Aspen (10 page)

“What are we doing here?” Ben says as he lies down next to me, his arms and legs extended like mine.

“I haven’t decided yet. Maybe we should see what happens.” I take in Ben’s jeans, his black and white checkered Vans. “By the way, you look better tonight. More comfortable.”

“Someone once told me that no one in high school is comfortable,” Ben says, his eyes staring up at the sky.

“That’s genius.”

“Actually, she wasn’t that smart.” Ben’s cheeks fall slack and I know he’s talking about Katelyn.

“Do you miss her?” I ask and then roll my eyes at my stupid question. Of course he misses her. “You don’t have to answer that.”

“I do,” Ben pauses, his eyes still focused above him. “Miss her.”

“I think a lot of people miss her.”

“What makes you say that?”

“She just seems to be all anyone talks about lately.”

Ben sits up on his elbows. “What are people saying?” His voice has an edge to it I’ve never heard before. It’s not cutting—more like a parent protecting a child.

“Just that she was kind of perfect,” I qualify.

He eases back onto the cement.

We lie silently for a long while, not looking at each other. As the silence goes longer and longer, I wonder what the hell I was thinking, asking him to come with me. Now I’m stuck in the middle of the road with Katelyn’s boyfriend and the wind up my pants.

“Want to play a game?” I say.

“What’s the game?”

I sit up and cross my legs. “You have to say the first thing that pops into your head.”

“That’s not a game.”

“Yes it is. The definition of ‘game’ is an amusing activity. This is an
activity
.”

“How do you know the definition?”

“They’re my specialty.” I wave my hand through the air. “But whatever, are you in or out?”

Ben sits up in the road, crossing his legs underneath him. “This might be embarrassing.”

“Even better.” I resituate myself on the ground, finding a more comfortable position. “Okay, favorite band.” Ben takes a few seconds, his eyes searching the space around us for the answer. “You’re taking too long,” I snap.

“Okay, okay. Vampire Weekend.”

“Favorite color.”

“Purple.”

“Purple? You’re right. You should be embarrassed.”

“What? Boys can like purple. We’re supposed to be honest, right? And you’re wearing Jesus sandals.” Ben points at my one Birkenstock-covered foot.

“Fine. Favorite food?”

“Tacos.”

“Favorite song?”

“Anything by Vampire Weekend.”

“That’s cheating but I’ll let it slide. Favorite sport?”

“Soccer.” Ben smiles. The air seems to lighten around us as we talk. “This is kind of fun.”

“Sweet or salty?” I ask.

“Salty.”

“Swim or ski?”

“Swim.”

“Movies or video games?”

“Movies.”

“Boxers or briefs?”

“Boxers.”

“Worst thing that happened to you today?”

“I remembered that Katelyn’s dead.” Ben stares at me as the words fall out of his mouth. Neither of us can move. “I’m sorry, Aspen. That just slipped out.”

I swallow hard. “That’s the point,” I say. “You can’t help but be honest. Ninny got me to tell her about my first kiss this way.”

“Ninny?”

“My mom.”

Ben pauses, picking up a loose piece of gravel and tossing it into the air. “I keep waiting for it to get better. I know it’s probably wrong, but I kind of want to forget about everything that happened, so I don’t have to feel so shitty all the time. You know what I mean?”

“I do. I know what you mean,” I whisper.

“Can I tell you something else?”

I nod at Ben. I swear at this moment I’d do anything to take the pain in his eyes away.

“I know I don’t really know you, but this is the best I’ve felt in weeks,” he says. “That’s pretty fucked up, isn’t it? Considering . . . ”

I lie back down on the ground and stare up at the speckled night sky. “Isn’t it weird that it takes millions of years for the light of a star to actually travel to Earth? So the ones we see right now may have already burned out,” I say.

“It is weird.” Ben lies back down next to me. When I turn my head away from the sky, his eyes are on me. “Did something happen to you at the party?” he asks.

“No.” I lie too easily.

And then, for too many seconds in this unexpected and unintentional moment we stare at each other.

When Ben finally opens his mouth to say something, he gets cut off by one word.

“OLIVES!” Cass comes screaming out of the house, a line of burly guys following him. “I HATE OLIVES!”

“I’m going to kill you, pizza boy!” one of the guys yells.

“She wanted it!” Cass yells over his shoulder. “I can’t help that the bottle landed on me! Her tongue went down my throat!”

“Shut the fuck up and run, Casanova!” Kim screams, following close behind Cass.

“Shit,” I get up off the ground. “Were you gonna say something?”

Ben shakes his head. “No.”

“Thanks for not letting me lie in the street alone.” I take off down the road, hobbling on my one good foot. When I glance back, Ben has his knees pulled up to his chest, and he’s resting his chin on them.

In the moment before I turn away, I swear he smiles.

I’m lying in bed when my phone flickers brightly on top of the dictionary on my desk. I get up and pick it up, checking the screen.

It’s not the right phone.

“I threw you away,” I say, dropping it to the ground. But the light keeps getting brighter and brighter. I scramble back against the wall and bump into something. Turning, I see Katelyn, her bright blue eyes alive, her skin clear and beautiful.

