Love, Aspen

I was halfway through my cigarette when I heard the sliding glass door open. I looked up to see Aspen standing there, clad in only a t shirt and underwear. I smiled up at her and blew smoke out of my mouth, offering the pack to her with my free hand. She denied silently like she had been for the last couple weeks and I shook my head, setting the pack back down on the ground.

“Can you at least come sit by me?”

“I’m not wearing pants.” She spoke softly, leaning against the door. “I was just checking to see if you left yet. I heard you get out of bed like an hour ago and you’ve just been walking around the apartment. Are you alright?”

I nodded. “About as alright as you.”

“And how do you know how alright I am?”

I shrugged. “I’m just guessing.”

We were both quiet as I finished up my cigarette and put it out on the concrete. I stood up and walked past Aspen. She grabbed my arm and kissed me softly on the cheek.

“Why don’t you kiss me anymore?”

“I was gonna go brush my teeth first. So kissing me didn’t make you feel like throwing up.”

I walked away before she said anything else, which didn’t really matter. I heard her slide the door shut and start messing around in the kitchen, opening cabinets and probably pulling something out to make some breakfast. I went into the bathroom and closed the door behind me, running a hand through my still damp hair. I grabbed my toothbrush off the counter and scrubbed my teeth clean, then swished some mouthwash around to make sure the smell of smoke was off of me. I then washed my hands and sniffed my fingers, but they still had that stale cigarette smoke on them. I sighed and wiped them off with the towel hanging on the shower rail and opened the door, going back out into the living room.

Aspen was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, not facing me. The sound of her chewing on toast was the loudest thing in the room. I sighed. I was cross with her and I knew I was being cross with her. Leave it to me to be a fucking prick the day before I leave for tour.

I coughed into my hand. “I’m uh, I’m going to go take care of a few things before tomorrow. I will see you later, okay? We’ll watch a movie or something.”

“Or something.”

“Why do you have to be like that?”

“Like what, Matt?” She asked, still not facing me. “Why are you pushing me away from you?”

“You’ve been pushing me away.”

“So are we just going to keep doing this to each other? Just shoving each other away until one of us actually leaves?”

“Do you know how hard it is to love you, Aspen? I tell you all the time that I do. That I love you and that I want you to be in love with me. But lately, you really seem like you don’t want anything to do with me. And don’t pull that bullshit ‘I’m on my period’ thing with me again. I didn’t believe you the first time, but I was sick of arguing with you.” I paused. “You’re making this really hard for me.”

“Making what hard for you, Matt?”

“Leaving!” I snapped. “As if it wasn’t already hard enough.”

“I’m sorry.”

I grabbed the keys off the table and put my shoes on. “Yeah, so sorry that you can’t even turn around and look at me.” I snapped. “I will see you in a few hours.”

I pulled the door shut behind me and walked to the car without looking back at Aspen. Yeah, I was upset and yeah, I was fucking pissed at her. I had things that I wanted to say to her, but I didn’t want to stand around arguing with her all day. Figured I would get shit taken care of and then come back home to argue with her some more before I left in the morning. It was absolutely no use, bothering with Aspen. She just wanted to be pissed off about something.

And I couldn’t understand what her deal was. I was so completely done with dealing with her shit. She couldn’t talk to me about anything and acted like she was hiding something. Actually, I was fully aware of the fact that she was hiding something from me. And I assumed that it was just Cassie. That her and Cassie had hooked up and she had never told me because she felt so bad, and now that I was leaving, she felt like it was going to get out of hand, so she was just pushing me away so that it didn’t hurt so bad when she called me on tour and told me we had to break up because she was messing around with Cassie.

Ever since Aspen was a little girl—Actually. She still was a little girl. She still acted like a helpless little girl who couldn’t take care of anything by herself. She could have a job and she could feed herself, she could get herself places and she knew how to work the system. But she couldn’t take care of her own emotional needs.

I pulled up to the bank and slammed the car door shut, walking up to the front doors. I opened them up and stepped in, the cool air smacking me in the face.

“I can help you over here, sir.”

I walked up to a small cubicle, the nametag on the desk read Maria Kellogg. She smiled too big and smelled like mangoes.

“What can I help you with today?”

“I need to close out my bank account and withdrawal all my money.”

“Name?”

“Matthew Good.”

She nodded. “And may I ask you why you wish to close your bank account with us?”

I shrugged. “I’m leaving to tour with my band and I’m going to leave the money with my girlfriend while I’m gone so she can use it in case of emergency.”

She nodded again, clicking away on her computer. “You are aware that there is only three hundred and forty six dollars in the account, correct?”

“Yes.”

My money was accumulating. I felt so proud knowing I could give Aspen a whole three hundred fucking dollars. She could make the half the rent.

