Page 57 of Summer Lessons

Ah. “Well, Skip and Richie are your friends too.” Which should concern Mason—Dane didn’t seem to be making friends at Davis. His first two quarters had produced good grades, but it felt like Dane was making a sojourn of penance every time he left the house.

Dane turned his head fractionally on the pillow. “They’re probably not talking to me,” he confessed, eyes closed against something he was imagining from the video game gathering the night before. Mason had spent the night on his bed, watching old movies while reading porn. He didn’t know how the movies ended, but the evening had ended just fine.

“What did you say?” Mason asked, curious. So far he’d discovered his new peer group was pretty hard to offend.

Dane groaned and covered his face with his hands. “I told Skip that when he went back to school and got his real degree, he’d know how much bullshit there was in the school system.”

Mason winced. Tacky, yes, but not irreparable. Mason had said way worse things. “What did Skip say?”

“That he was afraid of the cost, not the bullshit,” Dane muttered, hands still over his eyes. “God, was I a dick?”

Mason thought about it. “No. Not a dick. He’s not going to hate you for one thing.”

“Yes, he will.”

“No, he won’t.”

“Yes, he will! He’s Carpenter’s best buddy, and now I’ve pissed him off and Carpenter will never speak to me again!”

Mason remembered these discussions from when Dane was in high school—the impossible pile of mental crap that Dane had obsessed over and cycled around in his head and cried over when it never seemed to stop. For years Mason and his family wrote this off as just Dane, hypersensitive Dane, spazzing out about stupid shit until he couldn’t think.

It hadn’t been until that trip to the psych ward, Dane lying in a fetal curl, sobbing about how he’d ruined his life by refusing a movie invitation, that it had hit Mason—and their parents: this was how Dane’s brain worked.

The blessing was Dane—happy, joyous, brilliant, enthusiasticDane.

The drawback was Dane obsessing over the smallest perceived imperfection until he lost his ability to function.

Not on Mason’s watch.

“He will too speak to you again,” Mason said brusquely. “And you know what? It’s only eight o’clock. You should call him up and have him bring his niece and nephew to watch him play—”

“He didn’t want them to see him hauling his fat ass around the field!” Dane said, eyes open now—and bright and red-rimmed.

Augh!

“He’ll be there,” Mason promised rashly. “He’ll fucking be there. Now get your ass out of bed and shower. I’m going next and you know I’ll take all the hot water when I do.”

Fucking ankle. It made a trip across the hall feel like a trek through the goddamned Sahara, without a friendly camel.

“Really?” Dane asked hesitantly, sitting up.

“Dane,” Mason vowed, lowering his voice and trying not to yell. “I will get Carpenter to the field if you do two things for me.”

“Shower and make coffee?” Dane asked hopefully, looking away.

“Shower and tell me if you’ve been remembering your meds.”

Dane’s grimace told Mason plenty.

“Why not?” Mason asked, keeping his voice even.

“’Cause I don’t want to be a fucking freak who can’t function without them!” Dane shouted.

“You’re not a fucking freak, you’re my baby brother!” Mason shouted back, feeling his eyes burn. Dammit, he’dseenit happening. Dane being moody, Dane being manic, Dane giggling to himself until the wee hours of the night over something on YouTube.

This was the other side.

“Dane, I’m going to call Carpenter right now. If you’re not out of bed by the time I get back, I’m throwing you over my shoulder and chucking you in the goddamned shower!”