by Gabrielle G.
That brings me to the second thing I learned.
Aaron can appease my anxiety.
After the church incident, I thought it was a one-time deal. But last night when I started to lose control and the anxiety took over, Aaron’s kiss melted away my angst. Nobody has ever been able to calm me down, even my son, but in one touch, or in one kiss, Aaron could. It’s unsettling, and my teenage heart is hopeful when my adult heart knows better than to trust my ex.
With that in mind, there is indeed room for more than only one night together. There is still something going on between us. Not because of the sex, I am the first one to know you can have fantastic sex with people you don't feel anything toward, but because of how I feel when he’s close by.
The last thing I learned was that Aaron doesn’t like to be ignored.
Nobody does, but I didn’t think he cared until Luke and Dex laid it out for me to see. When they left after a lovely evening, and I asked to talk to the chef, that’s what I wanted to do, talk. The plan changed, as every one of my plans had always done where Aaron is concerned. Seeing him angry with me, his face in a scowl and his fiery eyes got my panties burning, and I just decided to go for it, consequences be damned. I was sixteen again, wanting to fuck my boyfriend, and I could finally have him if he wanted to. Oh, boy, did he want to.
As I recall every little bit of last night, Patricia strolls into my classroom with the determination of a woman on a mission.
“You seem different, is everything alright?” She pries not so subtly.
“Mm- hmm” I pretend to be correcting a paper on my desk as to not engage with her.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay with me seeing Aaron.”
Here is the thing about Aar, he’s not a cheater, so I do know that after what happened last night, he’s not seeing Patricia, he’s not even thinking of her. She is obviously fishing and wanting to be with him.
“I was with Barnabas that night. I hope it’s okay with you, he told me you two have a history.” I give her my most beautiful syrupy smile and try hard not to imitate the bark of a seal.
“Kids these days, he has to blab it to everyone. Do you think Aaron knows?”
“Oh, he does. Barnabas is not shy about oversharing, never was.” I want her to realize that Aaron will never go for Barnabas’ sloppy seconds.
“Shit, I thought I had a chance this time around.” I can’t hold my laugh at the thought of her believing she has a shot with Aar.
“Well, sorry to disappoint,” I simply say. Patricia narrows her eyes on me deciding whether she wants to push the issue. It seems to me she’s jealous, but when was she not?
“Don’t get your hopes up, Al. Why would it be different from the first time around? Aaron didn’t change that much.” I don’t have time to respond when she turns around and leaves angry. I don’t even know what happened, and I don’t care. Maybe what we did is written on my face?
“Do you never learn from past mistakes?” Luke appears at my door. Is today an open house in my class and I wasn’t notified? Sure seems like it. For all I know, Mrs. Gritt will be next, coffee in hand, telling me she waited long enough for me to come say hi.
“What do you mean, Luke?”
“You shouldn’t trust her.” He sits in the exact same seat he would have sat in class. Fourth row, next to the door. His tall frame and tattooed arms barely fit in the chair, and I can scarcely see the scrawny teenager I used to know.
“Seeing how your face is as blank as the mind of Salomé’s ex-boyfriend, you haven’t talked to Aaron.” His voice is amused, and he clearly knows what happened between us already. I don’t think Aaron told him, but I do believe Luke always knew where we were at and what we were up to. He has a sixth sense when it comes to his brother and me.
“You two always did everything backwards, Captain. One piece of advice, ask him what happened, why he dumped you. I didn’t talk to him for two years until I learned the truth. All I can say is, it wasn’t his choice.” Yeah right. Poor Aaron was forced to break up with me.
“He found someone extremely fast for a guy who was heartbroken.” I snarl, reminding Luke that not even two months after dumping me, Aaron was with someone else and happy to be. How do I know? I saw him with my own eyes, and then my parents confirmed it over the phone. It was the last time we spoke about the Gritts. I asked them never to share anything about him ever again.
