Tempted by love

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

When the next day had come, I woke with a groggy headache pounding in my head like a hammer to a nail. I went through the motions of getting ready for the day without paying any attention to what I was doing. The rest of the day passed as a blur of light. Throughout most, my mind swirled dizzily, full of the images of what had occurred yesterday. I fought to repress most of them. But my head was spinning, trying to analyze every word Mason had spoken last night. What did he mean, it was better if we weren’t friends?

My stomach twisted as I realized what he must have meant. He must see how absorbed I was by him; he must not want to lead me on . . . so we couldn’t even be friends . . . because he wasn’t interested in me at all.

Of course he wasn’t interested in me, I thought angrily, my eyes stinging — a delayed reaction. I wasn’t interesting. And he was. Interesting . . . and brilliant . . . and mysterious . . . and perfect . . . and beautiful . . . and possibly able to do anything, accomplish anything that stood in his path.

Well, that was fine. I could leave him alone.

I would leave him alone.  

Mason Walsh had acted like a complete douche bag throughout the entire day. He went out of his way to avoid me like the plague. In his room, he stayed most of the time. In the study room, he spent the other part of his time. I left him food on the kitchen island and when he felt hungry, I saw him enter the kitchen from where I sat watching TiVo. It was as if we were establishing a routine between us where we both could avoid each other.  

I went over to the window bay and stared out the large casements. With the snowfall on pause, one could now see the small stream in the distance behind the tall trees. The view calmed me down like a shot of aged whiskey and the house seemed less suffocating. And, thinking of whiskey made me hiccup loudly. I knew that I could be stuck in this house playing board games by myself and reading fiction books about cowboys that my father seemed to have stacked up on the bookshelves, but it was up to me to make things entertaining for myself. 

But at the end I had turned to my old friend TiVo to give me an escape, lost in the world of Castaways. Benny Francis and Sandra Zane were the two leading stars besides Jack Mather. They had been regaling with tales of the fabulous African safari they had just ventured on after their Singapore roundabout. It didn’t sound so great to me. Flies, malaria, and smelly wild animals. Fun! I gazed to the doorway where I could, to some extent, see Mason behind the desk in the study room working on his codes.     

I sighed and started missing my father. I went to the communal bathroom that both Mason and I had to split. I picked up the clothesbasket and carried it to the laundry room in the basement. The piles of clothes had been piling up and it was time to get down to business. I placed them all in the washer and then in the dryer. I went back to the kitchen to start with the dinner, absentmindedly cooking the lasagne dish that was taught to me by Freya’s mother.

After dinner, I folded the clothes and went to leave Mason’s things on his bed and then mine in my cupboard unfortunately it was the kind of job that only kept my hands busy. My mind definitely had too much free time, and it was getting out of control. I was relieved when it was late enough to be acceptable for bedtime. I was far too anxious to get the day over and done with. My heart sighed. Tomorrow would just be another milestone to overcome.

I woke up early, having slept soundly and dreamlessly thanks to my overly anticipated untimely bedtime. I was well rested and found I had a bounty full of energy bursting through me on a high. I could have run a marathon with it all. But, then I slowly started to wonder if this was how people became insane during isolation. I dressed in an idle manner pulling on a gray wool skirt and cashmere sweater and swirled my blonde hair into a chic chignon. I sneaked a swift look at out the window to see small snowflakes dust to the ground again. Maybe I’d build a snow man today.