I couldn't walk away from the only safe space I'd ever known, from Midge.
There was no solution to this problem for me, no amount of get-it-done to get this particular task done. I couldn't fix this, and that realization, more than the home I couldn't return to and the aunt I couldn't say goodbye to and the gut-punch email I'd ignored for nine days, knocked the air out of me.
7
Linden
Well,I was an asshole.
I'd known it when I stomped up those basement stairs. Known it when I cleaned up the mess from the broken box. Known it when I'd hopped in my truck and drove to the liquor store forty-five minutes away, the one that stocked the good white ale from Clown Shoes Brewery. And I knew it when I looked out my kitchen window and caught sight of Jasper sitting on her back porch, her shoulders shaking in the unmistakable shudder that accompanied sobs.
That was my fault. All my damn fault.
I didn't stop to think. I hooked my fingers around the beers and made a beeline across the backyard. I didn't know what I was going to say but I knew I couldn't watch anymore. I couldn't do it earlier today, I couldn't do it now. And maybe that meant I was all the things Jasper accused me of being. Maybe I was a terrible neighbor. But I couldn't sit back and watch her cry out here, all alone.
She sat on the edge of the porch, her legs folded in front of her and one arm banded over her waist while she kneaded her forehead with the other hand. Loud, hiccupping sobs filled the night air—and made my arrival more stealthy than I'd intended.
I had to announce myself. It was that or wait until her tears slowed enough to notice me here, standing sentry to her meltdown.
Couldn't do that either. I couldn't justbehere, I had todosomething.
What the literal fuck was wrong with me? For real. What the fuck.
I set the beer down on the porch's battered floor, hard enough to grab her attention. "Hey, Jasper." I snagged a folded bandana from my back pocket and held it out to her as she lifted her head. "Sorry about, you know, everything."
She plucked the bandana from me and pressed it to her face. "Oh my god. Linden, seriously, I can't right now."
"I'm not—"
"Can we do this tomorrow? Please?"
I shook my head. "I'm trying to tell you—"
"I can't fight with you tonight and I can't just sit here and take it while you yell at me either."
I sank down beside her. "Would you shut up for a minute?" She sniffled. "I brought beer."
She dropped the bandana, just enough to eye the quartet of tall cans. Her brows lifted before she resumed mopping her face. A time that bordered on painfully long passed with only the sounds of early night mingled with her sniffles and shuddered breaths between us. It was a warm evening for this point in September, the breeze mild and dry. Hoots and calls echoed from the forest.
Then, "I have wine." Jasper held up an unopened bottle. "I don't need your beer."
"When did I say I was sharing any with you? I just said I brought it."
This pulled a splashy, hiccupping laugh from Jasper. "I can live with that. If you'd brought a cheese plate and refused to share, things might be different."
"That's your end zone? A cheese plate?"
"Oh, yeah. I'd fight you for that." She patted the porch floor, its paint nothing more than a faded suggestion of color now. "No one sits on my ramshackle porch without sharing their cheese with me."
I cast a glance over the structure, its wood planks rotted in some spots, warped and jutting up from the surface at others. "Goddamn, this place is one problem child after another."
Her shoulders shook as she pressed the cloth to her eyes again but her sobs seemed to mingle with laughter this time. "It's like you're physically incapable of keeping these observations to yourself, Linden." She glanced over at me. "Like, for once, do you think you could not call out my shit? Just once?"
"I didn't mean—"
"I know what you meant. You came over here after being in your clean, sturdy house with its fancy hot water and reliable electricity, and you can'tnotstare at the deck that's five minutes from collapsing under us."
I freed one of the beers from its ring and popped it open. "Sorry about that. And what I said earlier too."
