Page 85 of Hamartia

I go to move past him but he grabs me, pulling me back to face him. It happens too fast to duck or put my hands up before his fist connects with my face, hot white pain exploding across my jaw.

“You piece of fucking shit. You’re not doing this to her!” He goes to hit me again but I manage to block it and then the others are there dragging him back. “You piece of shit!”

“What the fuck?” Zeke is saying as Crawford wraps an arm around Mason and pulls him away from me down the corridor.

“Don’t fucking touch me! Get off me, Crawf!” Mase is raging as I touch a hand up to my face to check the damage.

Cleo looks anxiously between us as Mase and Crawford disappear back inside the studio, door slamming closed.

“What was that all about?” she asks me.

“He’s been in a weird fucking mood since the Grammy’s man,” Zeke murmurs.

“He’s pissed at me. It’s not about you guys.” I flex the numbness out of my face.

“He’s more than pissed at you, Rapha. What the fuck’s going on?”

“Camille and I are over. He blames me for it, I guess.” I shrug because I honestly don’t get it and I don’t know what else to say.

“You and Camille are over?” Cleo asks, shocked, before some weird wide-eyed look passes between her and Zeke. It feels odd, like I’m missing something, but my head fucking hurts and I’m buzzing from the adrenaline so I can’t think entirely straight. He actually hit me.

Cleo doesn’t look quite as ready to let the thing go as Zeke does, staring at me a long time.

“Let’s call it a night,” she suggests. “We’ve all been at this too long. I’ll take you home.”

She’s the only sober one between us and so I wonder if that’s why she doesn’t seem to be buying the story I just sold them about why Mase punched me. I’m not sure I’m buying it either. She tells me to wait by her car while she grabs my bag and shit from inside the studio. The fresh air feels cool and helps soothe my head a bit as I stand there. When she reappears there’s a whole range of emotions on her face as she meets my eye across the roof of her jeep.

“He okay?” I ask.

She gives me another weird look before the door unlocks and she climbs inside.

“Is he?” I ask again when we’re both seated.

She sighs. “He will be. He needs to stop doing so much of that shit if he can’t act like a fucking adult.”

“It wasn’t his fault, C. It was mine.”

She whips her head round to scowl at me. “You don’t see what’s right in front of your face, do you?”

I frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Forget it, Rapha.” She shakes her head, starts the engine and pulls out of the parking lot.

“I assume you offered to drive me home so you could lecture me about something, so get on with it.”

“I offered to drive you home because I don’t want you two killing each other.” She sighs again. “And with the amount of shit I watched him take tonight, that was a very possible fucking outcome.”

I think about that. About how much cocaine I watched Mase do tonight—more than Crawf or I, more than usual. He seemed wasted when he arrived too. I think back to how he was two hours late the first day we arrived too. His mood when we talked. And further back, his mood the day of the meeting when we fought. All of it feels, off.

I was in a dark place.

Something feels…off about it all. The way Zeke and Cleo looked at each other when I told them Camille and I were over and that Mason blamed me for it.

You really don’t see what’s right in front of your face do you.

I look around at Cleo. She’s biting hard on the inside of her lip, hands gripping the wheel as she speeds through Silverlake.

“What the fuck am I missing, Cleo?” I ask her.