Ways to Say Love

Chapter Six

The drive home was quieter than I had expected it to be. I played more of my music, and Aspen tapped her fingers to the beat, but the silence wasn’t as comfortable as it had been before. Instead it felt almost awkward, like there were words floating around in the air that neither of us could muster up the courage to say.

“Do you still want to come over?” I wasn’t too sure that I wanted to hear her answer.

“Do you still want me to come over?” She sounded like there was a reason I wouldn’t want to be around her.

“Of course I do, and I still want us to go to the party together even though I’m not a partier, and I still want to spend time with you during the winter break.”

“But we didn’t make any plans for the winter break.” Her voice was strained when she talked, and she fiddled with the window switch.

“I know that. I was going to ask you, but my friend Reese is coming down during the break. I really want you to meet him, and I think he may even be bringing his girlfriend. Her name is Charlotte, and I think you’d like her.” Aspen and Charlotte were both very bubbly and outgoing, only I had never looked at Charlotte the way I look at Aspen.

“I don’t want to intrude on your time with your old friends; you guys should hang out together.” Aspen grew defensive about everything that I said to her, no matter what I told her.

I pulled the car over and Aspen turned from the window to look at me; her eyes were heavy. Her hands were wrapped in each other, and she was tapping her foot on the floor. The rustling on the leaves was louder than the music, and the trees looked as if they could blow away at any given second.

“Aspen, I want you to hang out with us. I like spending time with you, I like talking with you, and I like you. You would not be intruding, you would be joining us. There is a huge difference. I really want my friends to meet you.”

The air in the car was steadily growing too hot, but I couldn’t force myself to look away from Aspen. She was staring up at me with those big, doughy eyes and her hands were now on the console instead of in her lap. Her foot was no longer tapping; instead she had unbuckled her seatbelt and twisted her body to be closer to mine. I unbuckled my seatbelt too, and it felt as if there were magnets pulling us together.

I had seen the way Aspen bit her lip all the time, and I had seen the way she let her hair fall in her face when she was nervous, but it was different right now. It was closer than it was before, and she looked more beautiful than she had before. Was it possible for someone to be more beautiful within five minutes? Apparently it was.

“I just realized…I never answered your question that you had asked earlier. If I woo the girls by telling them that they have the capacity to change the world.” My heart felt like it was going to beat right out of my chest, and I was sure that Aspen could hear it. “And the answer is no, definitely no. I’ve never met a girl that I thought of the way I think of you.”

“Hey Benson,” Aspen’s voice was captivating, “just so you know…this is a moment.”

Aspen hands curved around mine as she placed my hands on her waist. Her arms slid up my arm and it felt as if my entire body was on fire. Her forehead pressed against mine, and her lips were barely an inch from my own. Her lips parted ever so slightly as she leaned in, and I closed my eyes after she did.

In an instant Aspen’s lips were pressed against mine. Her lips were soft and she tasted of strawberry-kiwi. It took us a second to figure out who turned where, but eventually we were kissing as if we had done this a million times. My fingers latched onto her shirt, pulling her closer to me. I’m not even sure it’s possible to describe it, there are no words. It’s slow and steady but also frantic and rushed, like if I don’t kiss her the world will end. And I think that may be true.

My smile broke against her lips, and suddenly I felt cold. My eyes fluttered open, and Aspen was staring right back at me. Her cheeks were a bright shade of red, and her smile was taking up almost half of her face. Knowing that I was the one making her smile like that felt surreal. I could feel my cheeks heating up in the best way possible; I swear my whole body was on fire.

“We just kissed,” her voice was barely audible; it came out as more of a breath than a word.

“Yeah,” I couldn’t contain my smile, “yeah, we just kissed. We should probably get going again since the girls will be done school soon.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea.” Only Aspen didn’t turn to buckle her seatbelt, and I didn’t put the car back in drive. Neither of us moved an inch. We both just sat there, looking at each other with big, goofy smiles on our faces. She looked beautiful. “This was way better than school.”

“Way, way better. I’m actually a little excited for the party Saturday night now.” I shocked myself when I said it.

Aspen gave me a mocking look, and she put the back of her palm up to my forehead.

“Benson, I think you’re getting ill, gravely ill actually. You just said that you were excited for a party. I hope it’s not contagious.”

