Most Valuable Player

by A.M. Woody

I’m starting to understand Mason Gray. He’s not just the cute, elusive water boy everyone wants to linger around because of his mysterious atmosphere and pretty appearance. He’s a painstakingly crafted shell of a person who’s been battered and worn down to his most basic functions, thoughts, and feelings. There’s only one crack in his armor. His smile. That’s why he’s always hiding it.

“Who hurt you?”

Mason is the sunshine incarnate. It’s like every shadowy corner and crevice looming within his body disintegrates, overtaken by an explosive ray of light that further wrecks my poor, healing corneas. He’s not even smiling, but the world encompassing us suddenly feels like a bright, warm place. Because Mason is happy. Genuinely.

“Why do you care?” “Because you should do things that make you happy, even if you’re bad at them.”

I want to reach inside of him and put his shattered pieces together with my bare hands, regardless of how many times they might nick my fingers.

Thinking about Mason has become indescribably magnetic, damn near impossible to resist.

I want to overwhelm Mason Gray.

I feel like he’s wrapped in chain mail, impervious to anything that requires him to bare his heart, deflecting any warmth people want to share with him. Every so often, though, if he moves at the right angle, I notice a chink in his armor. If I don’t slide in quickly enough, it disappears, and he returns to being fully hidden. Within those glimpses, I catch sight of someone else. Someone warmer, happier, more expressive and openhearted. He feels like a fragile decoy of himself, and I want to see what he’s like when he’s not hiding. His expressions, movements, and words are the distant echoes of another person.

If bewitching is a real power that exists in this world, the way you smile and laugh would probably be proof of it. Or something.”

“What are you feeling?” I ask quietly. Once again, he looks at me with faint mystification, like I surprised him. “I don’t know,” he admits. “Nothing.” “What can I do to make it something?”

“I ruined something good by wanting too much from it,” he breathes. “So I just. Don’t anymore. It’s fine.”

“I want someone to be gentle with me,”

my heart hurts

“I make everything worse, no matter what I do, no matter how many times I try to change, no matter how often I say I’m sorry or that I’ll be better or that I’ll make it up to them. I can’t smile right. I can’t walk right. I can’t wear the right clothes or say the right things or bruise the right way. I want…I w-want someone to not be so angry with me…I want someone to be gentle…when they look at me and touch me…and kiss me…”

“It’s scary, wanting to kiss you,” he whispers. “Why?” I mumble into the top of his head. “Because you’re gentle.”

“What are you running from?”

“You’re using me as a distraction.”

“Sorry,” he says again, faster. Quieter. “I didn’t mean…I wasn’t trying to…”

“When everyone around you becomes convinced, your brain targets the final person who isn’t fooled. Yourself. And what you thought was fake suddenly becomes real.”

“What about you?” I ask softly. His brows shift together. “What?” “How long have you been hiding yourself?”

his anger wasn’t in the moment. It was calculated.

“If I can’t stop him from pushing you down, I’ll be there after to pick you up. If he makes you cry every week, I’ll make you smile every day. Because that’s what you deserve.”

But I do. Right? I deserve a gentle love. And kindness. I’m worthy of something better.

Maybe I’m allowed to take it. This kind, gentle love.

“You make me feel safe.”

His zest for life is intoxicating—I want to join him in his unrestrained joy.

“I’ll wait an eternity,” he whispers. “If it means that one day, I can see every little piece of what makes you Mason Gray.”