A Journey Between Friends

I met Mason at the age of thirteen when he told me that I had a red circle on my butt. My first period. Memories you can never forget. And I’ve tried.

Lucky for me, periods did not horrify Mason. I actually believe that thirteen year old Mason considered my ‘pointless’ red stain to be cool rather than disgusting. Uh, boys?

From that moment on, we stuck with each other all throughout high school. He ensured that I passed all my classes which proved to be a more difficult challenge for Mason than he had anticipated. In return, I helped him attempt to understand the female mind. Mission impossible, right? Well, I tried.

With my help, Mason dated a lot in high school. I liked to take most of the credit, but he would have been fine without me. Due to his six foot one height, short dark brown hair and caramel eyes, that I swear, you could stare at for hours and never be bored, he attracted girl after girl after girl. Then I helped him try to understand their seemingly pointless jealousy, their eccentricities and their overall obsession with him and hatred of me. He never fully understood why they hated me.

So I sat back and watched Mason date from the sidelines like a coach proud of his team for winning. Mason, to his credit, never completely deserted me. Occasionally he fumbled the ball or threw an interception, but somehow, he always made it to the end zone.

Mason needed his coach because every game would eventually end and at that point, I turned into the only person he could confide in. He would cry – probably the only time he ever cried in front of anyone – and I would do my best to comfort him. Pizza, movies and a lot of laughter usually did the trick. Then before he left, I would hug him, tell him that everything would be okay and he would someday find the right girl. He would nod, hug me back a little tighter and then move on to the next game.

Unlike Mason, I struggled through my only relationship in high school. Fred watched anime and played violent video games every moment he could. I read poetry and watched chick flicks. Fred wanted to hang out at his friend’s houses and I wanted to spend time with Mason.

After a few months of casually dating, we broke up. No hard feelings existed between us as we had drifted apart from each other over the course of our relationship. Fred wanted to meet other girls who could share his interests and I, well, I just couldn’t stop missing Mason every moment I spent with Fred.

Then everything shifted when we went to college. Mason attended Yale which surprised no one. Whereas I got into Michigan State University which surprised everyone. He studied pre-med, I studied journalism. Hundreds of miles separated us from one another for the first time in five years.

At first, it killed me. I swear I called him at least twenty times a day. Worse, I held myself back from calling him even more often than that. He would answer the phone each time (if he could) and humor me for at least five minutes before he continued studying, hanging out with his friends or spending time with his current girlfriend.

As time passed, my dependence lessened and lessened and by the end of our first year of college, we would talk to each other only a couple of times a week. I made new friends and started working part-time in retail. He did the same.

That first summer we spent apart from one another. He had some internship at a pharmaceutical company in Connecticut and I continued working in an attempt to save money to pay for school. That summer passed like a blur.

Then my sophomore year of college changed everything. That’s when I met Isaac. In his junior year, studying European literature, Isaac loved me as I had been waiting to be loved. And I loved him.

Any extra time that I had in my life, I devoted completely to him. This meant that I went weeks at a time without speaking to Mason.

One night, as I finished getting ready to have dinner with Isaac’s parents, Mason called me.

“Hello?” I answered on speakerphone as I put on my earrings.

Mason’s voice became muffled by a loud knock at my door announcing Isaac’s arrival. “Hey Sofia.” At the time, I didn’t hear the pain in Mason’s voice. I didn’t hear his need to talk to me and quite frankly, I didn’t care. “You got a minute?”

Another knock at my door and I quickly made sure my makeup looked decent. I really hated visiting his parents. “Actually, I’m about to head out the door. Can this wait until later?”

If Mason had been honest with me, he would have responded, “Actually it can’t. What’s-her-face just broke up with me and I’m not emotionally in control right now.” But he’s a guy and that’s not at all what he said. Instead, I heard, “Yeah, of course. I’ll call you later.” Then he hung up. He never called me later and I forgot to call him back that night. Or the next day. In fact, a whole week passed before I remembered my obligations as his friend.

When I did call him back, he had already rebounded and pretty hard. My blindness in love did not let me see it as a rebound. To me, he had simply found his next girlfriend. I could not help him like I used to in high school. Our dynamic had changed.

