Mason raised an eyebrow. “I guess we both have secrets.” Then his face softened. “I tried to apologize to Bobby, but he won’t talk to me.”
“You tried to bash his head in with a baseball bat. That probably put a strain on your relationship.”
“Maybe.” Mason closed his eyes. “But I never meant for you to be hurt. I’m sorry for the way I treated you since, like, forever ago. You never did anything to deserve it. I’ve been a total idiot. I was hoping that maybe you could give me a sec— Maybe we could start over. Be friends. Or something. I mean, I understand if you can’t.”
“We’ve been arch enemies for how long? Do we even know how to be friends?” Before the Memory Lash, I had only heard rumors of the horrible childhood that made him a total bonehead. Now I knew the truth in a way that nobody but Mason could appreciate. And I understood why the Lash had brought up that memory. Not because Mason blamed himself for his mother’s death, but because he felt like a monster for being glad she was gone. I understood. It was like we had gained a special connection that day. Like our souls had touched. And now he was being all sweet. Maybe the Memory Lash wasn’t such a nasty weapon.
Forgiveness was supposed to be heavenly, so I could only assume that I had suddenly been zapped by divine intervention. After the abuse I had tolerated, after the nights spent crying on my bed because he picked on me so relentlessly, after that nasty nickname that had spread like thorns because of him. After all that, my heart wanted desperately to forgive him. Being friends would be so…strange. But what the heck? “Everybody deserves a second chance. Especially you.”
Mason’s entire face smiled, like the Grinch when his small heart grew three sizes. “Cool.”
“But why me, Mason? Why were you always so mean to me?”
His cheeks turned pink. “I thought you were pretty.”
I think mine turned pinker. “You had a funny way of showing it.”
“I knew you’d never want to be with somebody like me. I did whatever I could to get your attention. You only noticed me when I knocked your books down.” He smiled. “Rinnie, I have a hole in my heart the size of you. It’s always been there.”
A meteor could not have flattened me more completely. The situation had suddenly spun a one-eighty from the “friend” direction, and was speeding toward “awkward.”
He brushed his fingers across the back of my hand. “I know you’re with Egon, but I was hoping that, maybe, you know, if that doesn’t work…maybe we could hang out? I know a good pizza place.”
Suddenly his cell phone buzzed.
I leaned back, feeling a smile pull across my lips. Saved by the mobile communication device ringtone. “Hey, I gotta get to class. This pass is gonna expire soon.”
We both jumped to our feet.
Mason’s cell buzzed again, and he dug it out of his pocket, blushing even worse than I was. “Okay. See you around?”
“Definitely.” I turned toward my next class in a state of perplexification while Mason took his call.
“Hey, no problemo,” I heard Mason say. “Delivery tomorrow. It’s finished. Yeah. Old Torrents will be pleased.”
I spun and glared at him. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard.
“One day, I hope I understand how I can be so stupid!” I shoved past him and stomped down the hall, not caring that I was headed in the wrong direction, trying hard to keep from destroying the universe with a stray thought. Not that I could actually do it, but I was mad enough to maybe knock down a loose ceiling tile or something.
“Rinnie, what’s wrong?” he called after me.
I ignored him and kept going. What was wrong was that I was a complete bozoid. I always had to see the good in people, even when they obviously had none. I really wanted to believe that the Memory Lash had changed him. But facts were facts. He had gotten high on Psychedone 10 and attacked Bobby. He was connected to the Knights, the nastiest people the world had ever seen. And now he was about to help Old Torrents make more of that garbage that put Kathryn in the hospital. He was so not helping the mentally ill. Either he still didn’t have a clue about the Class Project, or his change of heart was a total hoax.
Time to sabotage a high school science project and find out the truth about Mason Draudimon.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Excuse Me, I Fluffed
Bobby and I walked out of study hall with a plan.
“We have four minutes between classes. That leaves us three in here.” Bobby ducked into the chemistry lab with me on his heels. The shelves at the back were full. That had to be the shipment Mason was setting up.
“It’s in the cabinet,” Bobby whispered as I followed him across the lab.
He tried the double doors of the supply cabinet, but they were locked. “Crud, now what?”
“Got it covered.” I pulled my Amplifier out of my belt.
“What are you gonna do with that?”