Love, Aspen

After I was teased almost mercilessly by Craig for finally ‘getting some’, I walked into the bedroom and woke up Aspen, telling her that we needed to be on our way. Craig and Aly were going over to her mom’s for lunch and we needed to get some grocery shopping done. I rolled her over on her side and woke her up softly with a smoky kiss.

“Come on, we need to get going.”

She groaned and rolled over. I snatched the blanket off her body, revealing her completely naked skin. She covered her chest with her hands and a grin came across her lips. “Matt. We talked about this yesterday.”

“What?” I laughed, throwing her clothes at her. “The fact that you are in no way, shape or form a morning person?”

“That.” She paused, opening her eyes. “And the fact that you have to torment me.”

I crawled onto the bed and hovered above her, leaning down and kissing her on the forehead. “I only do it because I love you.”

She grinned up at me and wrapped her arms around my neck, kissing me on the mouth. “Were you drunk last night?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, a little bit.” I got a skeptical look on my face. “Why?”

“Do you remember what happened last night?”

I rolled my eyes at her. “Of course I do.” I paused. “We took off all of our clothes and fell asleep because it was so hot.”

“Matt.”

I chuckled. “I’m kidding, babe. I know, we did it. We had…” I whispered. “Sex.”

She rolled her eyes at me again and pushed me off of her, grabbing her clothes and dressing herself. We bid our good byes and she snagged a cigarette from my pocket as we walked out the door, lighting it before we had made it into the car. I started the car and drove towards the closest Wal-Mart.

“We have money for groceries?” She asked, blowing out smoke.

“Feldman gave us a small check for coming over. We have to pay him later so I don’t see why he pays us. He always does. I think he knows that we’re all starving artists.”

She nodded. “He seems like a really sweet guy.”

“He is. He’s a cool dude. Records a lot of awesome albums. He’s a total bad ass for letting us come into his house to record. He had to kick his wife and kids out that night, had to deal with his angry wife. But he probably made it up to her by buying her flowers and telling her how much she meant to him or something.”

She looked over at me as I pulled into a parking spot. “Oh, is that how real men treat their girlfriends?”

“That’s how married men apologize.” I mused. “Guys who just love their girlfriends do it just because. But in order to do that, they must have money. That’s why I just drive you around and teach you things.”

She laughed. “So that I know you love me?”

“So that you don’t think I’m using you for sex.” I laughed, getting out of the car.

She slammed her door and walked towards me, grabbing my hand. “Yeah because I totally feel like that; especially last night. You dragged me all the way to Craig and Aly’s, got me all liquored up and then totally seduced me and took advantage of me.” She looked up me. “You dog.”

I scoffed at her. “If anyone took advantage, it was you taking advantage of me.”

She laughed softly. “Okay Matt you win.”

We entered Wal-Mart and scoured the shelves for everything we needed. My check had only ended up being about $200, because I guessed that Feldman had given one to each of us. I took a peek at Craig’s to see that it was only $100 and I just felt like a big douche bag because he obviously knew that I was poorer than shit, and I should have probably just quit smoking so that I would have some extra money to get food, but instead I let my addiction win me over, like most people.

But Aspen and I ended up with a cart that was as least half full, with all the necessities and the cheapest things we could find. I took a place in line and watched as Aspen scampered off to browse the makeup aisles. I felt so bad as I watched her. Every girl should be allowed to buy make up if they want it. She looked beautiful without it, but if she wanted it, she should be able to have it. There’s no reason for us to be so fucking poor that she can’t even buy some eye liner.

She walked back up to me, her hands empty, as I knew they would be. There was no way that she was going to ask me to buy it for her, I knew her better than that.

“You can grab something if you want.” I said, looking over at her.

She leaned up against me. “Matt I know that you want to act like you’re big and bad with all this money, but you’re not.” She laughed. “Neither of us are. Besides that, putting gas in the car and food in our stomachs might be a little more important than me wearing makeup.”

“Yeah but—“

She cut me off. “Geez, I didn’t think I was so hideous that I had to hide my face. I mean, if you really want this covered up, by all means.”

“Shut up.” I laughed, pushing her off me. “You are such a smart ass sometimes, I swear.”

She shrugged. “It’s how I cope with my pain. I make jokes alright. I feel ugly so I make jokes.”

“You are not ugly.” I said, my voice taking on a serious tone. “You know that. You’re fucking gorgeous and you don’t need any god damn make up to prove that. I’ve seen you plenty times without make up and your face is just as pretty without it.”

She smiled up at me. “You’re supposed to say that.”

“I know I am. But there’s a difference.”

She didn’t reply, only began putting our groceries on the belt.

“Wanna know the difference?” I asked.

“Enlighten me.”

“I actually mean it, therefore this argument is over and you lose.”

She laughed at me again. “You’re crazy.”

Conversation ceased as we continued to load the groceries onto the belt. The bill came to just under $120. I looked over at her and nodded towards the makeup. “Go grab something.”

