#(about mason)

Being the oldest kid was always tough, but being the oldest with four younger sisters? Well, Mason had his work cut out for him from the start. Growing up, he had always been the caretaker. Someone scraped their knee? He was there with the bandaid. Someone was throwing a fit? He would be the one to calm them down. His parents did their best on their own, but with both of them working full time, and such a doting oldest son - it wasn’t long until more responsibilities began weighing on the young boy’s shoulders. Of course, he didn’t mind making his sister’s lunches or making sure they got to school in the morning. He didn’t mind giving up on sleepovers and football games all throughout middle school to babysit on the weekends - as long as he could make sure his sisters’ were okay, then he would be okay too.

It wasn’t until he was in high school - hormones raging, and rebellion growing within him - that he began to crave his own path. He was always there to lend a helping hand, always there to defend his sisters when they needed him. But for the first time in his life he began to realize that only ever being acknowledged for taking care of his sisters wasn’t enough for him. By the end of his freshman year, he was already on the baseball team, the football team - the president of his class, and well on the way to snagging the nomination for sophomore class president in the coming year. He worked harder than he had ever worked before to keep his grades up, but it wasn’t enough to outshine the torch that his parents would always hold for his younger sisters. He didn’t resent the girls - he never could - but he would be lying if he said he hadn’t felt the slightest bit jealous of the attention that they got.

When it came time to choose his fate - where to go to college, what to do with his life  - the wishes of his family was nearly enough to keep him home in Alabama. But the pull of the city was too tempting for the southern boy, and before he knew it, he was off to Berkeley, California to study medicine. Mason missed his sisters more than anything - he missed the little town he grew up in, and he missed being close to his parents - but he felt like he had finally found himself in the Bay Area, and that feeling was too good to give up. Sure, he always made his way back home on the holidays - showed up for a surprise on more than one birthday - but Mason made himself a promise in Berkeley. He would never get stuck in Frostford ever again.

The vow was only strengthened when Mason met the love of his life. Allison Rose. It was only his second year in college when he saw her standing near the keg at a frat party; his throat going dry at the sight of her. It was like a dream from the very first moment they spoke, and like a whirlwind they were in love before they knew it. Dating led to moving in together, and moving in together led to an engagement. His entire family flew out to California for the wedding, and his sisters stood proudly as ‘groomsmaids’ during the ceremony. They were married before either of them even had so much as a Bachelor’s degree, but they were sure they had a whole life ahead of them to figure things out together. That was, until Allison got sick. The couple had three good years before the ground Beneath their feet began to crumble, and Mason was forced right back into his most seasoned role: caretaker. Only this time, no matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to heal the woman he loved. He couldn’t even seem to help her. Still, he stayed up at her side every single night - spent countless hours researching anything that might save her. He dropped out of college, and prayed every night to a god he didn’t believe in. But Mason was only human. The funeral went by in a blur. Hordes of family and friends giving him their best wishes went by unnoticed. He hardly remembers how all four of his sisters spent every night for a month squished into the apartment he had shared with Allison. The only thing that he could make sense of through the haze in his head was the pain. He missed his wife. He missed the beautiful life they had imagined for themselves; so many plans gone astray. He wasn’t sure he was ever going to feel okay again, but with his sisters begging him to live his life again, he didn’t feel like he had much choice when it came to healing – or faking it, at least.  They needed him, just like they always had; his whole family did. Though the walls he built around his heart certainly never went unnoticed, he had had enough of checking out of his own life.

In an attempt to get away from the memories that haunted the walls of the home he and Allison had shared together, he went along with his sisters back to his hometown. The one place he swore he would never go back to; Frostford. But with the help of his family he made it back to college – somehow made it all the way through med school. There wasn’t enough time to think when he was constantly on his feet, after all; barely sleeping and always waiting for the next patient.