I rolled my eyes at my own sarcastic thoughts and waited for the woman to pull the money out of her drawer. She counted it all out, even to the last 95 cents and handed it to me, then pushed a piece of paper in my direction. I had to sign it to confirm that I, Matt Good, had withdrawn all my money and was closing my bank account.

I signed the paper, grabbed my envelope and walked out of the bank. I then went to the grocery store and bought some necessities and made my way over to Craig’s house. I walked in and announced my arrival.

“Hey Matt.” Aly smiled up at me.

“Hey Al.”

“You okay?”

I nodded. “I’m always okay.”

“You and Aspen doing okay?”

I nodded. “We’re always okay.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “Craig’s in the recording room.”

I nodded. I was being a fucking dick today. I ignored the aching feeling in me to apologize and walked in to the recording room where Craig was messing around with a track. I knocked on the door frame.

“Hey man, what’s up?”

“Nothing, really. We’re leaving at six tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You all packed up?”

He nodded. “You?”

I lied. “Yeah. I am. Do you want me to meet you here in the morning?”

“Yeah, sure. Is Aspen going to drop you off?”

“I’m assuming she is. She’ll need the car to get to work while I’m gone.”

“How are you guys doing? Is she doing okay with you leaving and stuff?”

I shrugged. “She’s doing about as good as anyone can do with something like this. I know she’s going to miss me. She’s just seemed really weird lately. Like she doesn’t really want to be around me. It’s hard.”

“Maybe she’s just distancing herself so that she doesn’t miss you so much while you’re gone.”

“Yeah, like that’s going to help.”

He looked over at me. “I didn’t say it was going to help. I just said that’s probably what she’s doing. Al had a really hard time when I first started touring. She’d text me every five minutes just to see how I was. Missed the fuck out of me.”

“Shut up!” Aly yelled from the other room. “You were the one that was calling me every ten seconds!”

He rolled his eyes. “That girl and her stories.”

I tried to smile at him. “Yeah.”

“It’ll be okay, Matt.”

“I think she’s cheating on me.”

“What?”

“I think Aspen is cheating on me. She was staying late at work a lot a few weeks ago and that girl Cassie from jail kept coming around and I think she’s cheating on me. I said something to her about it once and she got really upset about it.”

“Why would she cheat on you?”

“Why does Aspen do half the shit she does, Craig?” I snapped. “Because, she’s fucking Aspen. She thinks she can do whatever she wants and there’s no fucking consequences.”

“Matt. I think that you guys need to have a talk about it again or something. You two need to just sit down and be completely honest with each other. You maybe didn’t delve deep enough into the whole situation and you should probably let her know how you’re feeling. Maybe she’ll open up to you.” He paused. “Are you sure she’s cheating?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m not sure. The feeling is different.” I paused and looked out the window, wringing my hands. “Like she’s hiding something.”

“Something like what?”

“That’s what I’m saying. I don’t know. Maybe she’s doing drugs? Or maybe she lost her job? Or maybe she cheated once and she just feels guilty about it.”

“Or maybe she’s just going to miss you really fucking bad and you’re the only person she feels that way about and so she doesn’t know how to feel. So she’s just shoving you away because she doesn’t want you to think she’s being crazy or clingy or something.” He stopped. “Sitting here and talking to me about it isn’t going to help anything, Matt. You need to go home and you need to sit down and talk to her, alright?”

I didn’t say anything. I just kept looking down at my hands.

Craig nudged my knee. “Alright?”

I nodded. “Alright.”

“Go on. Get out of here.”

I stood up off the stool and walked out of the house without saying another word. I got in the car and started towards our apartment, the rustling of the Wal Mart bags in the backseat accompanying me. I had my whole speech planned in my head on the way home. I was going to sit Aspen down and tell her everything. I was going to tell her that I thought she was hiding something from me and that I didn’t understand what could be so horrible that she couldn’t tell me. That I understood she was upset about me leaving, and I would do anything to make it okay. I would tell her that pushing me away wasn’t going to help her at all. I was going to tell her all of these things.

But when I got home and pushed the door open, I didn’t see her in the kitchen. I didn’t see her sitting on the couch.

She wasn’t in the shower.

She wasn’t in the bed.

I checked the back porch.

And when I yelled out her name, I still couldn’t find her.

I went back into the bedroom and noticed that all the dresser drawers were pulled open and her’s were all empty. I noticed that she had taken her deodorant off the dresser. And in the bathroom, her toothbrush and her hair brush were missing. The water faucet was dripping with water.

And I looked on the counter. There was a note. From Aspen.

You were right, Matt. I was hiding something from you. I’m sorry. I love you.

And next to the piece of paper was a pen.

And a pregnancy test, still wet with urine.

And in little black letters, it read pregnant.