Love, Aspen

I woke up in bed next to Aspen. I looked down at the top of her head, her hair a mess. I smiled down at her and then remembered what had happened between us last night. I didn’t even remember getting into bed with her. All I can remember was kissing her and the way her mouth felt on mine.

I had spent so much time thinking about the way it would feel, thinking about what it would be like to kiss her, and when I finally did kiss her, it was so different than I ever would have imagined. But it was the most amazing feeling in the world. I’m not sure if it was because it had been so long since I’d even touched a girl (minus Kelsey because I was fucked out of my mind), much less kissed her, or if it was because it was Aspen. It was this girl who I’d known for so long, but never really knew until last night.

And now I understood why she had never been necessarily close to any guys. It was obvious, first of all, that she was completely self-conscious of herself at times. And having sex when you’re so fucked up that you can’t even remember if you were raped or actually had sex tends to fuck with a person’s ability to actually come on to someone.

Not that either of us had tried to come on to each other last night. I think that we were both just so emotionally shot that it all came out. Aspen was freaking out and sobbing all night long, and I will admit, I was jealous that Andy had taken her out. I never really mentioned Aspen to Andy, but last night when he’d showed up and we all left for the party together, I could already tell they were going to be buddy buddy. That might have been slightly judgmental of me, seeing as how it only took me about an hour to get drunk and then mess around with Kelsey, which I was completely embarrassed about.

I laughed quietly to myself and then Aspen shifted next to me. I watched as she opened her eyes and looked up at me, then squeezing her eyes shut again.

Careful not to breathe on her, I smiled. “Morning sunshine.”

Her laugh was muffled by the blankets. “What time is it?”

“Like one or two.” I laughed. “We were up all night.”

“You kept me up all night.”

I shrugged. “Sorry about your bad luck.”

She looked up at me, her eyes still glazed over with sleep. She smiled softly. “I have a question for you.”

“What?”

“Why did you mess around with Kelsey the other night?”

“I don’t really know.” I muttered. “I figured you and Andy would end up messing around so I thought I’d get ahead of the game.”

“Ahead of the game as in you’d get gonorrhea before me?” She smirked.

“Ha ha. Your jokes are so clever.” I said, nudging her shoulder. “I don’t know. It’s embarrassing. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Not as embarrassing as what I told you last night.” She sighed. “At least you weren’t too drunk to know you’d been fucked.”

I pulled her against me, rubbing her bare shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself for that. Ryan was a fucking douche bag to begin with and if he thought that was okay to do that to you, then fuck him.”

She laughed. “I did.”

“I meant that metaphorically.”

She nodded. “I know you did Matt.”

I laughed nervously. I wanted to ask her about us kissing last night, but I didn’t want to make everything awkward. Thankfully, she intervened.

“So how was she?”

“Who?”

“Kelsey.” She laughed. “Was she sloppy, sexy?”

I felt my face grow red. “I told you I didn’t want to talk about it.”

She looked up at me, a grin stretched across her face. “I just want to know.”

“It’s a secret.”

Aspen sat against the headboard and brought her knees to her chest. “I’ll tell you my secret if you tell me yours.”

I rolled over on my side and propped my head up on my elbow. “Oh really? And is your secret even worth mine?”

She shrugged. “It could be. But you’ll have to tell me yours first.”

“Fair enough.”

“Well?”

I laughed, covering my face and sighing loudly. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“Is it going to be one of those things where every time I see her to go get her mail, that’s all I’m going to be able to think about?”

“Possibly.”

“Just tell me.”
I laughed nervously again and yanked at a piece of my hair. “To be honest with you, I was so fucking drunk that I don’t really remember.” I paused. “The only thing that I can recall is that I was leaning down, like on my knees—“ I stopped.

She looked at me, laughing more than I would like her to be. “Did it stink? Did she have jungle rot?”

I laughed now. “No, it didn’t stink.”

“Are you afraid of vaginas?” She smiled.

“I couldn’t even…” I stopped again. Oh my god, I couldn’t fucking say it. It was so personal and I felt like Aspen wasn’t a dude, I shouldn’t be talking about another girl like this to her. “I don’t think she shaves.”

Aspen started laughing extremely hard now. She took in a deep breath of air and buried her face in her hands, continuing to laugh.

“What?” I asked, now twice as embarrassed. “What?”

“That’s…” She heaved. “Oh my god.” Laughing again. “Matt. You wouldn’t tell me that? That’s what you were so embarrassed about? Embarrassed because she had a hairy muff?”

A grin took over my face as I started laughing again. “Did you just call it a muff?”

She nodded, wiping her eyes. “Cooch? Muff? Twat? What else am I supposed to call it?”

I shrugged, my body shaking with laughter. “I don’t fucking know.”

“I was thinking you were going to tell me that her vagina lips were like three inches long.” She paused. “Or that you couldn’t get it up.”

