Ways to Say Love

Chapter Eleven

“Aaron! You are seventeen years old! You cannot be having girls sleepover. That is completely inappropriate, and not to mention setting a horrible example for your sister.” I was actually pretty surprised that Mom had gotten mad when Maylie said something; normally I was used to a stern look and a don’t do that again, mister! It was sort of refreshing to be in trouble. Of course, Mom didn’t ground me or anything, but normally I don’t even get yelled at.

Mom had said that she was taking a day off from visiting Grandpa, which I thought was a really good idea. She deserved more than just a little break. But, her being home meant that she was around to hear Maylie talk about Aspen.

Mom told me that Dad and Maylie were going out for a road trip and she was just going to stay home, which I didn’t understand. Mom had always loved road trips, and when I tried to question her she gave me a look that told me I should shut my mouth.

Dad and May left before noon, and the house was left to Mom and me. As I was making her a cup of coffee the doorbell rang, and Mom smiled up at me telling me to go get it.

I flung open my door, and there stood a guy in black jeans with a dark blue t shirt on and a leather jacket. His light blonde hair swooped to the side, and he pushed his wide rimmed glasses up the crook of his nose. His arm was around a short girl with strawberry hair, and big red lips. She was wearing a red, polka-dot top with black tights, and flashed me a big smile.

“Reese,” I grabbed his wrist and pulled him in for a quick hug, “I didn’t expect you to be down this early. Oh my god, and Charlotte!”

Charlotte pulled me in and gave me a big bear hug. “Hi Aaron, how are you? We all miss you down in Niagara.”

Reese pointed to Charlotte and gave me a small smirk. “Her more than me, though. I’m doing just fine.”

“Oh yes, how could I forget? You and your fragile manliness don’t miss anyone, do you?” Charlotte and Reese were always teasing each other; they had been good friends long before either of them got hormonal.

“Hi there Jackie,” Reese walked up to my mom and gave her a big hug. Mom looked exactly ecstatic to see Reese, and I clued in that she had known that she had known him and Charlotte were coming over.

Mom gave Charlotte a big hug, and invited her and Reese to come in for a cup of coffee.

“Actually Jackie, if you don’t mind, Charlotte and I were hoping to take Aaron out and catch up. Maybe later tonight we could stop by and play a board game, just like old times?” Reese had practically been a part of the family back in Niagara, and we used to always play family board games together.

I showed Charlotte and Reese my bedroom, where they sat and looked around as I got dressed into some new clothes. There was so much that I wanted to tell them, and I was so excited to have them back for a week.

Reese shot Charlotte a mischievous smile as I walked back in the room. “Hey Aaron, how about you take a look out front.”

Once it all clicked, I ran downstairs and bolted out the door. There in my driveway, stood my big, brown, beautiful truck. I had completely forgotten about it until Reese said something. Charlotte and Reese walked out behind me, and I grabbed the jingling keys out from Reese’s hand.

The car roared to life as I turned the key in the ignition, and I wrapped my fingers around the steering wheel. “I forgot how good it feels to drive this baby.”

Reese and Charlotte climbed into the backseat, both of them laughing at me. I pulled the car out of the driveway and did two laps around the court before speeding off into the street. I wasn’t even sure where we were going, I just wanted to drive.

“How have you been getting around then, Aaron? You certainly haven’t been walking everywhere.” With the way Reese spoke, I was almost certain that Mom had told Reese about Aspen driving me to school.

“Actually, my girlfriend has been driving me to school.” I tried to keep my voice casual. “Her name is Aspen, and she babysits in my court.”

“Ha! I knew she was your girlfriend!” Reese slapped the back of my headrest and I saw him punch his fist into the air. “Have you slept with her?”

“Oh my god,” Charlotte slapped Reese’s arm, something that I would have done if I wasn’t driving. “Reese, don’t be such a pig.”

“We’re not sleeping together,” I spoke to break up their mini-fight in my backseat. “I mean, we’ve slept together, but we haven’t had s*x. We accidentally fell asleep, that’s all.”

I drove the car past my school to show Reese and Charlotte; they both said it was really small, and I agreed with them. But I think I like it smaller now, there’s more of a community. Reese insisted on seeing where Aspen lived, so I drove by her house quickly. Her parents’ cars were both gone, maybe they never saw that she didn’t make it home in time. I considered driving by Aspen’s and my spot, but then I decided that should be something that stays between just us.

