Pat and Sunshine start talking about baseball and I’m kind of lost in my own drunken haze. I need to get the hell out of here and go home but first I have to go to the bathroom.

“Be right back. Save my beer for me.” I slide her off my lap and damn near fall on my face but Pat is there to break my fall.

“Whoa there, big guy.” He says as he steadies me. “Where you going?”

“Bathroom.” I start to walk away but Pat grabs my arm, turns me and sends me in the other direction. I trip over my own two feet, the f**king floor keeps moving.

“Damn bro, I don’t know how you’re going to make practice tomorrow.” Pat says as he is there to catch me once again, apologizing to the people I run into.

“Who gives a f**k about practice?” I slur.

“Obviously not you.” Pat quips back.

We reach the bathroom and he pushes me in. I do my business, wash my hands and splash some water on my face.

When we make it back to the bar, Sunshine jumps up out of my seat; I sit and pull her back down on my lap. She starts talking to Pat again. I take a few more sips of my beer and the sounds around me start to fade out. I place my head on Sunshine’s back, needing to rest my eyes for just a second. Then everything goes black.

“WHAT THE FUCK?” The yelp hits my ears like a freight train.

What is that god awful noise?

“WAKE THE FUCK UP!”

I roll over and groan. My stomach rolls but then settles again.

“MASON!”

I open my eyes but I can’t see anything, it’s all blurry. Something hits my knee, it f**king hurts.

“Get up Mason!”

I blink a few more times. “Coop?”

“Yeah it’s me. What the f**k is she doing here?” Cooper seethes.

“Who?” I croak out.

“You know damn well who.” Cooper is breathing hard, he’s pissed.

I try to sit up and the room spins. I try again and this time I actually make it into a sitting position. I think I would rather be dead right now. I feel like someone is trying to crack my head open and pull my brains out. My eyes feel sticky and they burn. My stomach is trying to crawl out of my body and I’m pretty sure I’ve killed my liver.

After a few minutes I find my focus and look around my trashed room. Cooper is standing next to my bed with his arms crossed.

A girl’s voice that my brain can’t decipher says, “Masey?”

I turn and look for where it came from. I have to turn my body since my brain and eyes decide that they can’t work together. As I start to turn I notice I don’t have any clothes on. Shit this isn’t good. I turn all the way around and everything stops and then hits me like a ton of bricks. I leap from the bed and dash for the bathroom where I throw up everything that is in my stomach.

What did I do?

19

The seven stages of a breakup.

Everyone handles breakups differently, no person is the same. Breakups are messy. Rarely ever are they nice, clean and all tied up with a bow.

Stage One: Shock and Denial.

When Lily told me that she’d been sleeping with Mason and she could be carrying Mason’s child, reality crashed hard. My initial thought was that she was lying. Mason would never cheat on me. But then quickly the denial turned into shock. Lily has no reason to lie to me. What would she benefit from Mason and me breaking up?

Stage Two: Pain and Guilt.

The shock turned into pain. My mind started playing tricks on me - a flash of Lily and Mason hugging and kissing; another of Mason rubbing Lily’s protruding stomach; then the image of Mason proposing to Lily and the two living happily ever after. But then very quickly my pain turned into guilt. Mason has always been there for me. He’s my rock. He wouldn’t hurt me like this.

Stage Three: Anger.

Why is this shit happening to me? What did I do? Was I not enough for Mason? Did he regret me being in his life like my Dad did? Did he ever really love me? All of my anger boiled over and I let it all out by destroying Mason’s things. If he could crush me so easily I was determined to hurt him anyway that I could.

Stage Four: Reflection and Loneliness

This is where I currently am. Mason just threw a remote at me, well not at me, but in my direction. Flashes of my father throwing the phone at me flood my memory. I freeze in fear. Mason storms past me towards his bedroom. I hear a loud bang down the hall; I glance in the direction the noise came from. He is standing in the doorway, and even from this far away I can see how rigid his muscles are. Mason’s livid. I’ve moved on from anger. A few minutes later he stomps past me, leaving a trail of blood behind him. As he turns to go down the stairs I catch a glimpse of his right hand, his pitching hand, it’s dripping with red. In this moment I know things are going south and fast for Mason and me, and in a blink of an eye he’s gone.

Mason and I have always been passionate about each other, at least that’s what MacKenzie, Jaylinn and Chloe have told me. We are either on the same page, where nothing can stop us as long as we have each other. Or we are frigid towards each other and we can’t see what is right in front of us. I thought after we decided to try and have a relationship that we would be great for each other. We were for a while. I guess you can call it the honeymoon stage; but then shit got real, secrets were kept and love was destroyed.

Our first real fight happened during my blissful prom weekend. I thought we were going in one direction but Mason had other ideas. A lot of things changed for me that year.

After Mason and I had sex together for the first time, I thought we were finally going to become a couple. Boy was I wrong. Mason took great care of me after it was over and was really sweet. He ran a bath for me and I convinced him to join me. After the water had turned cold Mason helped me out of the tub and we spent the rest of the night wrapped in each other arms. I had blocked out everything else about that night, I was enjoying my bliss.

The next morning was like someone had flipped a switch. When I woke up, Mason was gone. I got dressed and went in search of him. MacKenzie and a few of our other girlfriends were already downstairs and dressed for the beach.

“Morning Hails. The girls and I are gonna go down to the beach for a little while, you want to come?” MacKenzie asked.

I gave her a little head nod to follow me. I walked a little further down the hall so that the other girls couldn’t hear me. “Have you seen Mason?”

“Yeah. He’s already on the beach waiting for us. Him, Cooper and Hunter went for a run early this morning and then we all decided to go spend the day relaxing. So, um, are you ok?” MacKenzie shifted nervously from one foot to the other. “You know with everything that went down with Matt last night?”