As the night wound down, I noticed I hadn’t heard my phone go off at all. I thought that strange, and when I pulled it out I was fucking livid. I looked at her, not hiding my anger.
“Did you turn my fucking phone off?”
She looked around the table at the eyes that were facing us and said quietly.
“Perhaps we can talk about this later?”
“Don’t handle me, Diane. Answer my question.”
My voiced was raised slightly.
“Son, why don’t you lower your voice?” Someone at my table scolded.
I turned my gaze on them.
“Mind your fucking business.”
Diane quickly turned to me and said, “Look, it was going off over and over again. You looked exhausted, so I was trying to give you some rest.”
I stared at her, trying not to put my hands around her neck. When my phone finally came on, I had like fifty messages. Oh shit.
My heart started racing as I saw my brother’s number for most of the messages. Then I saw two messages from Max. I played her message. The moment I heard the pain in her voice asking if I would call her, I was sent over the edge. I slammed my fist onto the table, knocking everyone’s glasses over. Diane’s demeanor finally cracked.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Don’t touch anything that belongs to me again, understand?”
I stood, and that’s the moment where I saw my brother. I quickly went to his side as I dialed Max. She called me around 3 p.m. and then again around 5 p.m. Her voice sounded worse than the first message, and my heart was breaking. My brother saw me coming and headed to me. The pain that was all over him had me practically running toward him.
“What happened? Is Allura okay?” I called out.
Marc shook his head. “Man, I’ve been calling you all day. What the fuck?”
“Diane turned my fucking phone off.”
“Well, shit. Was her phone off too? I called her all day as well.”
I looked toward the table, glaring at her, and she turned her head away from me. ‘God, I could kill that woman.’
“What’s going on?” I asked him again.
Marc tried to get his breathing under control, but I was extremely impatient. I felt like I needed to get to Max now.
“Marcus, is it Max?”
He shook his head. “No, it’s Kat.”
“What do you mean, its Kat?” I had a sickening feeling wash over me.
“She died, Mason.”
“What?!”
Marc pulled me away from everyone in the room. I saw my father and Ryan rise from their chairs to head in our direction.
“I don’t know everything, okay? All I know is that her and Max were at home, and she simply collapsed. Max called the ambulance. But by the time they got to the hospital, Kat had died. They couldn’t revive her.”
Ryan got to us first and asked, “What’s going on here?”
“Go sit down. This doesn’t concern you.” I told him.
Ryan pointed his skinny finger at me. “You know, Mason, I’ve had about enough of your shit.”
“Is that so?”
I moved toward him. Clearly, it was time for him and me to talk, but my brother walked in front of me and backed me away. I turned, ran my hands through my hair, and closed my eyes. When we had some distance, I looked at Marc.
“Do they know what happened?”
I knew Maxine would be a mess.
“Not definitively, no. But they suspect it was a brain aneurysm.”
“Fuck!”
My father came out of the hall and walked toward us. “Is everything alright?” he asked, but we both ignored him.
“I have to go find her.”
“Mason, she’s not taking this too well. You need to find her quick, okay?” my brother warned.
Seeing the look in his eyes had me running to my car. I drove like a bat out of hell to get to her apartment. I was glad for the light traffic and the straight shot up the Dallas tollway to Addison.
This really can’t be happening. It seems that everyone she has loved has died, leaving the very people that fucked her over still remaining; including me.
When I got to her complex, I pulled through the gate and headed to her building. I parked and ran to the steps, only to see Cory coming out of her second-floor apartment. My anger rose at the sight of him. So what was that all about? Because she couldn’t get ahold of me, she called him? Cory saw me and exhaled.
“Man, I was just about to call you again.”
He looked me up and down, seeing my tux, but not saying anything else. I climbed the steps.
“How is she?”
“Fucked up. I’ve been calling and calling you.”
I nodded. “I know. My phone was shit.”
“Did your brother or AB get to you?”