TRIGGER WARNING: mentions depression, suicide, and drug use

Sam Knight

It was out in the open now, my harbored secret that was driving a wedge between Mason and me. Telling him had not taken a weight off of my chest since he sat there stunned, as if he was unsure of what to say. His breath seemed to be caught in his throat and his mind had turned blank.

Telling Mason about my mother was something I knew had to be done. I couldn't keep large parts of my life a secret from him if we were going to have a relationship. That's just not how life worked.

"Can you just say something?" I muttered impatiently, my eyes involuntarily narrowing at the stunned boy beside me.

"Sorry," he said, shaking his head as if trying to get some thoughts into his brain. "I just didn't expect that."

Mason looked at me with a soft, apologetic look on his face. His eyes gleamed with sympathy, sympathy I didn't want but would gladly take if it was coming from him. Anything was better than him storming off and never speaking to me again.

I took a deep breath, gearing myself up to start explaining the situation before Mason put his hand out to touch mine, stopping me.

"You don't have to say anything else," he told me with a worried look on his face. "I should have never accused you of anything–"

"Mase," I hushed him softly. "It's okay. I need to tell you this, to get it off my chest." I didn't want there to be any secrets between us and this was the biggest one I had. I needed to tell him.

Mason nodded, but didn't say anything else, urging me to go on. I didn't know why I had felt so nervous about telling him this before. Part of me was worried he would see me differently and want nothing to do with me, but another part of me didn't want him to judge my mother. She already felt bad enough for getting herself locked up.

"It's not much of a story," I started with a humorless laugh, looking down at my shoes, the laces split at the ends in the most annoying way. "It happened after my dad died."

I heard Mason let out a surprised gasp. My father's death wasn't a secret and I assumed most people around here knew about it, but no one ever spoke a word of it. It was too tragic.

"I didn't notice at the time, but my dad was getting really depressed about six years ago," I continued, looking up at Mason to see that I had his full attention. His hair fell on his forehead the way I like it, looking purposefully messy and making me want to run my fingers through it.

"One day after dinner, about five years ago, my father went up to my parents' room and the rest of us stayed downstairs," I said, feeling my voice get heavy. "It was me, Jonah, and my mom."

"A few minutes later," I paused, taking a deep breath before continuing, "there was a gunshot."

Mason gripped my hand tighter, bringing it up to his mouth for a chaste kiss while I took a long pause before clearing my throat and starting again.

"Mom and Jonah ran up the stairs and when I went to follow them, Jonah pushed me back and told me to stay downstairs," I said, looking down at our entwined hands. "About a second later my mom screamed like I had never heard anyone scream before."

It was true. The sound of her scream was so ear-piercing I remember my hair standing up on my arms when I heard it. After the initial scream, there were sobs that sounded like they weren't even coming from a human.

"I stood at the bottom of the stairs, trying to find the courage to go up there and see what was wrong," I said, my gaze meeting Mason's attentive one once again. "I saw Jonah literally holding my mom up with this look on his face I can't even describe. It was almost emotionless, like he wasn't even alive."

I paused again, the vivid memories coming back to me. Anytime I thought about this moment, it felt like it was happening all over again.

"He eventually put my mom down on the floor and ran down the stairs to call 911," I continued. "He made me sit in the kitchen so I wouldn't see when the paramedics brought our dad's body down, but I looked out when they arrived and saw them take him out on a stretcher with a sheet over him."

"I'm so sorry, Sam," Mason said sadly. "I know it doesn't help, but I'm so sorry."

I smiled at him and took my hand out of his so I could wrap my arm around his shoulder and give him a long kiss on the forehead, pushing his hair back with my other hand.

"It's okay," I said in a soothing tone. "It's better now. I never had to see what happened. Jonah kept me away from that. It probably would have been more traumatizing if I saw him dead in his bedroom with a bullet hole in his head."

I knew I was putting it bluntly, but that's how I handled talking about this situation. I couldn't sugar-coat it.