“True, but he was just trying to push away the loneliness. Plus Jess had a magic pussy, but their relationship was doomed from the beginning.”
“Why?”
“Because she wasn’t you,” he merely says, his eyes full of mischief. If someone knows how to push me to his brother, it’s Luke. Without saying a word, I reach for my phone and compose a text to Aaron. I know Luke finds it amusing and is proud of his accomplishment. I would slap the bastard if he weren’t out of reach.
Me: Hey. Can we talk?
He could say no. Luke has piqued my curiosity now, and I need an explanation, but maybe Aaron doesn’t want to give me one. He said he wanted to know what I had been up to, not relive the past.
“He’s going to say yes, Captain” Luke is standing up, walking next to me. “Also, my dear boyfriend had a message for you. It’s cryptic like Dex is, but it seems you should give him a call. He said you should know secrets don’t keep. Whatever he means.” I freeze.
What does Dex know about my past? Did he look me up? Will he say something to Aaron before I do? Luke kisses my forehead and walks away, leaving me with my doubts and fears. My phone chimes, and I feel somewhat relieved seeing Aaron’s name on my screen, even if I know we need to dig up some skeletons for us to go forward.
Aaron: Ok… Working tonight but I’m free now. If you’re done at the school, I can pick you up.
Me: I’ll wait out front.
As I wait for him in front of the school, I get edgy. The last time I was nervous about meeting Aaron was when I was fifteen. I feel ridiculous in my skinny blue jeans and a shapeless white sweater. If I had known I was going to see him today, I would have made an effort. My leather messenger bag is thrown over my shoulder, and my enormous scarf covers my neck, my three-inch low-cut boots being the only fashionable accessory of my outfit.
A nice SUV pulls up to the curb, and the passenger window rolls down.
Aaron appears before me, nodding and shooting a short wave like he did in high school. He has his aviator glasses on, but I know the livid-blue sweater he’s wearing matches the color of his eyes, and I imagine how it will make them pop.
Just seeing him, my heart starts galloping, and I tighten my grip on my bag to be able to walk.
But when I come closer, Aaron tilts his head while pushing his sunglasses down his nose, greeting me with a wink and a subtle, “Hey, Sweets.”
My knees buckle, and my body heats up like never before. Shit, he’s sexy. Sliding into the passenger seat, I’m fifteen again.
The car smells like the man he has become. The smell of melting ice and sweat is gone, but the musk of his aftershave sustains.
He kisses me on the cheek and puts the car in drive. I try not to get distracted by the arm porn in front of me. His sleeve is rolled three quarters up his arm, and it takes all my willpower not to slide my hand in his on the armrest between us like I used to. It’s depressing how I can revert back to how it was, so easily with him.
“Want to go skating?” His smile is genuine and if only he knew his words just ripped my heart out, I know he would never have asked.
“Well, um no.” He looks at me briefly, confused, before turning his eyes back on the road.
“Alane Smith doesn’t want to go skating?”
“Nope,” I shiver by the cold feeling invading me. That’s the first sign it’s happening.
“Come on, Sweets, for old time’s sake?” he insists. That’s all I need to go spiraling into anxiety. My chest tightens, my heart palpitates under the stress, my limbs tingle, and my brain starts to get foggy. I try to breathe, to
calm down by reciting my mantras, but I’m too far gone. The car stops and I jump out, dying for fresh air. Aaron is embracing me in seconds, and his touch feels magical, but I’m still shaking.
“I’m going to kiss you now, because I know it calms you down. It’s simply therapeutic.” His eyes are filled with humor, but I can’t laugh. His hand traces my jaw, and he crashes his lips onto mine, giving me small pecks at first until he feels me relaxing a little and requests entrance to my mouth. His hand massages my neck, while his tongue erases all my worries. I feel the anxiety leaving me, and while I have no idea why he has so much power over me, I’m glad he found a way to calm me down, even if it means kissing him more than I intended to. He breaks the kiss, and his eyes look deep into my soul.