But she completely ignored me and continued to load groceries into the cart. I shook my head at her and paid for the groceries with my card. We bagged everything up and had it in the cart, on the way out the door. We made it out the car and I popped the trunk, helping her load the bags.

“I don’t know why you didn’t—“

I was cut off by another voice. A girl’s voice. Raspy and harsh, like she’d been smoking for years. “Aspen!”

I looked up as Aspen turned around and I could see the surprise on her face. The complete ‘what the fuck’ look. She swallowed and smiled at the girl who couldn’t have been much older than her. “Hey what’s up?”

The girl let go of another girl’s hand and came towards Aspen, giving her a big hug. She kissed her on the cheek and then held her at arm’s length. “Fuck, when did you get out?”

And then it dawned on me. This girl was Cassie. The one that she’d slept with when she was in jail. I turned back around and continued to load the groceries into the trunk. I returned the cart and they were still talking. The other girl had disappeared. She must’ve been a little pissed off, I assumed. I got into the car, and I, myself, was getting slightly annoyed. Getting jealous wasn’t really something that I did a lot, but she was standing there, flirting with this Cassie chic. And the fact that I knew their history, and I knew this girl’s impact on Aspen, it made me a little nervous.

I was able to smoke an entire cigarette before Aspen finally got into the car next to me with a huge grin on her face. I glanced over at her arm, seeing seven numbers scrawled on her arm in a black marker.

I backed the car out of the slot without saying anything. I pulled around to the gas station and filled up the tank and got back into the car without saying a word. I kept my mouth shut for a long time, long enough to the point that I was seething by the time we pulled up the house. Aspen must have finally noticed, because she looked over at me.

“You alright Matt?”

I turned to face her. “I’m just curious why you didn’t introduce me to your little friend.”

She looked a little taken aback. “I didn’t know that you would want to be introduced. I’m sorry.”

“Well usually when you’re dating someone and you see someone that you know, you pull them up and introduce them. Kinda like, ‘Hey this is my boyfriend, Matt.’”

“Well I wasn’t aware that you were my boyfriend.” She snapped.

Her words had hit me hard like slap in the face and I fired back just as quick. “Oh sorry, I didn’t realize that we were still in the eighth grade and I had to ask you to be my girlfriend. I just assumed that when you tell someone that you love them and you explain to them that they’re the only person that you’ve loved enough to have sex with because you care about them, not because you just wanna fuck around, that might mean that you’re, I don’t know, a couple?” I snapped. “Guess I was wrong.”

I got out of the car as quickly as I could before I completely blew up on her. I couldn’t believe the stupid fucking words coming out of her mouth. She was being fucking ridiculous.

She got out of the other door and slammed it. “Matt, are you fucking kidding me?”

I threw open the trunk and grabbed an armful of bags. I looked up at her. “Do I look like I’m fucking kidding you? Do I sound like it?”

“You’re being obnoxious.”

“I’m being obnoxious?” I said. “’Oh hey Cassie, let me just kiss you in front of this guy that I fucked last night, this guy who I’ve been telling that I love. Just this fucking guy that I slept with for the first time last night, just this guy that apparently means so much to me, but not really.’”

“You know what, Matt? Fuck you!” She yelled. “Cassie kissed me.”

“You let her. You didn’t say anything to her at all.”

“I didn’t know that I should have.”

“You really expect me to believe that you’re that naïve? Come the fuck on, Aspen.”

She reached into the trunk and grabbed the remaining bags, slamming the trunk shut. “You know you don’t have to treat me like that just because Courtney fucked you over and made you feel like you need to be so god damn insecure in your relationships.”

I turned to look at her. “Courtney has absolutely nothing to do with this.”

“Bullshit.”

I ignored her and grabbed the keys from my pocket, struggling to unlock the door with all the bags on my arms. She reached forward and grabbed the keys, twisting them in the doorknob and pushing the door open. We both put away the groceries quickly, slamming the cupboards and doing our best to not brush against each other as we did so; which didn’t work out so well in a kitchen with a width of three feet. Once we were done, she balled up the plastic bags and stuffed them under the counter.

“Matt I don’t want to fight with you.” She paused. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings with the whole Cassie thing, I didn’t think you’d be so upset.”

I brushed past her, still seething. “Must just be my insecurities again. I must’ve fucking imagined the way you looked at her.”

“What are you talking about?”

I turned around. “That shit eating grin you had on your face when you got in the car.” I grabbed her arm. “You have her number written on you for fuck’s sake. Come on, Aspen.”

“She’s a fucking girl, Matt!”

I raised my voice. “A girl that you fucked, Aspen! A girl that you slept with and had a fucking relationship with. How am I supposed to compete with that?”

“I don’t expect you to! When the fuck did I give you that impression?”

I turned away from her. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.” I could feel the tears crawling up my throat. “I’m gonna go for a walk. I’ll be back in a little bit.”

I turned away from her and walked out the apartment door, letting it slam shut behind me. Never had I gotten so angry at her. I was fucking livid. And it was because I was jealous. Of some dumb bitch she spent jail time with.

Fucking ridiculous. But she made me do crazy things and feel crazy things.