"I don't know why he did it when we were all home," I admitted. I couldn't figure out why he would want that. "But I know he was planning it because he took me out to Patty's Diner the weekend before and told me to eat whatever I wanted, like I was never going to eat again."

We sat in silence for a few moments before I decided to finish explaining.

"This is where it comes to my mom," I started up again, pulling Mason closer to my side. "She was a stay at home mom. My dad made enough to support us because he owned his own law firm and Jonah was already a dad so my mom stayed at home and watched Miles while Mae and Jonah were at school."

I felt Mason nod against me.

"After my dad died, my mom was hardcore freaking out," I explained. "Like she wasn't all depressed or anything, she tried so hard to be happy, it was obvious how fake it was."

She would pretty much let me do whatever I wanted and that was when Jonah really started to parent me.

"So after all the paperwork was sorted after my dad died and we got the will, it turned out he went bankrupt and we had barely enough money to keep the house for the next few months," I took a deep breath before continuing. "That was when my mom started dealing drugs, to pay for the house."

"She hid it from me and Jonah pretty well, but she got busted after two years and now she's serving a fifteen year sentence for drug dealing," I finished off.

"Fifteen years?" Mason gasped, looking up at me.

I nodded. "It could have been worse. She technically could have gotten life because of the kinds of drugs she was selling and how much of it she had. They wanted to give her twenty-five, but she took a plea deal and got it down to fifteen, but she can get out in twelve and go on parole for the rest of her sentence."

"How long has she been in there now?" Mason asked curiously.

I smiled sadly. "Three years."

Mason smiled sadly back and put his arm around me, hugging me close to him and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

"So that's why you live with Jonah and Mae?" Mason asked after we sat in silence for a few moments.

"Yeah," I confirmed. "Jonah is my guardian. When my mom went to prison, I had to go in the foster care system for a few months while they worked out Jonah's guardianship, but it was okay because Mae's parents fostered me."

"Well at least that kinda worked out," Mason said, looking on the brighter side.

I let out a small laugh. "Yeah, it was actually not too bad. Mae's parents are cool and I got to hang out with Jack a lot. Jonah visited me every day while he worked on becoming my legal guardian and buying the house."

"So, the house you live in now...?" Mason trailed.

I nodded. "It's the house I grew up in."

"How did Jonah afford to buy that so young?" he questioned.

"Mae's dad is a realtor, he hired Jonah, paid for him to get his real estate license, and cosigned on the house," I explained.

"Wow," Mason said as if he was at a loss for words.

My chest felt lighter after explaining everything to Mason. Now that there were no secrets between us, our relationship could only get stronger.

***

Mason Maloney

I was huffing and puffing by the time I rounded the track the fourth time, completing the mile. Ross stood in front of me, looking at the stopwatch on his phone before looking up at me approvingly.

"Your time is better, not good enough, but better," Ross said with a smile on his face.

I let out a sigh, bending over with my hands on my knees. At least I was making progress, but I couldn't wait to never have to run around this track again.

"We should go running again this weekend," Ross suggested, offering me a bottle of water which I gladly took. "Whenever you don't have work."

"I'm off Saturday afternoon," I said after chugging the water Ross had handed me.

"Perfect–"

"Wait, I made plans Saturday afternoon," I told him, remembering I had plans with Sam directly after work. I should have remembered considering we always hung out after work on Saturdays.

Ross gave me a puzzled look. "With who?"

"Sam," I said without thinking. My eyes widened when I realized what had come out of my mouth.

"You guys hang out a lot huh," Ross observed and I could tell he was suspicious of me. "Are you helping him with his baking?"

"Uh, yeah," I stammered, not meeting his eyes. He was onto me and I knew it. Ross wasn't stupid, he knew that wasn't really what we were doing.

"Why don't you guys do that when you're at work?" Ross asked in a questioning tone.

Any normal people would do that while they were at work, but I needed it as a lie so I would have an excuse to hang out with Sam. Ross obviously saw right through me.

