“To be fair, all I did was put meat, cheese, and veggies on bread. The pasta salad Kim dropped by yesterday. Oh, and the lemon bars too.” She looks away shyly. “I noticed you liked them.”
I reach across the table, taking her hand in mine as I pull it to my lips.
“I love that you noticed. I take in a lot about you too,” I admit.
“Like what?” she asks, pulling back to take a bite of her sandwich.
“You love the scent of lavender. I think it calms you. You enjoy tea more than coffee, but you will drink coffee if everyone else does. You like fruity candy, not chocolate, and your favorite color is blue. Your eyes light up when you hear a funny joke or something delights you. You attempt to fit in because you never felt like there was somewhere you belonged, but I think that’schanging. You are starting to show more of who you are instead of who you think everyone else wants or needs you to be.” I stop after that last bit, hoping it wasn’t too much.
She looks shocked.
“No one has ever noticed that about me. I’ve been a chameleon since I was a kid. Maggie told me when I came back that she thought a lot of my behavior was because I didn’t like to share. The truth is, she knew a different Aspen than Rain and Calloway knew. That’s why I kept them apart. I didn’t want to be caught,” she admits.
“Did you think they wouldn’t like the real you?”
“Honestly?” she asks. “I didn’t think anyone could like the real me. How could they? I grew up jumping from foster family to foster family. When I finally ended up with Calloway, he made sure I would stay there until I was eighteen. He doesn’t think I know, but he paid the Alvez family on the side to keep me there. I don’t think they had planned to send me back, but he made sure I would have that stability. Then, for a graduation present, he gave me the money to change my last name to Alstone to match his. That way, I knew I would never be alone. He and Maggie are the only constants in my life, but I had already been so determined to be who they wanted me to be that I was scared to show them who I really was. What if they left me? I couldn’t handle that.”
“They love you. I know that doesn’t matter for the past, but I hope you know that now,” I tell her.
“I do. Or I am starting to. It is going to take me some time to retrain my brain to trust all these new feelings, but I want to trust them. I know they are real. Maggie and Calloway didn’t need to prove anything to me, but they did. They showed me that they are going to be here for me no matter what. I’m grateful for them.”
I smile. “I am too. I’m glad you have them at your side.”
“I’m grateful for you too, you know. For more than saving me. For coming and joining the MC and being here for me. You are my safe place. I don’t want you to go anywhere either,” she admits softly.
“I won’t. Feel free to be whoever you want to be. Change as many times as you want. As long as you are happy with who you are, then I am too. I will still be here.”
Her eyes tear up a little before she smiles. “I think I’m starting to believe that too.”
“You should.”
She clears her throat. “Enough about that. You need to eat, and then I want to know all about you.”
That’s how we spend the next hour, trading stories from our childhoods. It all seems surface-level, but I know that we broke down another wall today.
One day soon, I will be in the center with her so that she no longer will need any walls.
She will have me to keep all the bad away.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
ASPEN
After checking in with her secretary, I head to the back of the house and out the back door. I kick off my shoes before I head down the steps. The grass is cool under my feet, making me shiver.
I’m not sure about this, but I’m willing to try. When my therapist, Erin, told me she wanted to try therapy while working on something, I thought it could be fun. What I wasn’t expecting was for her to recommend that I help her in her garden.
Erin looks up and smiles. “You made it.”
“I did. Sorry, I’m late. There was an accident.”
“It’s fine. You know I build extra time into my schedule just in case. Now come sit.”
I make my way through her garden and sit down across from her.
“I’m going to be honest. I have no idea what I’m looking at, let alone what’s a weed and what’s a plant.”
