The Moment We Began (A Fairhope New Adult Romance) (13 page)

“How long is a while?” I ask, my hands
shaking a little. I shove them in the pockets of my jeans so he won’t
see. “A week or two?”

He shakes his head. His eyes are full of apologies
and regrets. “I was thinking maybe a few months or so.”

Months? As if my world hasn’t shattered
enough in the past week, Mason’s just taken a hammer to it.

I want to sit down right here on the floor and lay
my head against the smooth, cool wood of the door frame. I hear
laughter out on the front side of the house, but I feel like I will
never laugh again. All I want to do is sit down and disappear.

I want to go to sleep and wake up a week ago so I
can fix all this and go back to the way things were.

I want to tell him don’t go, but I know I
have no power over him. I never have. Instead, I ask, “Are you
leaving because of me? Because of what I did?”

“It’s complicated,” he says.

My heart sinks low in my chest and I feel hope
draining from me. He fiddles with the keys in his hand.

“I’m so sorry about your car,” I
say. “You loved that car.”

His head pops up and he looks me in the eyes.
“Love is a strong word for a car,” he says.

I’ve never heard him say anything like that
in his life. He’s babied that damn car for the past two years.

“What did you get instead? Is that a truck?”

He gives me a half smile and glances back. “Come
here,” he says. He holds his hand out to me. “I’ll
show you.”

My heart skips a beat as I reach for him.

When our hands touch, he rubs his thumb softly
against the top of my fingers. That’s when I know, for the
first time, that my brother was right.

There’s more here than lust. There’s a
tenderness to Mason’s touch that sends shivers down my spine.

For him, it might not be love. Not yet. But it
gives me hope.

Mason leads me back outside to where the cars are
parked. I don’t know exactly what I’m expecting, but a
rusted beat-up Ford pickup is probably the last thing. It doesn’t
seem like Mason at all.

Mason’s the guy who likes flashy cars with
perfect red paint and sleek shiny lines.

He’s the guy who once nearly punched a
random stranger for touching his car in the parking lot of a concert.

He’s not an old Ford pickup kind of guy.

Mason walks up to it proudly and pounds the hood a
couple of times. A huge smile spreads across his face.

“What do you think? Pretty cool, huh?”

I’m literally speechless. I walk around the
back of the truck and study its dirty bed that still has gravel and
woodchips between the treads. Dried mud is splattered across the back
and the tires are covered in red clay.

I open the door and pull myself up into the
driver’s seat. The windows are both already rolled down.

Inside, the upholstery is actually patched up in
places with duck tape. On the dashboard, there’s an old,
yellowed Polaroid picture of two kids with bright blond hair. They
look almost the same age except the girl is maybe a year older than
the boy.

I pick it up. “Who’s this?”

Mason’s face darkens for a brief moment. He
hops into the passenger seat and takes the picture from me. “Just
someone I used to know.”

He seems so sad and serious. Not like Mason at
all. I don’t know how to make sense of it. There’s
something more going on here than just my accident.

No, this is something else.

I’ve been so wrapped up in myself and my own
problems, it never occurred to me that he might be going through
something of his own right now. And I have no idea how to push past
his walls to find out how to help him. After what happened between us
this past week, I’m probably the last person on earth he wants
to talk to about it.

He puts the picture back up on the dashboard, then
shrugs it off.

“What do you think of the truck?”

I put my hands on the steering wheel and try
really hard to see what it is he’s so excited about. “I
think you got screwed by your insurance company.”

He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “Well,
I didn’t want to spend all that money on another brand new
car,” he says. “I took some of it and bought all kinds of
gear for my trip. Camping stuff like a tent and some backpacks. A
hatchet. A camping stove. Stuff like that.”

I have to look twice to make sure he’s not
kidding. “A hatchet?”

He lifts one eyebrow and slowly nods up and down.
“Oh yeah, baby. And it’s a real beauty. It’s used,
but it’s freshly sharpened and really great quality.”

