Love, Aspen

I sighed and ran my hands through my hair, looking up to see the worried faces of Aly and Craig looking down at me. I felt pathetic, as I usually did. As I did before Aspen came around. It was awful, this sinking feeling in my stomach. You think you know someone, you think that they love you and you think you can get through anything with them and then you wake up and they’re gone.

Craig put an arm over my shoulders. And before, I would have shoved him away. Before, when I was pathetic and pissed off I would have just shoved him away. Back when I was with Courtney and she broke my heart, I would have been just as mean to Craig. But now, I wasn’t mad. Now, I was worried. I was upset, I was sad, I was worried. I was heartbroken and I was fucking terrified. I looked up at Aly and she didn’t even try smiling to cheer me up. They knew that this was the end for me. That nothing was going to be okay for me ever again. They knew. And I knew. Sitting on their couch with my nose full of snot, my eyes swollen shut from crying so much, I knew this was the end of my life.

This had to be the end, there was no way I could deal with losing Aspen like this. It was so fucked up and so wrong. And I wasn’t even mad at her for leaving. I was so scared for her. I wanted to know where she was. I wanted to know what she was thinking, what she was doing. I wanted to know.

Then I started becoming irritated with myself. Like why hadn’t I noticed what was going on? Like why did I let her leave? How could that have happened to us? I let us fall apart right before she left me and now I was alone and so was she and she didn’t deserve to be alone. She needed someone to be there for her, to take care of her. She needed me right now. She needed me to hold her in my arms and kiss her face and tell her everything was going to be okay. And where the fuck was I? I was out fucking around, getting shit ready for my band. That’s what I was doing. Being fucking selfish. I bit down on my lip and tried to stop myself from sobbing. Craig must’ve noticed the fact that my body was convulsing with emotion and he bent down, pulling me into a hug.

I clutched onto his shoulders and let out a cry. Aly came over and put her arm around me too.

“Matt, stop holding it in. Will you please just cry?” She asked me softly.

And that’s all I needed. All I needed was someone to ask me to cry and I did. I bawled and bawled and when I thought I could cry anymore, I cried again. Aly got up and brought me a paper towel to wipe my face with. Craig finally pulled away from me after what seemed like an hour at least.

“She’ll come back.” He stated nonchalantly, then nodded to himself. “She will. I know she’s gonna come back, Matt.”

I shook my head. “Of course she’s going to come back. She always does. Aspen never leaves for too long. She always comes back at some point. That’s what I’ve spent my whole life doing, Craig. Waiting for Aspen to come back.”

“I know, Matt.”

“But what if she comes back in five years? Or five minutes? What if she comes back and tells me that she’s not even pregnant anymore? What if she comes back in ten years and she has my kid with her and my kid doesn’t even fucking know me? What kind of father does that make me?”

Aly stepped in, “that makes you the kind of father who waited ten years to meet his kid, Matt. It’s not your fault she left.”

“It is.” I sobbed. “You guys don’t understand! I pushed her away, I made her leave!”

“No.” Craig intervened. “You didn’t make her leave, Matt. No one can make Aspen do anything. You know that as well as I do. She left on her own. We may not know why or when but we do know that she left on her own. There is no way that this is your fault.”

“I can’t do this though. I really can’t. I can’t just sit around and wait for her to come back. I have no idea where she is. She just left me and I can’t think. I’m not going to be able to sleep. I’m not going to be able to eat. I can’t do anything. I can’t play my guitar. I’m going to fuck everything up. I’m going to be right back where I started, you guys. I’m going to be back to sitting in my apartment, not showering and looking for ways to order cigarettes to my front door so I don’t have to put on pants to go to the gas station.”

Both Aly and Craig stood above me, silently. Aly looked upset, Craig looked worried. Neither one of them argued with me. They’d seen me do this before. They knew what I was capable of. Or more so, they knew what kind of capabilities I lost when I was depressed. They knew that I could go three weeks without showering. They didn’t want to see me like this.

“Do you know where she would have gone?”

“No.”

“Did she leave anything? A note? A ticket? A receipt?”

I shook my head. “All she left was a note saying that I was right, that she was sorry. And that pregnancy test. That’s all she left behind.”

“Did she have any money?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Maybe enough to get on a bus and go somewhere. But not much more than that.”

“What about anywhere to go?” Aly continued to probe. “Would she have gone to see anybody?”