We drove by random stores, schools, and parks for couple hours. Reese told me about how Niagara’s baseball team is just starting tryouts, and how the basketball team lost at the championships. I missed feeling anxious about baseball tryouts, and having a basketball game to go to every week even though we knew our team would lose. Charlotte told me about how Reese has been in a bad mood at lunch since I left, and I couldn’t tell if she was joking or telling the truth. Either way, it was nice to know that I was missed.

Soon it was close to dinner, and we were all starving. I suggested that we go for burgers farther down in town, and Reese and Charlotte thought that was a great idea.

“You should bring Aspen,” Charlotte poked my shoulder from the backseat. “Reese and I want to meet her. You had already known me when I started dating Reese, so now it’s our turn to meet the girlfriend.”

Reese hit the back of my headrest, and he obviously agreed with Charlotte. If anything, I would have expected Reese to be the one insisting that Aspen comes with us.

Letting out a sigh, I pulled the car around and began to drive towards Aspen’s house. Luckily we weren’t very far away from her house and we were able to get there within half an hour. When I pulled the truck in the driveway, there was only Aspen’s car. I told Reese and Charlotte to stay in the truck while I went to her front door, but Reese insisted on coming up with me.

We walked up her icy porch and I knocked on the door three times. There was no answer for a little, and we were just about to leave when the door opened up. Aspen stood there with her hair in a bun, wearing ripped blue jeans and a yellow knit sweater. There was a book in her hand, and she had a pair of glasses on.

“You must be Aspen,” Reese began talking before I even had the chance. “My name is Reese, I’m sure that you’ve heard plenty of stories about me. Anyways, my lovely girlfriend and this moron over here are going to get burgers. If you don’t join us I’m going to assume that Aaron lied about having a girlfriend just to seem as cool as me, so you should probably come.” Before Aspen responded, Reese flashed Aspen a toothy smile and strutted back to the car.

“Hi,” Aspen laughed.

“Hi,” I smiled back at her sheepishly. “That’s Reese, my best friend. His girlfriend Charlotte is in the truck. That’s my truck.”

“Yeah, I got that.” There was a look of amusement on Aspen’s face, and I couldn’t get over the way she looked in glasses.

“If you’re busy you don’t have to come with us. I’d like you to, but you don’t have to. Reese was just trying to be funny, he didn’t mean it. Sorry if that was weird, they just really wanted to meet you and I wanted you to meet them. You look really nice today, by the way. I mean, I’ve already seen you today but now you’ve changed outfits.” I forced myself to shut up once I realized that I was rambling too much.

Aspen reached behind the door and grabbed a dark green trench coat. “I’d love to come, Benson. And I like the truck.”

I reached behind Aspen and shut the door behind her. She stood up on her tiptoes and gave me a quick peck. I wasn’t used to kissing her yet, I wasn’t sure I would ever be, so it took me a second to collect myself before we walked to the car. I walked around and opened the front passenger seat door for her before walking around and crawling into the driver’s seat.

“Are you Aspen? I’m Charlotte, and can I just say you’re gorgeous!” I never understood why girls always felt the need to tell others how pretty they were. Obviously Aspen was gorgeous.

“Thank you, so are you! And I love your shirt, it’s so cute.” The girls began complimenting each other’s outfits and talking about where they got each piece from. I hadn’t seen Aspen have girl-talk before; it had always been me and Jay.

The drive to the burger joint was filled with Charlotte and Aspen gushing over girl stuff while Reese and I sat absolutely clueless. Half of the things that they said seemed absolutely foreign to me. I felt a sense of relief when I pulled the car into the parking lot; maybe there would be a new topic that I actually understood.

A tall girl with long, dark red hair showed us to a booth. Reese and Charlotte slid into one end, with Aspen and I across from them. Aspen slid her hand into mine underneath the table, and her thumb and pinky finger took turns tapping against my palm.

“So, Aspen, I hear that you’ve corrupted our Aaron and his learning?” Reese didn’t even bother to look at his menu, unlike the rest of us; he just instantly began interrogating Aspen.

“Actually, Benson was the one who came up with the idea. I was planning to go to school that day, but he decided that he wanted to go off somewhere.” Aspen nudged her shoulder against mine and gave me an amused smile.

“What did you call him?” Reese looked from me to Aspen, and he seemed genuinely curious instead of teasing.