“Mason.” I turn all the way toward him
on the seat. “What the hell are you going to do with a
hatchet?”

He stares at me for a long minute. “You
don’t get it, do you?”

I study his face, not sure what he expects me to
say. “I get the urge to leave town, believe me. But why this
truck? Why camping instead of hotels? If it were me I would fly
somewhere exotic like St. Lucia and stay at a resort with room
service.”

He presses his lips together tight and turns his
body away from me. “I guess I should have known someone like
you couldn’t understand what I’m trying to do,” he
says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He slaps his hand against his thighs. “I
don’t know, maybe that you act like a princess sometimes,”
he says. “Penelope Wright couldn’t possibly understand
why someone would willingly camp out in nature or want to just hop in
a truck and head west.”

I grip the steering wheel. “Explain it to
me, then.”

Mason turns to me. “Don’t you see
what’s been happening to us?” he asks. “We party
and spend money and drink like it’s nothing. We take everything
in life for granted, which means we’re always on the verge of
losing it and we don’t even realize it.”

“I thought you said this had nothing to do
with the accident,” I say.

He runs a hand through his dark blond hair. “It’s
not just the other night,” he says. “It’s
everything. Every night. I feel like it’s gotten completely out
of control. I don’t want to be this person, Penny. It’s
like the more time goes on, the more I become someone else. Someone I
really don’t think I like anymore.”

My shoulders slump and I take my hands off the
wheel.

“So this is really some kind of pilgrimage?”
I ask. “Some kind of journey to salvation? What do you think is
really going to change?”

He looks up and our eyes meet. “Everything,”
he says. He shifts on the seat, moving closer to me. “Have you
ever wondered what it would be like to pull into a town where no one
knows you and just set up camp? To walk around without all the
expectations that come with being a rich kid? Look at Knox. When he
moved to Fairhope, no one gave a shit about him. He didn’t have
a fancy car. He didn’t flaunt his dad’s money. He just
came in as himself.”

“And everyone treated him like crap,”
I say, not understanding what he’s getting at.

He shakes his head. “Not everyone,” he
says. “The people that mattered saw past it all. It was people
like us who judged him for what he didn’t have or what he might
have done. But the people that were going to make a difference in his
life just saw him for who he was. Money didn’t factor into it,
because he didn’t let it. Don’t you ever think about how
that would feel?”

I have no idea how something like that would feel.
I’ve always been recognized as Tripp Wright’s daughter.
Every friend I’ve ever made has known how much money my family
has and there’s no way to know if their friendship is real or
if they only want to be part of the rich crowd.

Then it hits me.

He’s really leaving.

This isn’t just some spur-of-the-moment
thing for him. He’s been thinking about this for a long time.
My accident simply became the catalyst that made him finally do it.

Silence stretches between us. I can almost feel
the miles passing, putting distance between us that we’ll never
get back. By the time he comes home, the world will look completely
different. He’ll see it with a whole new set of eyes. He’ll
see me with new eyes.

And maybe he won’t like what he sees.

“Please tell me you’re not doing this
just to get away from me,” I say.

He reaches across the duck tape and takes my hand.
The warmth of his skin on mine is like medicine to my soul.

“Leaving you is one of the hardest parts,”
he says softly.

I look over and see that he’s staring at me
with an expression that’s full of affection and almost…
regret?

“I don’t want you to go.” I can
only whisper. My heart is breaking inside. If I tell him about the
baby, he might agree to stay, but what good would that do me? I don’t
want him to feel trapped here by some feeling of responsibility.
He’ll come to resent me for that, I know it.

But if he leaves, I might lose him forever.

He runs his index finger along each of my fingers,
one at a time. Back and forth, the lightest whisper of a touch.

“If I don’t get out of this town, I’m
going to suffocate here,” he says. “In some ways, you’re
the only thing that’s been holding me to this place.”