“I’m sorry,” I say to her. “It was an accident.”

Katelyn says nothing. Instead, she turns to the blank wall. All my sketches are gone. The Grove is dead. Katelyn raises her hand and writes the word “liar.” It drips down to the carpet, like paint. Or blood.

That’s when I open my mouth and scream.

I hear the piercing shriek in my dream before I realize it’s not a dream. It’s me in my bed, yelling like a baby. I sit up quickly, and grab my throat just to make sure it’s actually coming from me. The moonlight streaming in my window catches the faint outline of a girl wearing a soccer uniform, crouched in the corner of the room, her long brown hair hanging straight over her shoulders. I clamp my hands over my mouth, as Ninny bursts in the door. She flicks on the light and Katelyn disappears.

“What is it, Aspen-tree?” Ninny’s wearing nothing but Toaster’s beat up University of Colorado T-shirt. He runs in behind her in tighty whities, and I cringe.

“It’s nothing,” I say, wiping sweat from my forehead.

“Honey.”

“Just a bad dream, Mom.” I try to get my breath under control and snuggle back down into my sweat-soaked sheets.

“Are you sure?” Ninny’s brow is pinched, her eyes scanning my face. I nod and force a smile. The hardest smile I’ve ever had to give someone. Worse than when she walked into the hospital that night, carrying the daisies, and apologized for being late.

Ninny kisses my cheek. “Do you want me to check for the boogeyman under your bed?”

Shivers cover my skin as I search for Katelyn, but I keep cool, making my voice even. I answer her the same way she used to answer me when I was little and asked her that question. “If a man’s gonna be in someone’s bed, it better be mine,” I say.

Ninny laughs. “Remember, dreams can’t hurt you, baby,” she says and shuts the door.

“I know,” I say, even though I know that the small things are sometimes the deadliest.

The week after the party, my cast finally comes off. My calf is half the size it used to be, and so dry I think I might have leg dandruff for the rest of my life.

“Let’s makes a deal,” the doctor says. “I never want to see you again.” He hands me the orange Sharpie I stuffed down the cast to itch my leg.

My eyes bug out of my head, shocked at his words because his voice is so flat and doctor-ish that he sounds serious. Then he half smiles and it dawns on me that he’s making a joke. A really bad doctor joke.

“I’ll watch out for accidents,” I say, even though you can’t watch out for accidents because they’re unexpected.

After my dream, sleep becomes scarce. The boogeyman Ninny used to stare away seems to be tucked tightly in the corner of my room. But staying awake helps. Most nights, I draw until my hands and eyes get so tired, I’m forced to sleep. I even picked up a tube of cover-up. Every morning, I dab a cream colored blob of concealer over the blue shadows collecting under my eyes. The bags disappear in seconds.

My hands start to go numb at random times, too, like when I’m in the car or when Olivia and I exchange glances in the halls. She never smiles at me. Her cheeks will go from perky to deflated with one look in my direction. Her shoulders even slump, and I’ll want to throw up because she’s so sad. Usually when that happens, I focus on a crack in the wall or hum a song that I heard on the radio until the feeling returns to my hands.

Walking helps, too. I’ve started wandering my neighborhood at night, which I know may not be the safest decision, but it’s safer than my bedroom and safer than sleep. I just walk and stare at the stars. For the first time in my life, I’m glad Ninny has a date with dope every night that puts her into a sleeping coma. It’s that or she’s sleeping at Toaster’s, which makes leaving the house even easier. I even walk to school some days. I figure a little bit of exercise can’t hurt.

Some nights, I’ll feel Katelyn behind me, like a shadow creeping closer and closer. When that happens, I pick up the pace to a jog. I usually end up running full speed until I can’t breathe any more and I have to hunch over, my sides splitting from cramps.

One afternoon, I catch her sitting at a table in Shakedown Street. It scares me so badly I drop the shake I’m making. When I go to clean up the glass on the floor, I don’t notice it’s chipped. It slices my hand.

The shake mixes with my blood and I mutter, “I think I’m bleeding a rainbow.”

Ninny freaks when she sees the colorful mess, screaming at me, “What happened? What happened?” over and over. But I can’t say I just saw a dead person, so I just stand there.

She carts me down to the urgent care clinic. The glass only sliced my hand a little. It just looked like a lot of blood because of the liquid from the shake. The nurse puts one of those butterfly bandages on my hand.

“I hope I never see you again,” I say as we leave. By the look on her face, she doesn’t get the joke. “I guess it’s a doctor thing.”

By the time Ninny and I make it home, my head is swimming so badly, I go up to my room and stuff my head under my pillow until the pounding subsides.

When I go to see Dr. Brenda the next day, she asks what happened to my hand.

“I broke a glass.”

“How?”

I stumble over my words, and for a moment I debate telling her. I stare into Dr. Brenda’s brown eyes, as she leans forward, barely blinking.

“I saw something.”

“You saw something?” Dr. Brenda makes a note in her notebook. It’s a new addition to our sessions, always there on her lap, ready to collect the things I say. Like she’s a detective searching for clues and one day she’ll be able to piece together what happened that night based on the little things I say.

“Never mind.” I sit back in my seat and stare at the deer head hanging over the door.