Mason and I drifted more and more apart as the next two years passed. He spent every free second completing med school applications and I daydreamed about my life with Isaac. Mason and I reached a point of minimal communication. We mostly texted each other. We hardly ever spoke on the phone and we rarely saw each other. And at that point, neither of us really noticed.

The day Isaac broke up with me will forever be imprinted on my mind. It happened on a Friday, a few weeks before the semester ended. He appeared unexpectedly at my door and I threw my arms around him, happy to see him after spending hours reviewing material for a paper I had started writing on the effects of media in non-democratic countries.

Isaac hardly returned the hug. That should have been my first clue.

Before I could even let him into my apartment, he started speaking. “Sofia. We need to talk.” This is never followed by good news. Never. “I’ve been working for a while now and you’re still in school and I think our lives are moving in different directions…” and blah blah blah blah blah. I hardly remember what else he said. I spent the rest of the evening crying, or more appropriately, sobbing. He turned around and stepped out of my life forever. The man I loved left me as though I meant nothing to him anymore.

That night, I called Mason, knowing that somehow, he understood the emotional roller coaster that I had unwillingly and unexpectedly started to ride. Guilt flooded me as I heard my phone ringing. I had never fully understood the mess Mason experienced after each break up. Would Mason even care about me anymore? I had not exactly been there for him for the past few years, why would he be there for me now?

“Sofia?” Mason answered with a yawn. I looked at the clock and could not believe it was already past midnight.

“Mason,” I managed to say through my cries and hyperventilating. “Got a second?” I honestly believe it to be impossible that he understood a word I said. My words jumbled together into one giant word, mixed in with cries and tears to make everything harder to hear.

Somehow, he did. “Always. What’s wrong?”

I told him everything and he comforted me the same way I had spent my life comforting him. “He’s an idiot,” Mason assured me. “But you’re the strongest woman I know and you’ll get through this just fine.” We spent the next hour talking, really talking, for the first time since I met Isaac. Then I proceeded to fall asleep with the phone against my ear, curled up in a chair in my living room.

I woke up to my apartment buzzer going off, demanding to let someone into the complex. I rubbed my eyes and the buzzer went off again. I snuck a look at my clock on the microwave which told me I had slept past the study group I had planned on attending (and I probably needed to attend). Then I saw the phone that had fallen to the ground and started planning my forgiveness speech I would have to give Mason for falling asleep on him.

I stumbled to the buzzer and pushed the speaker. “Who is it?”

A few moments later, I heard a response. “It’s me.”

I almost couldn’t believe whose voice came from my speaker. Without hesitation and expecting this to be a dream, I let Mason into my building.

Then he knocked at my door. Shaking, unable to accept that Mason could actually be standing in my hallway, I opened my door. I mentally prepared myself for the disappointment of someone who just happened to sound like Mason, but as my door swung open, Mason stood before me with a box of pizza and a copy of Tommy Boy.

“Hungry?”

As though answering for me, my stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten anything since before Isaac broke up with me and the smell of pizza reminded my brain that food tasted delicious. “Yes. Come in.”

I stepped back and let him into my apartment. He had hardly set the pizza down on the counter when I wrapped my arms around his neck. He returned my hug with a hard squeeze around my waist. Mid-hug, I asked him, “What in the world are you doing here?”

“You sounded like you needed me, so I came to help.”

“You came just like that? Isn’t it like a twelve hour drive or something?”

He nodded against my shoulder. “Yes, but if you drive really fast, you can shave a couple hours off.”

I squeezed him tighter, wondering if he had slept at all that night. With my face planted against his chest, my voice garbled as it came out of my mouth. “You didn’t have to come here.”

He laughed and pulled me back so he could look at me. “You were always there for me. It’s my turn to be there for you.” I frowned and we both thought the same thing – recently, I actually hadn’t been there for him. The last time he needed me, I had just blown him off for the man who shattered my heart.

Mason hugged me again, letting my tears soak into his shirt. Then he pulled me away, sat me on my couch and made me eat a whole pizza by myself.

We spent the rest of that weekend together, eating junk food and watching movies as though we had never left high school. Except this time, the pizza and movies helped me. Not Mason. And the crazy thing? It really did help. Mason’s presence definitely affected my attitude that weekend.