“What the fuck happened to you, Al?” I sigh. If I have to tell him what happened, it's certainly not going to be on the side of the road, leaning against his SUV. I climb back in his car and wait for him to drive again.
“Where to?”
“Do you just want to drive around and talk?” He nods at my proposition.
“Can I ask why you didn’t want to skate?” He takes my hand in his to calm me before my anxiety even starts, and it works.
“I haven’t skated in forever. In fact, since we were together.” He brakes abruptly and looks at me.
“What happened to hockey prep school and your career?”
“I never went. I went to Arizona to live with my aunt.” From all the emotions I’ve imagined Aaron would be feeling the day I’d tell him I never followed my dream; sadness wasn’t what I was expecting. Tears fill his eyes, and he mumbles to himself something about how he sacrificed us for nothing in the end.
“What do you mean you sacrificed us?” I have a bad feeling about this. Between what Luke told me about knowing the truth and Aaron’s comment, I’m sure now I don’t have all the pieces of how our story ended.
“This is not the place to discuss what happened. I’m not doing this in my car. Why don’t you come to my place? I’ll cook for you tonight and explain it all.”
“Didn’t you have to work tonight?” He shrugs.
“I think clearing up our past is more important. I’ll give instructions to my sous-chef.” His voice is stern and resigned as if our lives had brought us to this moment of truth.
“Okay,” I whisper, afraid of what I’m going to learn, how I will react, and wondering if I should also open up about my past.
“Drop me off at the school, I’ll follow you in my car,” I tell him, so I have time to organize my thoughts and make a decision on what I will share with him tonight.
As Dex said, secrets don’t keep, but that’s not a reason for you to have to blurt them out before you’re ready to do so.
19
Then - Aaron
Pastor Smith is not the small, ugly, bald man I wish he were.
He looks charming and can convince everybody in his congregation that what he says is evangelical. So, of course, he convinced my parents I didn’t understand what he meant when he wanted me to stay away from Alane, and he was, in fact, happy his daughter had found such a respectful boyfriend. I’m so respectful that he wants to have a talk with me. That’s why I’m sitting once more in his office, waiting for him to deliver another lecture.
“Aaron, I hope you can understand my disappointment when I heard you were having sex with Alane. I thought I had been clear.” Fidgeting on my chair won’t help my cause so even if I feel like fire is burning my ass, I stay still and stoic.
“Father Smith, we did not have sex.” But he doesn’t hear me.
“You compromised my daughter, Boy, and now you’re lying. I’m not stupid, and believe me when I say, I know. I. Know. Patricia came directly to me and told me what Alane had confided in her. You really don’t leave me any choice. Do you?” Of course, Patricia betrayed Alane. She certainly thinks that by removing her from the equation she can get in my pants. She’s tried for the last three months, propositioning me every damn day.
“Father Smith, I promise Alane and I did not have sex. Patricia is jealous of your daughter and is spreading rumors to get her in trouble” I’m on the defensive. After all, I tried hard to resist Alane, and if the results are the same as if I had fucked her, then maybe I should have done it.
“Boy, boy, boy,” he says shaking his head as if I had disappointed him. “We had a deal and it’s time to call it quits. You can’t jeopardize her future. It’s easy now, either you go to Seattle, or she leaves for Arizona. You have no other choice.”
“But we have a future together!” He scoffs at my words.
“What future? Hers is to pursue her dream because I won’t pay a penny if she doesn’t do what I want. Do you really believe I’ll let her go to Washington State with you? Do you think I will let my daughter out of my sight so she can fornicate with her boyfriend and live without adult supervision? Are you that naive or totally stupid, Aaron?”
I can see all the disgust he feels towards me perspiring from his skin.
He’s spitting his words.
