’s no reason to.

The only thing behind me … is everything.

No big deal.

Because she has to sit over there and wait for you to leave.

Bellamy

I slam the dishwasher door closed.

He’s gone.

I would bet that I knew the moment he drove away a few hours ago. I lay in the bathroom trying to scrub all scents of Coy off me, when a sudden yet slow chill raced over my body. It was as if an energy drained from me, like a part of my heart withered away

I sat there and cried.

“No more tears,” I tell the empty kitchen. “I’m not crying anymore.”

I throw the last bag of dried-up grapes from the refrigerator into the trash.

“If nothing else, at least I stress cleaned. The outside will look like I have it all figured out.”

Which is the motto for my life.

I sit at the kitchen table. My entire body sags. I think about how that last thought is so unbearably true.

Pretending to be okay is something I do well. Putting on a show for others is a trick I mastered a long time ago.

I had to. It was a survival mechanism. Joking around and appearing to have it all together made it easier for everyone around me to deal with when Mom passed away. It was much easier to get a smile out of them than it was having them cry and tell me it would be okay. All that did was make me think that there was an option where it might not.

“This time, it will be harder. It’s more personal. But you can do it.”

I smile at myself for trying to keep going even though I know I’ll be in bed with a gallon of ice cream and a box of tissues before the night is over.

Knock, knock!

The sound ripples through my house. My heart only half-jumps in my chest.

I know it’s not Coy.

Still, I stand and walk to the door, pushing out the ridiculousness of me opening it naked just earlier this morning.

I was so fun then. So full of hope.

So stupid.

I peer through the peephole and gasp.

Slowly, I open the door.

“Hi, Bellamy,” Siggy says. She gives me a soft smile. “How are you?”

“Meh.”

“I know. I’m meh too.”

I open the door even more. “Do you want to come in?” I ask.

She’s never been here before. Not once. So when she steps inside and her heels click against the hardwood, it feels like my world shifts.

“That son of mine is a hard-headed one,” she says, looking around the living room. “This place is adorable.”

“Thanks.” I wrap my arms over my middle. “It used to be a pool house slash game house. But then Dad redid it for a nanny when Mom died.”

“I remember that.”

Of course, she does.

I watch her check out a picture of me from when I was a baby. From the side, she reminds me so much of Coy. They both have full lips and the longest eyelashes. He has her cheekbones, too.

“You were so cute,” she says, placing the photograph back down. “You’re still beautiful, of course, but those cheeks.” She grins. “I forgot you had cheeks like that.”

“They wouldn’t be as cute on me now.”

She laughs. It makes me smile.

“I respect you, Bellamy,” she says.

The compliment catches me off guard. “What?”

“I do.” She moseys around my living room as if she feels totally comfortable in my space. “I’ve watched you grow up and endure some of the biggest heartbreaks a person should ever be expected to handle. And, yet, you did it at such a young age and with so much grace.”

I don’t know what to say to that. So, I don’t say anything.

Siggy stops moving and faces me. “You remind me so much of your mother.”

That’s it. That’s all it takes.

My chest heaves as I hold back a sob.

“She was so smart and quick-witted. She could get more done in a day than I could in a week,” she tells me. “I remember seeing her outside in the flower beds first thing in the morning. I would be struggling to stay awake and she’d be out there on her knees with half a day’s work in.”