“Get what up?”

She turned towards me. “Are you retarded Matt? You know that thing between your legs that rises when you get all excited?”

I laughed now, turning away from her. “I am done with this conversation.”

“Why?” She giggled, rolling over on top of me. “Are you embarrassed?” She said in laughable tone. “Is there something wrong with your penis?”

“Get the hell off of me.” I said between laughs.

“Fine.” She grinned. “I have to pee anyway.”

She untangled herself from the blankets and got out of the bed. I couldn’t keep myself from staring at her as she walked away from me. I lay on my back and rubbed my face, breathing through my hands. I heard Aspen pull her pants down and moments later, I could hear her peeing.

“Are you peeing with the door open?”

She yawned. “Yes Matt.”

I got out of the bed and grabbed my cigarettes off the table, walking past the bathroom without looking at her. “Well when you’re done, come out and smoke with me.”

I jammed a cigarette in my mouth and had it lit before I was out the door. I sat down on the porch and threw the pack next to me on the ground. I still felt so weird about kissing Aspen last night and I felt like a pervert or something. I don’t know why, we’d known each other forever and she wasn’t that young. I turned towards the door as I heard it slide open. Aspen sat down next to me and grabbed the pack and pulling out a cigarette. She took mine from in between my fingers and lit her own, grinning at me.

“You know there’s a lighter in the pack, right?” I asked.

“Of course I do. There’s always one in there.” She smiled, handing it back. “I just like using your’s.’

I shook my head, laughing slightly and blowing smoke out of my nose. “So I have a question.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you and Andy mess around at all?”

“Matt!” She laughed, shoving against my knee. “Why the fuck would you ask me that?”

I shrugged. “I’m curious.”

“I just kissed him. I haven’t really hooked up with anyone since that night with Ryan.” She paused, laughing slightly. “Okay, that was a lie.”

“Which part?”

“Not hooking up with anyone since Ryan.” She laughed, taking another drag. “That was my secret actually.”

“Oh yeah?”

She nodded. “Figure I might as well tell you who else I had sex with.”

“What?” I asked. “Didn’t you leave the night after that?”

She nodded.

“So did you fuck someone you didn’t even know?”

She shrugged. “Kind of I guess.”

“Who was it?”

She turned away from me. “You swear you won’t tell anyone?”

“Promise.” I said, holding out my pinkie.

She hooked her’s on mine and looked up at me for a second. Her eyes flicked down and she didn’t let go of my pinkie as she murmured, “Her name was Cassie.”

“I’m sorry.” I laughed. “Did you say her?”

She immediately dropped my hand and took a nervous drag from her cigarette. “Yes.” She blew out smoke. “It was when I was in juvie.”

“How the fuck did that happen?” I asked, bewildered.

“It was my first day and I sat down at her table. She turned and looked at me really weird for a second. And I knew she was a lesbian. I could just tell. And so she turns to me and she’s all, ‘What’re you in for?’ and I told her. So then she wanted to know my whole story. And I told her. And.” She laughed. “She just thought I was so cute for some reason. We ended up being roommates and it just happened I guess.”

“Just once?”

She shook her head. “Way more than once.”

“So are you gay?”

She shrugged, putting out her smoke. “I don’t think so. I just messed around with Cassie because she took interest in me. I felt wanted I guess. After Sonny wanted nothing to do with me, and Ryan only messed around with me because we were both fucked up, I felt lonely. And I guess Cassie wanting me made me feel good about myself, so I let her have me.”

I nodded. “I know how that feels.”

“That’s why you fucked Kelsey the other night.” She laughed, leaning against me.

I shoved her off playfully. “I fucked Kelsey because I was too drunk to know what I was doing.”

“Matt,” she laughed. “You can’t go around using my story.”

I looked down at her. “You know, you seemed so uptight about that before you told me and now you’re just joking around about it.”

She shrugged. “I guess I was just afraid you weren’t going to believe me and that’s why I was so scared.”

“But since I believed you, it’s funny now?”

“It’s easier to make jokes about it than it is to think about how scary it was.” She said quietly. “Kind of like when someone jumps out from behind a wall and scares you. You’d rather laugh and shove them than start crying because you’re scared.”

“That’s different.”

“Maybe it is.” She laughed, blowing smoke out of her mouth. “We all perceive things differently, I suppose.”

Both of us were quiet for a long time until I opened my mouth again. “How did you not get caught?”

“Doing what?”

“Messing around with that chic.”

She shrugged. “It’s easy. The guards don’t check on anyone that often and when they do, it’s not like a thorough check up, they just kind of look through the window. The room is dark and as long as both beds are lumpy, you don’t really have to worry about anything.”

“So that’s honestly the only other person you’ve messed around with?”

She nodded. “Ryan and Cassie. Besides them, I’ve only kissed Andy.” She was quiet for a second, and then she looked up at me. “And you.”