Aspen stuck her tongue out at me, and I poked her in her right side. The way Aspen laughed sounded like the most beautiful orchestra playing in some big, extravagant hall. Reese had always talked to me about how nervous he was when he and Charlotte first started going out. And yeah, I definitely felt nervous. But I also felt really comfortable around Aspen. It felt like I could be myself around her, only I knew that I wasn’t. I was still lying to her about everything, and now there was something between us.

“Okay we seriously should go though.” Aspen brought me back to reality, and I pulled the car back on the road. The falling snow soon turned to falling ice, and it sounded as if someone was shooting at us with a bb gun as we drove. “Are we dating?”

I suddenly was choking on nothing at the way Aspen blurted out such a forward sentence. Obviously I had been thinking about dating Aspen since she took me to our spot, but I doubt I could ever come out and ask something like that so out of the blue.

“Do you want to be dating? Are we dating because we’re going to the party, or because we kissed? Does kissing mean dating?” Everything felt new and I worried I was too unexperienced and too unexperienced to be with Aspen.

Aspen had diamonds in her eyes, and her gaze was burning a hole right through me. It was horrible; I loved it.

“You’re adorable,” Aspen’s lips kissed my red cheeks, and I almost drove the car right into a ditch. I should never drive when Aspen is kissing my cheek. She’s distracting and laughing and smiling and again, very distracting.

“You shouldn’t do that,” I kept my eyes glued to the road and didn’t risk looking at her for a second. “If you keep doing that this car is going to end up in a pole. I know I said I’m a good driver, which I am, but when you do that you should definitely feel panicky. You’re dangerous.”

Aspen’s laugh was like a rainbow, a variety of colours. Every giggle was a brand new shade of yellow, or blue, or green. Everything was unpredictable and beautiful. I think I could listen to her laugh forever.

The rest of the drive was filled with fits of laughter, Aspen singing to the radio with perfect pitch, and me screeching the lyrics over her. I’m not sure it’s possible to sound as bad as I did. Within what felt like seconds, I was pulling the car into the car into the parking lot to pick up the girls from school.

I saw the girls were rolling around the playground in the snow in their bright pink snowsuits when we pulled the car in, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the way Maylie waddled around in her puffy snowsuit. Maylie’s hat barely fit over her big hair, and Lacey was smartly wearing earmuffs instead.

I stayed in the car and kept it running while Aspen went to the fence and picked the girls up. A young woman with dyed red hair waved goodbye to the girls, and she looked exhausted. Her hair was tied up in a messy bun, and she had a long green jacket on. She was obviously a kindergarten teacher.

Maylie and Lacey got to the car in half the time Aspen did, and they had both gotten in their car seats before Aspen even reached the car.

“You two seem jumpy,” I laughed at the way they both excitedly kicked their feet against the bottom of the car seat. “Did you have a good day at school?”

“We’re having a playdate, Aaron! Lacey is coming over!” Maylie screamed as if she just got a brand new dollhouse. “And you get a playdate too!”

“I’m not sure I’d call it a playdate, May.” I could see Aspen watching me out of the corner of my eye, and I held my breath as she leaned in to whisper in my ear.

“I think I’d call it a date-date.” The girls cooed in the back and whispered to each other, although they were both whispering horribly and Aspen and I could hear everything.

“I’ll be the flower girl at the wedding, and you get to be the one that carries around the rings!” Maylie mimed throwing flowers, and Lacey’s loud giggle filled up the entire car.

As I began to pull the car out, Aspen took my hand in hers. The girls quickly giggled at the way we interlocked fingers, but I was so focused on how soft Aspen’s hands were that I wouldn’t care if the whole world was laughing at us.

I wasn’t sure the world mattered that much compared to the way being with Aspen felt. I think it could be compared to magical.

The snow was piled high along driveways, and practically every single house now had their garbage being suffocated by piles of snow and ice. As I took a turn into the court I only saw one driveway that was shoveled. The elderly couple was outside, covered in probably five different layers, and they were both struggling to work their shovel.

“Hey girls,” I called back to Lacey and Maylie as I parked the car on the road, “how about you two play with Aspen in the snow for a little while, does that sound fun?”

The girls both nodded their heads so frantically I was sure they were going to fall right off. Aspen squeezed my hand tightly, and there was a trace of a smile hiding in her lips.