“Oh, I call him by his last name. I don’t know why I do that actually, I should probably stop.”

“No,” I said probably a little too quickly, “no, I like it.”

“Why don’t I get a pet name?” Charlotte gave Reese the kind of look that could make any man frightened, but then her face broke into a smile and I realized she was joking. I was never good on picking up when Charlotte was joking; she’s way too good at acting.

“Sorry peaches,” Reese shot Charlotte a smirk, and I figured that Charlotte was going to regret asking for a pet name by the end of the night.

The hostess came back with a pad of paper, and was now serving us as our waitress. Charlotte and Aspen both ordered the same thing: a burger with nothing but ketchup. Reese ordered a burger with pickles and tomatoes, and a side of fries. I was absolutely starving, so I ordered their everything-burger with a side of curly fries. I figured that Aspen would end up picking at my fries throughout dinner.

It took almost half an hour for our food to be ready, so it gave us some more time to talk. The entire conversation was basically Reese and Charlotte wanting to know more about Aspen and our relationship. They asked questions about how we met, if Aspen had met my family, and if she was as big as a bookworm as I was. When the party came up in conversation, Charlotte and Reese were both obviously shocked.

“Please tell me that you are joking,” Reese gaped, “I have tried to get Aaron to go to so many parties, and he said no to every single one. Are you telling me that all I had to do was get him a girlfriend and we could have been out partying?”

“I got a lot of good books read while you were out drinking booze and losing at beer pong, there’s no way I would’ve given that up.” Reese shot me a look at my answer, and I c****d my head at him.

I could smell the food before it even got to the table, and it wasn’t in front of us for thirty seconds before I dove into my burger. The burger was so large that I had to press down on the bun in order for it to actually fit in my mouth. Even before Aspen had taken a bite out of her burger, she took one of the curly fries from my plate and popped it into her mouth.

Aspen and Charlotte both took double the amount of time to eat than Reese and I did. Reese got off with all of his fries to himself, but I lost practically half of mine to Aspen. She was stealing some of my fries every minute, but I didn’t mind. My burger was so big, even I wouldn’t have been able to finish everything on my own.

None of us were interested in anything but a burger, so soon we were on our way. Reese insisted on covering everyone’s bill, even though we all tried to pay for ourselves. He said that it was his long overdue going away gift, and wouldn’t let anyone argue with him.

“Do you want to come over, Aspen?” I began to drive back to my place, instead of turning the corner towards Aspen’s house.

“Yeah that works.” Aspen smiled back at me, and I saw Reese punch the air with his fist again.

We were back at my house quickly, with Reese’s crappy jokes filling the silence, and as I pulled into the driveway I noticed that all of the lights in my house had been shut off. I felt a weird feeling in my lower stomach, like I knew that something wasn’t right. Dad and Maylie wouldn’t be back for another two hours, but Mom was still supposed to be home.

Everyone climbed out of my truck and I pulled my key out of my pocket, unlocking the car door. My house was silent and dark, and I stumbled over the light switch.

“Holy s**t,” Reese’s voice was nasally as he plugged his nose, “dude, what is that smell? Did your mom spill perfume or something?”

I inhaled deeply, and suddenly everything stopped. There was a pit in my stomach, and it felt like every organ in my body dropped to the floor. I knew the smell all too well, and it was something I never thought I would have to smell again.

“Reese, take Aspen home. I need you all to leave.” I dropped my gaze to the floor, and handed Reese my keys. I couldn’t make eye contact with them, and I wasn’t very trusting of my own voice right now.

None of them moved an inch. I could feel all of them staring at me, and I could only imagine how confused they all were.

“Aaron, what’s wrong?” Aspen’s hand pressed on my shoulder, and I took a step forward to get away from her. I didn’t want to talk to her, and I didn’t want to be around her. What the f**k was their issue? I told them to leave. They needed to leave. I couldn’t have any of them around me anymore.

“I told you to get out!” I screamed at them as loud as I could. My voice broke when I yelled, and I needed to blink to hide the water in my eyes.

I could hear shuffling behind me, and then the door shut. I allowed myself to turn around, and they had gone. I slowly began to walk towards the living room, where the smell slowly began getting stronger. It was sour mixed with raspberry, and it was the strongest smell in the world. It was what I smelt every day when I was younger, my mother’s favourite vodka.

