Love, Aspen

I woke up the next morning to Matt prodding me on the shoulder. He said something about cigarettes on the counter and then I heard the apartment door slam. I sat up quickly and looked around me, seeing nothing but Matt’s living room. I rubbed my eyes and sat up, looking towards the clock. I was slightly relieved that he’d left so early. After bawling my eyes out last night, I was pretty embarrassed, to say the least. I stood up off the couch and walked into the bathroom, scrubbing my teeth with my tooth brush. It only took me a few minutes to get my cleaning clothes on. I pulled my hair into a pony tail and tied one of Matt’s bandanas around my head so my hair didn’t fall in my face. I pulled on my shoes, grabbed one cigarette and stuffed it behind my ear. I then grabbed my box of cleaning supplies and made my way outside. As I walked around, knocking on doors and being turned down, I realized that it was getting slightly nice outside. It was still windy and kind of cold, but the weather was definitely picking up. As I walked up the stairs to another apartment and knocked on the door, I told myself that if I didn’t get this job, then I was done. I had been to almost eight apartments already. The door was thrown open by a girl that couldn’t have been much older than me. She had gorgeous hair that was tied into a bun atop her head. Her eyes looked tired and she only wore a pair of shorts and a tank top. She had her arms full with a small dog and a smile on her face.

“Hi.” I said. “I’m just running around trying to find people with dirty apartments.” I laughed.

She looked at me skeptically, “Come on in. I’m sure my place could use some cleaning.”

I nodded, walking inside. “Cute dog, by the way.”

“Oh thanks.”

She set the dog down and I looked around the apartment. It really wasn’t dirty at all, but if she was going to pay me to dust a few things, I wasn’t one to complain. “So, um what do you want me to be cleaning?”

She pointed me towards the bathroom and I got to work. Her bathroom was like the black sheep of the rest of her house, it was dirty. Hair dye was all over the counter, mascara strokes on the mirror, soap scum in the bath tub, it wasn’t as bad as Matt’s tub though, thank God.

As she stood in the hall way with a bowl of cereal, watching me, she tried to initiate conversation. “So, you live with Matt right?”

I stopped cleaning and looked at her for a second. “Yeah.”

She nodded. “That’s cool.”

“How do you know him?”

She shrugged. “I know Aly.”

“Oh.”

“How do you know him?”

“I’ve known him since we were like fifteen. I needed a place to live and he said I could bunk with him.”

“So you’re not his girlfriend?”

I laughed. “No.”

That was all that was said before I left her apartment. She had shut the door after me almost coldly. She had ripped me off, too. I had done a damn good job cleaning her bathroom and all she gave me was ten bucks. I went around the apartment complex, only earning about forty more dollars before retreating back to the apartment. Matt still wasn’t home so I decided to get my ass in the shower. Once I was in the shower, I kept thinking about how weird it was that that girl had asked me about Matt. It just seemed like the only reason she wanted me to be in there cleaning was to find out if I was Matt’s girlfriend or some shit.

Which I wouldn’t mind being, because Matt’s not bad looking and he’s a really nice guy; but I just don’t think he’s necessarily interested in a relationship with anyone. Especially me. He knows how fucked up I’ve been and am, and he doesn’t even know all of it. Matt likes simple things. Simple things like that girl at her apartment. Her hair was long and pretty, dyed perfectly, falling in waves. She wore almost no makeup and had a perfect body. Not chubby, but not stick thin like me. He liked simple. Me? I wasn’t simple. Never had been and probably never would be. It just wasn’t my personality.

As I stepped out of the shower, I wrapped a towel around myself and made my way into Matt’s bedroom, pulling on some of his clothes. Matt’s voice made me jump as he threw the door open and yelled, “Honey I’m home!”

Without knocking, he threw the door open and grabbed me around the middle, hugging me tight. “Hi Matt.” I laughed, “What’s got you all happy?”

He practically threw me on the bed, looking over at me with this huge grin stretched tightly across his face. “Well, first of all. You officially have your own underwear.” He laughed, throwing a package of Hanes underwear at me. “And second of all, we finally put together our album and we should be releasing it soon, which means—“

“Money!” I squealed, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Matt, that’s awesome!”

He laughed. “I know, right? Which brings me to my next point.” He grabbed me by my arm and dragged me into the living room, presenting me with five bags of groceries. “I had some extra money and I went and bought groceries and I am making you dinner tonight!”

I grabbed one of the cigarettes off the counter, shoving it in between my lips and grabbing the lighter on the counter. “Let me know when you need some help!”

Matt’s voice followed me outside, “I can do this on my own. I know how to cook.”

I closed the door behind me, a smile on my face as I lit my cigarette and sat down on the cold concrete. I was so excited to see Matt so happy about something. He was my old Matt again, always in a good mood and always excited about something. It got me to thinking why he’d been so upset in the first place, and then I thought of it. It must have been Courtney that caused him so many problems, that made him so upset. And then I started thinking about the girl with the dog. And why couldn’t that have been Courtney? I mean, why the fuck else would she have wanted to know if I was living with Matt and if I was his girlfriend or not?