“You’re going to go help out that couple, aren’t you?” She talked as if she had known me for a million years, and it was comfortable. “You’re the greatest.”

Aspen and I crawled out of the car and helped the girls hop down from their car seats. I took a shovel from our garage as Aspen took both of the girls by their hands and lead them to play in the snow; she will make a great mother someday.

A tall man wearing a bright red toque and dark green windbreaker stood shoveling very small piles of snow to the side. There was a short lady wearing a long, fury purple coat with matching purple earmuffs and gloves holding a shovel in her hands, although she wasn’t using it. She smiled kindly at me as I trudged through the snow towards her.

“Hello dear,” her voice was brittle and soft, “you must be Aaron. I was just speaking to your father this morning; he’s such a kind man. And that bubbly little one over there is your sister I’m guessing. This is my husband, George. My name is Eliza.”

George dropped the shovel from his hand and walked over towards Eliza and me. His small glasses were dark from the sun, and he adjusted them before shaking my hands.

“Nice to meet you, kid. What can we do for you?”

“I actually came over here for help you. I saw you shoveling, and I figured that you could use some help. I brought my shovel.”

I shook the hand in my shovel a little, and Eliza held her hands up to her chest and looked at me like I was a puppy.

“Well, you are just the sweetest. George and I would love your help, wouldn’t we George? Thank you so much, dear.”

George and I began to shovel the snow again, my shovel picking up around three times what George’s shovel picked up. Instead of shoveling, Eliza hurried over to the girls and began to introduce herself. I watched the way she talked with her hands and continuously pointed back towards me when talking to Aspen.

“Is that pretty lady over there yours?” George nodded his head towards Aspen and waved to her. “Eliza and I have been together since we were just a little older than you are. She’s the love of my life, I tell you. Always has been.”

I imagined Aspen sitting outside reading her book on a rocking chair at eighty years old. I think she would be similar to how Eliza is now, very sweet.

“I think we’re together, yeah.” My sentence came out like a question as my voice rose at the end. “Did you and Eliza go to school together?”

The first half of the driveway was done within minutes, and George worked below the sidewalk as I finished the second half. I could hear laughter coming from Maylie and Lacey, and the girls were making snow angels in the snow when I looked over.

“I met my ‘Liza when I was nineteen years old. My mother and I moved into her city down in the States, and I fell in love with her the day I saw her. She was wearing a long brown skirt and had a dark grey jumper on. Her hair was in a slick bun, and she looked beautiful. I’ll say it took a while to convince her to go out with me, but ever since she said yes it’s been blissful.” George stopped smiling and just stood there staring at Eliza with a huge smile on his face. “How did you and your lady meet?”

“Oh, no. Aspen isn’t my lady. My family and I just moved here, which you know already. My sister Maylie ran over to meet the girl Aspen babysits, and then we started talking.” I could feel the corners of my lips pulling up, and I turned back to shoveling to hide the way my smile grew.

I was able to finish up the rest of the driveway fairly quickly, and I then threw my shovel in my garage. George kept trying to give me money for the shoveling, but I wouldn’t let him. I told him that I was just trying to help out and be a good neighbour, I didn’t need any money. Instead, Eliza decided she would make me cookies one day. I said yes to the cookies.

Aspen and I ushered the girls inside our house, and they tracked snow all the way up into Maylie’s bedroom. They both insisted that they keep their wet socks on, so of course I would have to mop the floor later.

“That was very sweet of you,” Aspen nudged me in the shoulder and took her jacket off, throwing it over a coat hanger. “Was George nice? What did you two talk about?”

“He met his wife when he was two years older than you and I. They’ve been together ever since then. I don’t know exactly how old they are, but that’s definitely more than fifty years together. That’s a serious long time. He still remembers how she looked the first day he saw her.” I’m not sure that I could ever forget how Aspen looked when we first met. Seeing her was like seeing the first drop of rain after a drought.

“Going to school tomorrow is going to feel so long and boring after today.” Aspen dragged her feet as she moped up the stairs, running her hand along the railing. “We should just skip the rest of the year, and do this every day.” She stopped at the top of the stairs in front of me, and looked down at me with mischief in her eyes.

“Wow, I’m a crappy influence on you.”