When Mason left Sunday morning, I hugged him one last time, not wanting him to leave. I had missed him more than I had let myself believe. He kissed my forehead and gave me a quick, tight squeeze. “You deserve better than him, Sofia. Always remember that. Everything’s going to be okay. And someday, you might even find the right girl.” He smiled at his joke, but I punched his shoulder, hearing the familiar speech that I had given him countless times. Then he got into his car and drove back to school where everything he had put off to spend time with me waited for him.

Life returned to normalish. I moved on from Isaac – I even started dating again, even if none of the prospects ever developed into anything. Mason and I carved out time in our schedules to ensure that we spoke to each other at least once a week. It didn’t matter how hectic our lives treated us – we would make the time to rebuild our friendship.

School finished and I graduated – by some miracle – with my bachelors degree in journalism. Then, miracle number two, I started working for the local news station in Ann Arbor. Mason graduated with full honors and started attending medical school at the University of Michigan. We lived within minutes from each other.

Actually, we didn’t see each other as frequently as I thought we would. I had a fulltime job with crazy hours. He studied constantly in his attempt to become the best doctor the world had ever seen. But I could see him whenever I wanted and I did.

After a few months of living in the same city together, a coworker, Ashley, dragged me to a bar. One of those college-student-everyone-is-dancing bars. I tried to get out of it, claiming that I had ‘been there, done that,’ despite the fact that I actually had not been there or done that. She told me it would be ‘fun’ and ‘different.’ Newsflash: drunk people act exactly the same no matter where you go.

However, this bar had something the other bars in town did not have. This bar had an intoxicated Mason. And he found me before I ever saw him there.

“Sofia!” I heard his slightly slurred voice say behind me. I smiled, turned around and hugged him. This night might be okay if Mason stayed by my side.

He led me to the bar and he ordered me a drink. I drank with him.

I had left Ashley somewhere in the bar. So I let Mason go dance with some random girls as I reconciled with my coworker who resented me a little for ditching her right away.

Shortly after though, I felt a hand on my arm. Turning, I caught Mason’s gaze. “Let’s dance,” and I let him pull me to the dance floor without ever turning back to see how much Ashley hated me.

We danced, we drank and we screamed loudly at each other over the music. Then, when both of us could dance or drink no more, we called a taxi to take us back to our apartments.

It happened in the back of that taxi. Mason made me laugh at something – I don’t even remember what now – and then his lips were on mine, kissing me. Confusion coursed through my body. At first, I had no idea at all what was going on. Before I could react, he pulled away, but I could still feel the tingle of his lips lingering on mine.

He caught my gaze and I could not look away. Without hesitation or fear – which he could probably thank the alcohol for – he stated very clearly, “I love you.”

“I love you too.” The words came out of my mouth before I even thought about them. And after I said those three little words, I suddenly realized how true they were. I did love Mason. I might have always loved Mason. And now, more than anything, I wanted him to kiss me again.

He smiled, hearing my words and as though reading my mind he leaned forward.

Instead of touching my lips, his head clonked against my shoulder as he passed out. Probably for the best.

I tipped the driver an awful lot more than I should have to help me get Mason to his door. Then I dragged him across his floor to his bed and left him on the ground. I leaned over his body, kissed his forehead and repeated the words he might not remember in the morning. “I really do love you, Mason.” Then I fell asleep on his couch and set my alarm so that I would be awake and out before he ever knew I had slept there.

Weeks passed as though nothing had happened between us. Yet every time I saw him, I wanted him to kiss me again. I wanted to know if he really did love me, if he really did want to kiss me, or if I had let drunk Mason get the better of me. Did I hate him? Maybe a little.

Then came the night of his twenty third birthday party at his apartment. I walked into a small and crowded living room, full of Mason’s drunk school friends that I had never met. I scanned the room for him, hoping I could say, ‘Hey, happy birthday, I’m going to leave now.’

When I finally did spot him, raging anger and jealousy washed through me. He stood on the opposite side of his apartment with a solo cup in his hand, deep in conversation with the most beautiful blonde woman I had ever seen in my life. And she stood there, like a cliché, biting her lips and running her eyes all over him.

I closed my eyes tight, hoping that when they opened again, she would be gone and I would have imagined the whole thing. That did not happen. They both still stood there. Talking. Inching closer and closer to each other. I couldn’t handle it anymore. I needed some air, so I took a few steps to the balcony where only one other girl with a lit cigarette in her hand occupied it.

