This is more than I’ve ever gotten out of Aspen. “I know your senior year food fight that turned your friendship to rubble wasn’t about a prom dress.”
“Nope. It was about a prom date,” Aspen admits freely now like she hasn’t been hiding it from me for a decade. “Terra had parents who loved her unconditionally, brothers who supported and protected her, a town that seemed to know who she was everywhere she went and adored her. The only person to ever not love Terra Hawkins was you. When you turned her down in that closet. Jealous, infantile me wanted the one thing she couldn’t have. So I asked you to prom and I sunk my claws in.”
“So you were using me to hurt her?”
“No. You were hot and sweet and I was totally, honestly into you,” Aspen clarifies. “But I knew she was still into you despite the fact that she pretended she hated you, and I went for you anyway. Broke the girl code. Obliterated a twelve-year friendship. And in the end, I didn’t even get the guy.”
She stops walking and turns back to me. I think she might cry, and I start to feel guilty but I shouldn’t. She’s hurt herself and she knows it. I was just kind of an unwitting pawn. Man, I was stupid. “Aspen, it’s never too late to try and mend fences.”
“So back to this emergency contact stuff,” she changes the subject without blinking. “I’m supposed to find out if you’re the dad of my baby and then pull the plug on you?”
“There won’t be any plug-pulling. It’s honestly just a precaution,” I reply but suddenly asking her feels selfish. “I swear. The doctor called it a formality.”
“Nope. Can’t do it.” She starts to march back up the beach to the boardwalk, Major following dutifully.
I panic and blurt out the cold hard truth. “Aspen, if it isn’t you then it has to be my mom. I don’t have anyone else.”
She stops dead in her tracks, swears, and turns to face me. She wants to tell me off. I can feel it as strong as the wind blowing around us, but she doesn’t. God bless her, she doesn’t. “I’ll do it but only if you let me wait until after the op for the blood test. I can’t … I won’t be able to do it if I know one hundred percent this kid is ours. It will be impossible, and you would be a heartless asshole to put me in that spot. So pick it. Paternity test now or emergency contact-slash-potential-plug-puller?”
I want to push her to do both but I know Aspen can’t be pushed. When she sets boundaries, they’re as solid as cement walls. “Plug puller.”
“Email me whatever the hell I have to sign, then. Goddamnit.”
She turns and I stand and watch her until she disappears down off the beach. Major looks back at me with sympathy, I swear, but stays with Aspen.
I exhale loudly and stare at the surf.
14
Jake
I’ve been standingin my kitchen staring at the contents of my fridge without really seeing anything for a good ten minutes. We check into the hospital tomorrow at four in the afternoon. The operation is scheduled for the following morning. I’ve been poked, prodded, evaluated, and have peed in more cups than I can count for over a month, but we’re finally here.
I grab a beer from the fridge, twist off the top and then stare at it. Am I allowed to drink right now? Is it too close to surgery? I walk into the dining room and start to check the pre-op papers the transplant coordinator gave me. I think I would have remembered a no alcohol rule, but I riffle through them anyway. I can drink, moderately, tonight … but the sex thing is right there in black and white, mocking me. No sex for four weeks post-op or longer if the doctor advises it.
My doorbell rings.
I’m not expecting anyone. But I figure maybe it’s Logan or Aspen, so I swing open the door without hesitation and Terra barges right into my apartment. I watch her tiny, little butt wiggle as she marches past me into the living room. She looks around. “You’re alone?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Well, Mrs. Green just told the world on her stupid blog that you’re giving me a kidney,” Terra declares.
“Yeah … I knew that was coming.”
Her eyes flare. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I’ve been sorting through some shit. I had a few things to settle before the operation. And besides, I thought you were ignoring me because of the whole thing Finn told you the other night,” I tell her. “And just for the record, Mrs. Green finding out was also Finn’s big mouth, not mine.”
“Oh I know. He owned up to it and she named her sources on the blog, like the good fake journalist she thinks she is,” Terra replies and starts to fold her arms across her chest but winces and drops them to her sides, hands in fists. “I hate that everyone knows.”
“So … are we talking again? Are you going to let me explain?” I ask and watch as she starts pacing back and forth beside my couch. I still have a couple of boxes I haven’t bothered to unpack, so she has to dodge them.
“Explain that you got together with Aspen somehow even though you lived over seven hours away?” She stops pacing and starts bouncing on her Ugg covered feet just a little bit.
“I didn’t get together with her. I had sex with her,” I correct but her frown just deepens. “It wasn’t emotional. It was physical. She agrees. This isn’t anything more, no matter what.”
“How did it happen? Like over Zoom or something?” Terra wants to know. “Did she go visit you?”
