Heart It Races

"Aspen." A whisper called, pulling me from my dreaming state. I didn't open my eyes, hoping they would go away.

"Aspen." It came again, this time a finger jabbing me in the side.

I groaned, "What?"

"She's awake!" The voice, I now recognized to be Calum's exclaimed still whispering.

"Come play with us we're bored." Luke whined.

I opened my eyes, rubbing them as I sat up. I was in bed next to Michael, who was still fast asleep. We had been up rather late last night and I remember drifting off as Mike played guitar, softly singing to one of the new songs they had written.

"You woke me up for that?" I sighed, flopping back on the bed.

"Please?" They said together, jutting their bottom lips out.

"Why me?"

"Because you're the only fun one!"

"Guys! Leave her alone!" Michael grumbled rolling over to face me, pulling me back down to cuddled into his side.

"Why do you get to have her?" Luke whimpered, deflated.

"Because I called her and she's mine."

My heart jumped at his words she's mine. I wish.

"I'll get up in a minute." I told, trying to satisfy them.

"Liar." I heard Calum mumble as they fled from the room. He was right. I probably wouldn't, I was enjoying lying next to Mikey too much.

"Good morning. " Michael murmured, looking sleepily at me.

"Good morning."

"What time is it?"

"Noon." I checked my phone, a few notifications lighting up on the screen, I would look at them later.

Michael's POV

"Noon." She answered me, her voice still slightly foggy from being woken up by my two knuckle head band members. I didn't want her to get up yet. I'd be lying if I said over the course of the week I hadn't developed a huge crush on her.

I took it all in, her laying next to me right now, not a trace of make up on her face, and her hair, spread out in unruly waves around her. I took note of the small silvery scar just above her eye.

"What happened?" I asked, tracing my finger over it.

She smiled, her green eyes meeting my own, "When I was little, like eight or nine, it was Thanksgiving, and my cousin and I-" she giggles quietly, already knowing what the story held, "we were in her room, playing with dolls, like Barbies or whatever, and she had like one of those Barbie cars, and one of the rear view mirrors had been ripped off so it was all jagged, and um, she got mad at me, because I took the dress she wanted, so, she threw that car at me, and the jagged piece cut me open, and although I was mad at the time, it's really quite funny now." She began to laugh again, and I couldn't help but join her, watching her eyes crinkle with joy.

"That's terrible!" I exclaimed through my laughter.

"It really is!" She shook her head.

Once our laughing died down, we were met with another silence. It had only been about a minute before, Luke and Cal busted in again, this time, not saying anything, and without warning, lifting Aspen from the bed.

"You guys suck!" She whined kicking her legs around. "Mikey fight them! I don't wanna get up!"

God she was so cute, always so full of joy, I couldn't help but hoist myself from the bed and chase them down the stairs, as Aspen dramatically reached for me, attempting to escape Calum's firm grasp.

"Aspen! You are going to hang out with us, and you are going to like it!" Luke commanded over his shoulder as he tried to detour me.

"Mikey!" She cried again as Calum made his way to the bottom of the stairs, running towards the living room.

"I swear Asp I'll save you if it's the last thing I do!" I bellowed chasing after us, barely ahead of Luke.

She was thrown onto the couch, only to have Calum to sit on her stomach keeping her from making any kind of escape.

"Ugh! Calum you're crushing me!"

"God save the queen!" I hollered, tackling Calum to the ground.

After about an hour, Ash woke up, Liz coming down a short while after dressed for a job interview, we would only be here for six month but she insisted on working, about an hour later everyone was starting to get hungry, Calum and Aspen offered to make breakfast, leaving me to battle Luke in Fifa, while Ashton watched.

"So, Aspen, she's pretty cute yeah?" Luke's words alarmed me and I hoped to God that he didn't like her too.

"Yeah, I guess." I replied, trying not to sound interested, so I could see where this was going before I was too emotionally invested, "Why?"

"No reason." He shrugged, smirking a bit.

"Do you like her or something?" I asked a little too harshly, I hadn't even meant to let to words escape my mouth.