I sniff and my throat constricts. “Are you
saying you’re ready to let me go?”

He’s all I ever wanted, and with each moment
that passes between us, I feel him slipping away.

“I’m saying I finally realize that if
I stay, I’ll destroy you,” he says. His eyes shine in the
dim light. “You want so much more than I can give you, Pen, but
when I’m here - when I see you every day - I can’t stay
away from you. I try, but I always keep coming back. The only way I
can think to save us both is to put some distance between us. To let
you move on with your life. Find someone else.”

“I don’t want someone else.”

“You’ve never given anyone else a
chance,” he says.

I look away, tears welling up in my eyes. He’s
right, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that he’s
never given me—us—a real chance. He’s been too busy
pushing me away to really explore what could be between us. But when
I’m in his arms and it’s just the two of us, I know it
could work between us.

Maybe there’s another way to save us both.
To find out, once and for all, if we are meant to be.

I’m going to go with him.

My heart races and my head spins. Could I really
do something so crazy?

I’d have almost no money to my name. I’d
be camping in a tent, sleeping on the ground, eating out of cans or
something. But I’d be sleeping next to Mason. If I could have
him all to myself for a couple of months, maybe I could break down
his walls long enough to make him see that we belong together.

Just thinking about it makes me feel twenty pounds
lighter.

Of course, walking away means leaving my entire
support system behind. It means walking on a tightrope without a net.
It means missing my mother’s annual end-of-season charity ball.
And if we’re really gone for months, it means missing the start
of the new semester at FCU. It would mess up my entire schedule and
plan.

Of course, isn’t that going to happen when
the baby comes anyway?

And when am I ever going to have another
opportunity like this? I only have a few months until my belly starts
growing, and by then it will be too late to find out if he’s
with me because he loves me or because he wants to do the right
thing.

This is my chance. My one chance.

I look up at him, shadows dancing across the dark
stubble on his jawline.

Would he let me come with him?

Mason looks down at me and his deep green eyes hit
me straight to my core. I want him more than ever.

I need him more than ever.

His eyes narrow and he turns his head,
questioning. I smile and he studies me. “What?”

“When are you planning to leave?”

“Tomorrow,” he says. “First
light.”

“Can you wait for me? I want to come see you
off.”

His lips part and he studies me again. “What
for?” he asks.

I know I should tell him what I’m thinking,
but I’m scared he’ll say no. “Just promise me you
won’t leave until you see me.”

He hesitates. He wants more specific answers, but
I’m not giving them.

“Please,” I say, and it’s the
one word that breaks him.

“Yes,” he says. “I’ll wait
for you.”

After everyone else has left for the evening,
Leigh Anne offers to take me home.

We spent a few hours around the fire talking.
Everyone had a ton of questions for Mason once he told them about his
plans to take off for a while. Preston kept looking at me like he was
scared I might lose it. He wanted to drive me home, but I didn’t
want to risk blurting out the truth to him. He’d only try to
talk me out of it.

“You aren’t spending the night with
Knox out here?” I ask Leigh Anne as we climb into her car.

“Not tonight,” she says. “I’ve
got to work a double shift tomorrow, so I want to actually get some
rest for a change.”

“Well, considering it’s already after
midnight, I think you’re already screwed,” I say.

She giggles. “Not as screwed as I would be
if I stayed.”

“Haha,” I say, slapping her arm as she
gets in and starts down the bumpy dirt road leading to the highway.

We ride for a moment in silence, but as soon as
she pulls out onto the main road, I turn toward her in my seat.

“Thanks for tonight,” I say. “I
really needed a night to just chill without anyone looking at me like
I’m some horrible person.”

She crinkles her face and pats my leg. “We’ve
all messed up, Penny. We’ve all got regrets.”

“Thanks,” I say.

She frowns. “How are you taking Mason’s
news?” she asks. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I say. “No. I don’t
know, really.”

“Did you get to talk to him much about what
happened last week?”