"We, uh, we get busy," I said nervously, not noticing the inappropriate connotation my words had until after I said them.

Ross looked at me with his eyes narrowed and his head turned upward, like he didn't believe a word I was saying and he was just waiting for me to confess.

"I don't care if you're friends with him, you know," Ross finally said after staring me down. "I'm not Bella."

I let out an awkward laugh. "Yeah, we're kinda friends I guess."

Ross gave me the perfect cop-out to use and I still found a way to make it awkward. Not to mention, I felt guilty lying to his face just then. Ross was always a good friend to me, he was a never annoying or negative, he didn't deserve to be lied to.

I let out a sigh. "Ross."

He sent me a confused look, glancing up at me from his phone. He seemed to have already forgotten about our conversation, but I sure hadn't. I was guilty, but I also felt like I had to get this off my chest. I had made it a month and half without telling anyone about Sam and me and it was actually beginning to kill me. Christo knew about us, so what was the harm if Ross did? His mouth surely wasn't as big as Christo's.

"What?" he asked after I stared at him in silence for a few moments.

"If I tell you this, you have to swear you won't say anything about it to anyone," I warned with an accusatory finger pointed at him.

Ross still looked confused when he replied. "Okay?"

"I mean it, not Pete, not Bella, no one," I warned again.

"Alright, I swear," Ross said, sliding his phone into his pocket.

As I geared up to tell him the truth, I began to wonder why I even wanted to tell him in the first place. I had been so close to telling him I was gay before and I couldn't do it. What was different now? Coming out to Nathan surely helped my confidence since he was so supportive. I supposed I assumed it would be the same with Ross. Part of me began to doubt myself, but the stronger part wanted to surge forward and tell Ross exactly what I was thinking.

"I'm gay," I said suddenly, feeling the sting of ripping off a band-aid. Ross looked stunned for a moment before his expression turned more casual.

"Ok–"

"And I'm dating Sam Knight," I let out quickly before he could say anything. I didn't want to get false hope from his support of my sexuality and then be crushed when he voiced his distaste in my relationship. I just wanted to get it all at once.

"Holy shit," Ross said, though he didn't sound shocked at all. "I guess I should have seen that coming."

I stared at him, puzzled. "What?"

"I knew you must've had some type of relationship with him and I saw how uncomfortable you were when Bella had a thing for him," Ross explained. "Back then I thought it was because you didn't really like him, not because you had a thing for him, but it makes sense now."

"So, you don't think I'm stupid for dating him?" I asked curiously. Sometimes, I felt stupid for it, but then I remembered how happy I was with him and it didn't matter anymore.

Ross shrugged. "It's risky, but I think it would be more stupid if you let some stupid rivalry keep you from dating who you really want to be with."

I smiled widely at Ross, expressing my gratitude for his support.

"And he seems like a cool guy, obviously he is if you like him," Ross continued, smiling back at me.

I couldn't stop myself from launching toward him and wrapping him in a hug. He laughed before throwing his arms around me after stumbling back a bit.

"Maybe you can hang out with us some time," I suggested as the two of us walked away from the field and toward the parking lot to Ross's car.

He gave me a strange look and shook his head. "And be the third wheel while you two make out? No thanks."

I threw my head back in laughter. "No! One of his friends, Christo, found out and now he won't leave us alone. I figured you could join us."

Ross seemed to ponder on the thought for a moment before nodding. "Sure, why not."

The two of us got in the car and sat in silence for a few moments while Ross let the car warm up. He turned to me, an eyebrow raised with a quizzical look on his face. I raised both of my eyebrows in a questioning glance, wondering why he was looking at me like that.

"How did Christo 'find out' about you two?" Ross asked, seeming as if he already knew the answer. I couldn't help but throw my head back in laughter again before shaking my head at Ross.

"Trust me, you don't want to know."

**

Hi everyone! Sorry for the late update. Something came up and I wasn't able to get to it until now.

What did you think about Sam's confession? Were you surprised? Also, Ross knows about them now! What do you think about that?

Thanks for reading!