"No, but I think you do." He smiled, turning from the game to look at me.

I rolled my eyes, not giving him an answer as we finished the match. She was something else, her mind seemed to be wired differently than any other girl I met, she was so, I don't know, she was just Aspen and that's the only word I could think to describe her as.

"Breakfast is ready!" Her sing-song voice called, simultaneously making us hope off the couch and bound into the kitchen, where she stood next to Calum, who both appeared to be wearing an egg or two.

"Have fun?" I cocked an eyebrow.

She nodded excitedly, making me almost groan at the amount of 'God-I-Want-To-Date-You' flowing through my chest.

"You guys can eat," Cal motioned to the assortment of eggs, bacon, toast, and fruit lining the counter, "I'm gonna go change, I can give you a shirt Asp so you don't look like a walking breakfast bar." He chuckled, leading a giggling Aspen out of the kitchen.

My heart burned a bit at the sight and I was alternately envious and pissed at Calum wishing I had volunteered to make breakfast with her, maybe then she would have been wearing my shirt.

I put some food on my plate before sitting down at the table.

"C'mon mate don't look so down it's just a shirt." Ashton snickered, nudging me as he took a seat.

A few minutes later the two of them tumbled back into the kitchen, Aspen wearing his stupid Santa Cruz shirt and his damn red beanie, along with the leggings she had slept in last night. After getting a plate of food she made her way over to the table, taking a seat next to me. I smiled to myself, satisfied.

***

"Do you ever think that maybe we are all connected?" She asked as we sat on the back deck, just the two of us, soaking in the sun, her admiring the bluer than blue sky and green trees and the birds, and everything, all the while I sat, admiring her.

"Like fate and stuff?"

"No, like, we are taught to be separate, taught that we need to be better than other people at their expense we are taught to believe in things like competition and survival of the fittest and if you're not winning you're losing, be on top or don't be at all, but that's not living, that's not what we were made to be, we're supposed to help each other you know, I don't know, I think about that a lot, and how there are so many wrong terrible things and we just do them because that's how we were told it's supposed to be." I kind of understood what she was saying but I couldn't tell if I was interpreting it differently than the way she was meaning for me to take it.

I nodded intrigued by her thoughts, but not sure what to say.

"I don't know, we're such a mean, hateful world, it's sad."

It was silent for a moment, until she spoke again.

"Where do you think we go when we die?"

From the time I was young I had always been taught that we went to heaven, and about God and everything, and as I grew up, and kind of grew away from religion I never really bothered to revisit the possibilities, still just assuming that was what happened, whether I truly believed in it or not.

"I'm not sure. Maybe heaven. You?"

"I don't really know either. I like the idea of reincarnation, I think it would be amazing to infinitely relive life as someone or something different. It's like an endless do over button."

I looked over at her, watching her stare up into the sky as she talked dreamily about the things she thought. I liked it, the insight to her mind and everything that was Aspen. I wasn't sure I believed much in reincarnation, but I assumed she didn't believe much in heaven either.

"I read this book the other day and there are two things that have been scientifically proven: 1.) 95% of our nerve endings send commands to the brain, which is in complete contrast to the traditional brain controls the body blah, blah, blah, essentially saying that our hearts control our bodies, and 2.) that our emotions effect all living systems around us through these weird like impulses, so like, we're all wired to be automatically empathetic towards other living things because they naturally feel what we feel, and without the brain's interruptions of our hearts calculations we could reach the ultimate state of humanity, like world peace and stuff, I think that would be really cool. Just imagine, talking to someone, and them saying exactly what you want to hear because you are understanding them in a new way so are they really saying exactly what you want to hear or are you just listening, unbiased, in absolute understanding, because you've finally connected?"

I was still staring at her, wondering how this girl, who seemed so care free and unbothered, could have such intense thoughts about how things worked. I'd like to take a look inside her brain and see what else is hiding in there.

"You're weird." I spoke, not meaning to.

"I think that's your heart talking without interruption." she laughed looking over at me "That's a good thing." She assured.