Goose bumps formed on my arms and legs and I remembered why everyone stayed in the apartment. Unless you needed to smoke, there existed no reason why anyone would have to go outside to the cold. Sure enough, as soon as my compatriot finished her drag, she headed back inside, leaving me alone to wallow in my misery.

I needed to leave and get this behind me. However, the only ways out that I could see involved me either climbing down the runoff pipe four stories high or walking back into that room where Mason might be making out with that blonde. The pipe certainly had more appeal.

While seriously considering the logistics of climbing down the drain pipe, I heard the sliding door open and close. I waited for a lighter to flick and the smoke to start overwhelming the small balcony space, but that never happened. “It’s freezing out here, Sofia.”

I had not expected him to find me. I had not expected him to ever think I had been here, but he stood behind me, standing on the freezing cold balcony. “Is it?” I hoped he couldn’t see the goose bumps covering my arm that would clearly give me away as a liar.

He did not force me inside, instead, he joined me at the edge. I glanced into the solo cup he rested on the railing, but I saw only a clear liquid. So either he drank vodka straight or he had been drinking water.

Probably noticing my stare at his cup, he tipped it towards me and said, “I’m not drinking tonight.”

“Why?” Not drinking is the exact opposite thing you do on your birthday, right? Especially at a party? At your own apartment?

“Because there’s something I wanted to talk to you about and I didn’t think you would take me very seriously if I was drinking.” My heart stopped beating and I probably stopped breathing too. What if he remembered that night he kissed me? What if he regretted it?

Somehow, I managed to get out the words that I needed to say to him. The words he waited to hear before he continued. “And what’s that?”

“There’s a girl,” he started looking straight ahead into the parking lot. If he had been looking at me, he would have seen that my heart had shattered into a million pieces. A girl? I could have handled him not liking me more than a friend, but to bring up another girl while I had avoided that blonde in his apartment plunged thousands of tiny knives into my soul. “I think,” he paused, shaking his head. “No, I know that I love her. I think she loves me too. I also think that I…” he paused again, but this time, he turned his head to look at me. I refused to look at him. “That I want to marry her.”

I gulped. In a way, the fact that he trusted me as his confidant should have elated me. But it didn’t. Instead, I wanted to find this girl and shake her. I wanted to cry on her shoulder and explain to her why she should let Mason go. But that’s not what friends do for each other. So, despite my pain, I sucked it up and put on a happy face.

And somehow, I spoke without anger or jealousy in my voice. I think. “You should listen to your heart.” I held back the tears. I just hoped he couldn’t see the glisten in my eyes as they tried to break free.

“That would probably involve making a complete fool of myself.” He stopped speaking and turned his whole body towards me, but I couldn’t look at him. If I opened my mouth to say anything, one of those tears would finally escape and the rest, seeing their exit, would follow. So I said nothing. He took in my silence and continued talking.

“You see, I’ve been in love with her for a long time, I think, longer than I’ve even realized.” Another stab, straight to the heart. If he kept talking or kept standing next to me, I wouldn’t be able to hold in the tears any longer. I knew he wanted me to look at him, but I kept my head turned, hoping to escape this conversation.

Then, very softly, almost whispering, he added, “I’ve known it since she ditched me for this guy named Isaac, but honestly, I think I’ve loved her since I first saw her with a red circle on her pants.”

Me. Holy crap, he loved me. I shouldn’t have been surprised – he had told me this weeks earlier. Now I let the tears go, but out of happiness instead of pain. “Mason, that was my first period, you can hardly-“ I turned to face him, finally, but I saw no one through my crying, blurred vision. Had he disappeared?

Then I heard his voice. “Make a fool out of myself on my own birthday? Check.” I glanced down, wiped the tears out of my eyes and noticed he held something. And he knelt on one knee. “Sofia, I love you and I think you love me too. At least you told me you did and I’m going to hold you to that. So, would you ever consider spending the rest of your life with me?”

I stared down at the ring he gripped between his finger and thumb. His whole hand shook. But the ring itself couldn’t sway my decision. After all, I didn’t care about the ring. I cared about the man holding it.

I let him slide the ring onto my finger. About a year later, I let him do it again.

Original Photo Credit: Taliesin via Morguefile