Page 290 of Tell Me I'm Enough

“I need to let you go,” she continues. “And you need to work on your own shit, alone.”

“Don’t do this,” I whisper.

She shakes her head.

“Please,” I try again.

She steps back.

“You need to leave, Mason.”

The words are quiet.

Final.

I just stand there for a second longer, waiting for her to change her mind, begging her to with my eyes.

But she doesn’t.

So I stop fighting.

I just slowly turn and walk out.

I feel numb walking across campus, not even knowing where I’m going. I just walk until my legs give out near the empty football field. I walk in and sit on the bleachers alone. And for the first time in a long time, I let it all soak in. No matter how heavy it feels…I just sit in it. Especially the realization that Imight have just lost the one person who has ever looked at me like I was worth saving.

I bury my face in my hands and just break.

I’ve hated myself before, my whole life, really. And for a lot of reasons. But this? This feels different. Because this time, I didn’t just hurt myself. I hurt her.

And I don’t know how to fix that.

58

Mason

The worst part about losing Simone isn’t the silence without her around. It’s the way the silence makes every other sound louder—the sound of bottles hitting the bottom of the trash can beside my bed. The echo of my dad’s voice in my head telling me I’m not shit and never will be. The way my alarm goes off every morning like it’s taunting me for not sleeping and mocking me for being alive. It makes everything I don’t want to deal with scream at me.

I’m on the back porch this morning drinking a Gatorade that I’m pretending is gonna fix all my problems, even though my stomach is still turning violently from last night—every night, really—and my phone stays face down on the table so I won’t be tempted to try to bulldoze my way back into her life every five minutes.

I haven’t texted her again since the day she told me she was letting me go—lettingusgo.

I don’t even know what I would say at this point. Sorry that I keep blacking out and making you feel replaceable. Sorry that I kept handing you pieces of me like they were gifts when really they were just sharp edges I knew would cut you. Sorry that I’m a grown man who can’t drink like a normal person because any resemblance to “normal” stopped existing in my world the second my mom died. Sorry that I don’t know how to love you the way you deserve, and even though I completely understand why you would want nothing to do with me, I still want to do everything I can in my power to get you back.

I hear the screen door behind me, and I don’t have to turn around to know who it is. Even though I’m the one who called him to come over, I would still recognize his footsteps anywhere. They’re confident and strong, like he knows exactly who he is when he walks into any room and doesn’t need to look for validation. I know those footsteps because they’re the opposite of mine.

Bash drops into the chair across from me with his coffee, looking like he got a full eight hours of sleep when I’m over here running off maybe two. Erik follows behind a second later.

“Morning,” Erik says, voice scratchy. “Or whatever we’re calling this. Since it’s—” He looks at the time on his phone before setting it back down. “Two in the afternoon, and you look like you just rolled out of bed.”

“Don’t,” I mutter.

Bash looks at me for a long moment, then sets his coffee down slowly. “What’s going on?”

“I fucked up,” I tell him, dropping my head.

“How this time?”

I look up at him, slightly offended. “This time?”