By the time I had finished my cigarette and got my ass back inside, Matt was sitting on the couch, flipping through channels while dinner was in the oven. I plopped down on the couch next to him and was quiet for a minute or two, trying to figure out an approach to the whole thing. But then I just decided to fuck it all and say it right out.

“So I was cleaning some girl’s apartment today and she asked if I was your girlfriend.”

“Oh yeah?” He asked, focusing on a commercial for the Magic Bullet before turning to me. “What’d you say?”

“I told her no.”

“What’d she look like?”

“Long kind of reddish hair. Big eyes.” I shrugged. “She had a dog.”

He laughed slightly, “Oh yeah. Okay.”

“Is that Courtney?”

I watched his hand get stiff as he turned to look at me. “No.” He paused. “How do you know about Courtney?”

I shrugged. “When I was cleaning your room I found something written to her. I didn’t read it or anything.” I paused. “Okay I skimmed it. But who is she?”

He sighed. “Just some girl I dated.”

“What happened to her?”

He shrugged. “She just decided one day that I wasn’t good enough for her. Why do you want to know?”

“Is that why you were so depressed before? Like when I first moved in?” I asked, completely ignoring his question.

“I wasn’t depressed.”

“Okay, maybe not depressed, but you weren’t Matt. And you know that.”

He nodded. “Yeah I guess so.”

“Yeah you guess so you weren’t Matt? Or yeah you guess so she’s why you weren’t Matt?”

He laughed at me slightly, turning down the TV volume. “You really want to know about this Courtney girl, yeah?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“All right.” He paused. “I haven’t really told anyone what really happened between us, I mean I just told everyone she left me. But I haven’t really talked about it, you know? Just tried to ignore it and pretend like it wasn’t really there, I guess. Not exactly something I wanted to talk about with anyone.”

I nodded. I knew that feeling.

“Well, we dated for like two years. We were kind of dating when I was hanging around with you, not like exclusively or anything, or else you would have known about her. But that night that you stayed at my house and then disappeared for like three months afterwards? Once you were gone, me and her got a little more serious with one another. We finally moved in together and then once she realized that I wasn’t going to be getting her anywhere in the money department, she kind of gave up on me.” He paused, looking away from me. I could tell his eyes were getting teary. “She always wanted to spend a bunch of fucking money, and I remember telling her ‘Court, we don’t have money for that right now, could you just wait until next week?’ but she’d go and spend money anyway, and that’s how I lost my fucking car. Because she wanted to buy all of this shit and I went to make my car payment, and we had no money in our bank account.”

“So what happened?”

“Shit just kept getting worse. I mean, I knew we were getting towards the end, but no one else knew it. We never really fought with each other. I was too timid to say anything to her. But one day, I came home. It was right after Sonny left and I found this fucking note on the counter.” He laughed harshly. “A fucking note, Aspen. And it was all like, Matt, I love you but I don’t think we’re working out. Love, Courtney. All her shit was gone, everything. She cleaned out her side of the bank account and that was it for us. And for a long time, I just wanted to die. I literally lived inside my apartment. I mean, I spent days not even getting off the couch unless I wanted to smoke.” He paused. “I wanted to fucking kill myself.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “It’s been months now. I mean, I can’t really sit here and dwell over it any more than I already have. I’m always getting shit about it from the guys. But it’s hard when you’ve got this one thing, and it’s all you know and then one day you come home and everything is gone. Your whole entire life is just gone within minutes. It’s all taken from you and you feel so fucking empty and you just don’t know what to do with your life.”

“I wouldn’t know what that’s like.” I said quietly. But I did. Just in a different sense.

He patted my knee softly. “You don’t want to know what that’s like, Aspen. Honestly, it’s better to just go sailing through life without having to worry about a girlfriend or a boyfriend. I mean, I’ve got you and you’ve got me, who the fuck else do we need, right?”

I laughed at him. “I guess so Matt.”

“What do you mean, you guess so?” He smiled, grabbing me and pulling me against him, rubbing his knuckles into my wet hair. “Huh? Huh?”

“Ow Matt!” I laughed, trying to shove him off of me.

He shoved his knuckle harder into my skull. “What’s that supposed to mean, Ginger?”

“Fuck you Matt!” I laughed, grabbing a hold of his hair. “Get off of me!”

“Let go of my hair!”

“Get your knuckles out of my head!”

“They’re not in, they’re on.” He laughed, “Ouch!” He yelled as I pulled his hair harder.

The oven beeped loudly and I continued pulling on his hair. “I’m not letting go until you do!”

“Let go of what?” He said, “I’m not holding onto anything!”

“You asshole!” I yelled, laughing, finally letting go of his hair.

He let go of my neck and got off the couch, running into the kitchen to get the food out of the oven before the neighbors complained about the noise.