It took me a second to force myself to look at the couch; I wasn’t sure that I could handle what I thought I was about to see. After a minute, I poked my head around the corner to look at the couch. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to scream or cry more, maybe both.

Mom was lying on the couch, passed out, with her hair tangled up in knots. There was an empty glass in her hand, and a big bottle of vodka on the table beside her. A memory of my dream crept into my mind; I had been no help with Mom, and had instead been making things worse for her. She had been sober for over five years, and it was gone now.

I didn’t know what to do. I was frozen, and wasn’t convinced that I wouldn’t throw up. I couldn’t just call Dad, because Maylie couldn’t know about this. I tried waking Mom up, but she was knocked out cold. My hands felt clammy and I felt dizzy.

There was a noise coming from the door, and for a split second I thought that it was Reese coming back.

“Hello? Aaron, are you home?” A sense of relief flooded through my veins as Dad’s voice rang throughout the hallway, and I raced to the front door.

“Dad,” my voice was frantic and panicky, “take Maylie over to Lacey’s house, quickly.” Dad could obviously sense what was going on; he could probably smell it too.

Maylie was asleep in his arms, and I watched as he quickly ran over to Lacey’s house. He was there for merely seconds dropping her off before he raced back here. I had never seen Dad run like that before, and I never wanted to see him run like that again. He had more worries in his eyes than I did.

Dad rushed right past me into the kitchen, not saying a word, and he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. He reached into his pocket and passed me his phone. “Call your mother’s sponsor please, Aaron. It should be the very first contact.”

I searched through Dad’s contacts and called Mom’s sponsor. Her unfamiliar voice was calm as she picked up the phone, and I knew mine was completely opposite. I really liked Mom’s old sponsor, but she had to get a new one when we moved and I hadn’t met this lady yet. I explained to her about what I walked in to, and she let out a long sigh which worried me more. She told me that she was on her way to our house, and for us to not panic.

When I walked back to Dad, he had somehow woken up Mom and was giving her some water. She was crying and he was rubbing her back. I couldn’t even look at Mom. I just walked away and stormed up to my bedroom.

I felt like such a s**t son. While Mom was sitting alone struggling for days, I was going out on dates with Aspen and going to parties I didn’t even care about. I was supposed to be around and help Mom, but I never was. Back in Niagara I had always been there for Mom to talk to, and now I had left her alone.

There was a buzzing coming from my pocket, and I pulled out my phone revealing over twenty of messages. Charlotte had only sent me four but Reese and Aspen sent me plenty, especially Reese. My stomach twisted in knots at the thought of Aspen finding out about my mom, but it seemed inevitable now. I couldn’t handle all of them messaging me, so I shut off my phone and threw it at the wall. It landed with a bang, and I didn’t even care if it was a phone. A phone seemed so stupid right now; being in a relationship seemed stupid now.

Nothing was making sense to me right now. Mom had been drinking because she didn’t have Dad or me around for her. Maybe if I hadn’t of been running around with Aspen every day I actually could have been around for her. I had to end all of it, and I knew that. I was already a s**t son, and staying with Aspen when my mom needed me only would have made me that much worse.

It was impossible for me to function right now. Everything was a mess of insulting me and guilt and pity for my mother, pity for me. The same amount of pity I was scared Aspen would feel for me, I was now feeling double for myself. I yanked off my shirt and chucked it across my room, knocking down one of my baseball bobble heads; I didn’t even give a s**t if they were broken.

There was a feeling of fire running through my entire body, and I had never felt so angry in my life. A big piece of me was angry at myself, but I was also angry at my mother. We had asked her to talk to us, or talk to her sponsor, but she obviously never did.

The sound of a car door slamming sounded outside of my window, and I slammed my door shut as I heard my mom’s sponsor come in. I flipped off my lights, and crawled into my bed just lying there. I wasn’t tired, but I wasn’t awake. I wanted to sleep, but my brain had different plans.

All that I could think of was the image of Mom crying on the couch; the way her hair was a mess and she couldn’t get any words out. Dad was looking at her with the saddest look I had ever seen.

Soon, I was more exhausted than I was tired. The image of my mom left my head voluntarily, and I let my eyes fall close. I wasn’t worried about having to break up with Aspen, which I never I needed to do, or if Maylie was asleep or if Mom was asleep. All I focused on was my breathing and keeping myself from reliving all of this in my dreams.