“Your whole family is perverted. I’m not surprised you follow in their footsteps. Now, you break up today, or she leaves tomorrow. I want you to go see her, and I want her heartbroken by tonight. I checked with the principal, and as you were a good student, you have already graduated; I believe you can leave for Seattle tomorrow or the day after.” He doesn’t even look at me when he shoos me away with his hand as if I was a bug on his shoulder. I don’t see any solution to my problem.
If I want Alane to have a future, I need to break up with her. I knew that day would come, and I was a fool to believe I could get out of the deal I shook on last year.
As I step out of his office, Alane is waiting for me. She is beautiful. Her long blonde hair is braided on the side, her eyes are filled with love, her cheeks are red, and I feel like the worst asshole knowing that by the end of our conversation, everything we believed we could achieve together will be destroyed. Skipping my way, she twirls in front of me and smiles until her eyes stop on me and what I’m sure is a somber attitude.
“What did my father want?” she asks her smile waning. It sucks the last hope out of me. I need to be strong, for her, her future. What else am I supposed to do?
“He heard about our plans for Seattle,” I say walking away toward her front porch. I sit on the stairs. If I have to break her heart, it’s better doing it where she can run home, let her have home-ice advantage so I can leave. It’s a cowardly move, but it’s all I have in me.
“How?”
“How do you think? I told you to keep it under wraps, Al.”
“I only told Patricia.” She doesn’t see that’s the problem. She doesn’t know her best friend like I do. She’s so trustful. I say nothing, not wanting to alienate her from her friend. She’ll need her once I’m gone. “So you told him we’re leaving?” Resting my arms on my knees, I put my head down and shake my head slightly. My throat is tightening, my stomach is flipping. I want to hurl the words I need to, but emotion is taking over. Her face hardens, and her eyes darken.
“Aaron…” She tears up, putting her hand on my arm. I don’t need to tell her what’s next; she can read me better than anyone. I know she deserves hearing the truth, but I can’t tell her. She only has her parents, I can’t destroy their relationship, that wouldn’t be loving her, it would be obliterating her from the only people she has. I sigh heavily. “Aar… Aaron.” I know I broke her even before uttering what I have to tell her. “Please don’t…” she whispers.
“I’m sorry, Sweets. It’s just… I have to,” I say, kissing the hand resting on my forearm. “I’m going to Seattle, but you’re not. You can’t come with me. I wish it were different; I tried to find a way, but there is none. You have to stay.”
“I… I can run away.” She sniffles. “I can come with you. We’ll get married in one year; we’ll live together and create a future, you and I, with nobody telling us otherwise.”
“And then what, Sweet
s? How do we live day by day? How do I care for you? How do you follow your dream?” I wipe the tears from my cheeks and lay my hand on hers. I know I have to rip away the hope she has that we have a future together, because we don’t. She’ll become a hockey player, somewhere here or in Canada, and I’ll work in restaurants. We were always on borrowed time.
“I don’t want you to come with me,” I add, squeezing her hand, hoping I’m telling her how much I don’t mean those words, how much I really do love her, how much I’m hurting, and will regret my actions forever. Telling her I’m sacrificing us because I love her will only confuse her more. How can you profess your love by walking away?
“Will you come back for me?”
I stand up, not able to look at her. “Don’t wait for me, Sweets.” I snivel. I hear her cries and imagine her beautiful face hidden in her hands. In a way, I wish she’d stand, throw herself at me, beg me to change my mind, fight for us the way I should.
I wish she’d show me love and mercy, but I’m relieved she’s doesn’t. It would be harder for me to walk away.
I don’t deserve her anyway.
I gave up on our future a long time ago.
I thought I could fight our destiny, believe in our fate, but there is no such thing as long-lasting love in our story.
She calls my name, pleads for me to come back, to give her a last kiss, but I continue walking away until I’m standing in front of the Harbor’s house. I don’t know how I found my way here, everything is a blur. Thankfully, Chris is the one opening the door, not Patricia. I fall apart in his arms, in total silence, bawling my pain out.
Pretending I’m fine would be stupid.
I’m not.
I’ll never love someone the way I love her.