“She didn’t have anyone else.” Craig said softly. “Matt was all she had. Unless she went back to jail.”

“No.” I shook my head. “She didn’t go back to jail. She left deliberately.”

“You don’t think she might’ve done anything to get arrested?” Aly asked. “I can check the county website. Maybe she’s on there.”

“She’s not.” I said. “She won’t be on there. She didn’t get arrested. She left me.”

We were all quiet for a long time. No one said anything as Craig paced the living room back and forth and Aly stood by me protectively, like I was going to pull a gun out of my pocket at any second and blow my fucking brains out. Which, quite honestly, if I didn’t have friends like Craig and Aly, I probably would have done already.

“Maybe she just left to think for a little while.” Craig pondered. “Maybe she’s not that far away and she’ll be back within a couple of days, Matt. Maybe she just needs some time to think about what she’s going to do with a baby.”

“I can take care of it.”

“No one said you couldn’t, Matt. No one’s doubting you here.” Aly said calmly, putting a hand on my shoulder. “But raising a baby isn’t a one person job.” She paused. “Especially for a single dad who’s going to be traveling and playing shows. You need Aspen to want this as much as you do. Do you understand that?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I understand that. But I can’t make her want anything. If I make her keep that baby, she might hate me forever.”

“God.” Craig sighed. “I wish we knew where the fuck she went.”

I nodded as best I could without picking up my head. “I wish I knew where she was too.”

They fell silent again. I kind of appreciated the silence though. It’s not like anything they said was going to make me feel any better anyways. Anything they said was just going to go in one ear and come out the other. Even though Craig had told me that Aspen was going to come back, like she had so many times, I almost had a hard time believing him. It’s those things that happen in life, one of those situations that happens where anyone will tell you everything is going to be okay just so they can make themselves feel better for you. That’s what kind of situation this was. That’s exactly how I felt at this point in time. My chest ached, my head was throbbing. My stomach was swimming in it’s own bile and I didn’t even want to stand up because I was afraid I was just going to fall over and die.

Which I wouldn’t have minded doing.

“Matt, do you want to lay down?”

I shrugged.

Aly walked away from the living room, “I’m going to get you a blanket and a pillow.”

“No.” I said softly, attempting to stand up, but then sitting back down. I crammed my palms into my eyes. “I need to go home. I can’t stay here.”

“The fuck you can’t.” Craig said. “I’m not letting you leave like this. You’re not driving like this and you’re not going to go sit at home and feel like this by yourself without anyone.”

“You guys don’t need to babysit me.”

“We’re not babysitting you, dude. We’re making sure that you’re okay.”

“But I’m not.” I said softly. “I’m not going to be. Not until Aspen comes back.”

“Well then I guess you’ll just have to stay here until Aspen comes back.” Aly said, coming back into the room. She tucked a pillow in the arm of the couch and held the blanket over one arm. “Do you want anything to eat?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.” She paused. “Are you thirsty?”

“No.”

Craig sighed. “Where are your keys?”

I reached into my pocket and pulled them out, holding them on one finger towards him. “Right here.”

He took them from me and pocketed them, pushing on my shoulder so that I laid down. Aly draped the blanket over my body and leaned down, kissing me softly on the forehead.

“Matt, everything will turn out okay. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I promise you. Aspen will come back and everything will work itself out, okay? Just let us take care of you right now while you need it. We’ll help you through the day and keep you safe. Just give us that much.”

I nodded, looking down at the blanket pulled over my body. “Okay.”

Matt ruffled my hair, “I love you man.”

“I love you too. “ I said quietly. “Thank you guys.”

And with that, they both left the room, turning the kitchen light on. The house was silent besides the soft humming of the refrigerator. I turned on my side and looked into the darkness of the living room and sighed softly to myself. I needed Aspen in my life. This felt so wrong, sleeping by myself. What felt even worse was the fact that I knew Aspen was by herself, feeling the same way. I knew that she felt wrong for doing what she did. She felt wrong for a lot of things, and this was going to be one of them.

Craig and Aly were right. All I had to do was wait for Aspen to come back and crash into my arms. That’s all I had to do and then everything going to be okay. Everything would be right. She would be in arms, and we would work things out. We would keep the baby or we wouldn’t, but no matter what we decided to do, it would be okay as long as we decided to do it together. That’s all I needed in my life, was Aspen. We just needed to be together.