this.
It was time, right?
“It used to be me and Owen. Nate left us while we were at Hillcrest, but I had Owen. He had friends. I didn’t, though I didn’t realize that until later. I’d thought they were my friends. Owen was the popular one. I never was. I was a year younger, but in the same grade, and when people know that, it makes a difference. They look at you differently. You’re not one of them.”
I could’ve told him some other stuff about when they found out you were smarter than they were, but I didn’t have the energy at the moment.
“Kids can be cruel,” I said in summary, my words faint even to my ears. “Owen died last summer.”
The screams.
The music.
The brakes.
The screeching.
The metal being hit.
“There was a car accident,” I told him. “There was nothing salacious about it, just a run-of-the-mill car accident.”
“No car accident is run-of-the-mill,” he rasped.
True.
“No drugs. No drinking,” I clarified. “Owen was driving me and two of his friends. They were in the back. I was in the front.” Here was the hard part.
I didn’t want to feel it, so I started closing myself down.
One wall at a time.
“You gotta tell him, sis. For you.”
“Owen and I were fighting over the music.”
“I don’t want to listen to rap,” I’d told him.
He’d laughed. “Whatever. Driver picks the music.”
“I changed the music because I was being stupid,” I explained.
“No sad shit, Asp. Come on!” He’d still been laughing.
“We started a little wrestling match, shoving back and forth, and then…”
“Look out!”
“We were going around a curve, and there was a car coming toward us. It was in our lane.”
“Oh shit!”
“Owen yanked the wheel, and time slowed down. We missed the car, and it was so weird because I could see them perfectly as we passed. It was a lady, and she’d been reaching back to the seats behind her. She didn’t even see us coming, but they did. She had two little kids in their car seats. She saw them see us, and she was starting to turn, but it was done by then.”
“Aspen,” Blaise breathed.
My throat was so tight, I could barely swallow. I could barely talk.
“Owen held my hand as we hit the metal guard rail on the ditch. The doctors think that’s what saved my life, but we don’t know. Owen died on impact. One of the guys in the back was tossed from the car, but he ended up being okay. It was a miracle for him, and the other guy just had scrapes and bruises.”
I was completely numb, just the way I liked it in moments like these.
I whispered, “I was in the hospital for two months.”
“And no one visited you?” His voice came from right behind me.
He had migrated closer. I could feel his heat now.
I found myself leaning back, and one of his arms curled around me, resting low on my hip.
I nodded, my head moving against his shirt. “His friends never came to see me. I thought maybe it was the hospital not letting people visit, but that wasn’t the case. My mom and dad were there almost every day. Nate visited too. The days kinda blurred together.”
The after.
I turned in his arms and tipped my head back to look at him.
“That’s why my parents came back here. They were worried about me the first semester, but now they’re on this whole kick to make things right with Nate.”
Blaise’s other hand came to my hip, holding me against him.
His eyes searched mine. “Why aren’t your parents here this weekend, Aspen?”
I felt a rock in my gut.
“My parents aren’t bad parents. They’re just... They’re workaholics, and when they get into a project they’re passionate about, they’re really into it.”
“They forget you.”
I heard his condemnation, and I moved back.
“It’s not totally like that.”
“It’s exactly like that.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not. They’ve just been gone this week. At the beginning of the year, they were here every day. I couldn’t move in this house without my mom or dad on me, asking how I was, talking to me about my counseling sessions. They were overly in my life, so when they got the green light for this new project of theirs, it was a relief. I could go to school again and pretend to be normal.”
I sighed.
It was now.
Now or never.
“I miss my brother. I miss him so much that after the accident,” a deep breath, “I wish it’d been me. Not him.”
I turned.
I closed my eyes, folded my