A small smirk crept across Aspen’s lips, and she stuck her tongue out at me as I cut past her and led the way to my bedroom.

Aspen’s eyes darted around the place, and she ran her hands around almost everything in my room. First she was sorting through the large stacks of books on my floor, then she was admiring all of my baseball bobble heads I had arranged along my dresser, and then she was sunk low in my bed staring up at my baseball posters.

“Your bedroom is very, you.” She spoke the words as if it was the most flattering compliment known to man, and with the way she said it, it almost was. “There are definitely a whole lot of books; the majority of them being classics, well done. You own bobble heads, which I pictured when I thought of how your room may look. Also, you have baseball posters. You should be having girls in bikinis, or something sexist like that. Aren’t those what most teenage guys have in their bedroom or do you keep yours hidden under the bed?”

“Ha ha,” my sarcasm was more obvious than the way I blushed, “you’re hilarious. And that is generalizing and stereotyping teenage boys. We’re actually much, much more sophisticated than you women think.

Aspen was visibly shivering, and I could see her trying to restrain her teeth from chattering.

“Are you cold?” I hopped up from my bed and opened the door of my closet. I shuffled through my sweaters and pulled out my warmest one, a worn out baseball sweater from when Reese and I went to a game last year. It was three sizes too big for Aspen, and she would definitely be swimming in the arms, but it would keep her warm.

“Thanks,” Aspen’s voice shook as she spoke and her cold fingertips brushed against mine as she took my sweatshirt from my hand. “Where’s your washroom?” I pointed the way to her, and she hopped off the couch and made her way there.

I sat on my bed fiddling with my thumbs until Aspen came back in. I kept replaying today over and over again in my mind. It was like the best broken record ever. When Aspen came back into my room, I couldn’t help but laugh. My sweater was almost down to her knees, and it looked like an oversized dress on her. She had taken off her hat and tied her hair back in a bun on top of her head. There were strands of hair sticking out, and she looked like one of those celebrities you see that manage to still look perfect when they’re sick and tired.

“This is really, really warm. There’s a very good chance I may never give this sweater back to you.” Aspen shoved her hands in the pocket and shuffled over to the bed, sitting beside me. I was hyperaware of the loose strand of hair that was tickling against the back of her neck, and of the two freckles she had just below her right eyebrow.

“Do you wear this sweater a lot?” Aspen buried her face in the collar of my sweater, and her eyes snapped shut. “It smells like you.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Was it a compliment? Did I smell bad? I could feel the temperature in my cheeks rising as I considered the possible meanings.

Aspen leaned her head against my shoulder, and she took her hands out of her pocket and instead interlocked fingers with me. Her fingers tapped the same pattern against the back of my hand, and the breathing became in sync with my own.

The sound of a car door slamming rang from outside, and Aspen pulled me up from the bed to look out the window. I saw my mother storming into the house, and she looked exhausted and angry. She kept our hands interlocked as she walked with me downstairs.

“Aaron, would you care to tell me why your school called telling me you missed to—” Mom stopped cold when she saw Aspen and I walking down the stairs, and her scowl quickly turned into a smile. “Hi Aspen, I didn’t know you were here. I’m guessing that you two were together today, right? Okay, I suppose missing one day of classes isn’t too horrible. Just don’t let it happen again, alright Aaron? Aspen sweetie, would you like a drink or anything?” Mom was so smart. I never remembered to ask if Aspen wanted a drink.

“No, I’m alright, thank you.” Aspen’s tone changed instantly when she was talking to my parents. She could speak to anyone and say the perfect thing. “I think that Lacey and I were just leaving, actually. She’s upstairs playing with Maylie, I’ll go grab her.”

Aspen dropped my hand and jogged up the stairs to where the girls were playing. Mom wouldn’t stop giving me the stink eye, so I tried to avoid looking at her at all costs until Aspen and Lacey came down.

“Hi Maylie’s mommy, I’m Lacey! Aspen says we’re leaving now, so bye!” Lacey’s high pitched voice echoed through the stairway, and she was out the door before my mother even had a chance to respond.

“I’ll see you tomorrow Benson, okay? Bye Mrs. Benson, have a good night.” Aspen walked out of my house wearing my sweater, and I wasn’t sure that I ever wanted it back. She looked way better in it than I ever could.