Dear Aaron

by Mariana Zapata

  “Morning,” he said in a restrained voice as he walked over to where I was sitting.

  “Morning.” My eyes bounced back and forth between him and the plate in each hand that I still couldn’t see well. “I thought you’d sleep in longer,” I told him.

  He shook his head and stopped right beside my chair, extending the plate toward me. “Couldn’t sleep. Eat.”

  “Thank you,” I told him a lot more quietly than I had over the last two days, taking the plate from his hands with that strange, uncertain emotion filling my chest. There were two pieces of toast, each topped with scrambled eggs, something that looked like pico de gallo, cheese, avocado, and bacon. I held my breath and watched as he lowered himself to his chair, already picking up a piece of toast with his left hand and taking a bite out of it. I watched him eat it.

  We hadn’t said more than fifteen words to each other after we’d gotten back to the house the night before, and yet, he’d still made me breakfast. I didn’t know whether to cry or hug him, I really didn’t.

  Who made food for a friend anyway? I loved my friends, and I loved my sisters, but unless they asked, I wouldn’t make them breakfast. Did he not know I wasn’t mentally stable enough for this? That my heart wasn’t in the right place? That it didn’t know Aaron was my friend and would only ever be my friend, no matter how much I told it otherwise?

  You would have figured no one in my life had ever been kind to me by the way I sat there.

  He’d probably gotten through half of it when he realized I was staring at him instead of eating, and he started chewing slower. “I know you like eggs, and you have to like bacon, what is it?” he asked, hoarsely, swallowing what he had left in his mouth. His eyes went round and he spoke slowly, “If you say you don’t like avocado, I’m going to need to rethink this whole thing we have going on.”

  This thing we had going on? Friendship?

  We were back to acting like everything was fine and that I hadn’t started being crazy and cool the night before and he hadn’t gotten lost in his mysterious thoughts and stopped talking to me?

  I’d worry about it later. Instead, I shook my head, as every cell in my body cried out for this man who always made sure I ate and had made me something to eat for breakfast again. I wanted him. I wanted him so badly I could barely breathe. And…

  I couldn’t have him.

  Was this a test? My mom always mumbled about how she was being tested: her patience, her wallet, her mental health. Then she’d start mumbling about how God never gave you more than you could handle.

  So was that what this was?

  Was I being tested by this beautiful man so if I passed, I could hopefully find one just like him that did like me the way I wanted to be liked?

  “Is it the avocado, Ruby?” Aaron asked slowly, taking another bite and frowning as he did it.

  Swallowing the questions and the frustrations inside of me, I tried to remember I had to be fair. I had to. So I told him, weak, weak, weak, “No, I like avocado.”

  Even with his cheeks stuffed full of toast, tomatoes, cheese, avocado, and bacon, he blinked. “You sure?”

  Why? Why? Why couldn’t he have been normal? Handsome but not stunning. Nice but not kind. Understanding but not so patient. Thoughtful but not so much.

  I should have gone home. I really should have gone home so I could have had a fighting chance of moving on with my life once this week was over. I didn’t need to add a person to my obsessive personality.

  But I didn’t do any of that.

  “I’m sure,” I promised him, forcing myself to pick up my toast and take a bite.

  Maybe this was my test. Maybe I just needed to get through this week as best as I could, and then I’d know I could handle anything. I could be his favorite friend and eventually, at some point, move on and find someone else who might not be so handsome or sweet, but he could be honest and share things with me. And that would be enough. He could still be normal handsome. Who said he couldn’t?

  “Ruby—” he started to say before the sound of a phone ringing inside the house cut him off.

  There was a home phone in the house? I wondered, knowing I hadn’t seen one.

  Aaron cursed, setting his plate on the side table and getting to his feet. “I’ll be right back,” he said to me, giving me a tight expression before practically jogging back inside.

  I hadn’t really planned on being nosey and eavesdropping on whatever conversation was about to take place on a phone I hadn’t even known existed, but curiosity got the best of me. Mostly because I wanted to see where the heck the phone had been the entire time. But something bothered me as Aaron headed straight to a cabinet directly beside the refrigerator that I had never opened before, like he knew exactly where it was, and pulled out a corded white handset, bringing it up to his ear.

  I guess that shouldn’t have been surprising considering he’d been the one to put up the groceries the second day we’d been there. Maybe he’d looked around the house, or maybe this was the same place that they had all stayed at when they’d come to San Blas last year. That would make sense.

  The thing was, I kept watching him as he answered, in a voice that was intentionally low, “Hello?”

  I might not be as athletic as Jasmine or as smart and outgoing and pretty as my mom and sister, but I’d inherited my dad’s excellent hearing, vision, and teeth. I wore earplugs every single time I went to a concert and I could usually hear just about everything. So even though Aaron was basically whispering as he reclined against the kitchen counter with the phone to his ear, I heard him and I watched his facial expression, and the tone of his voice change instantly. I mean, instantly.

  We’d had our beef the night before, but it was nothing like the tension that strummed through his body, and I definitely hadn’t thought it was possible for him to scowl and frown as he said to whoever was talking to him, “What do you want?”

  If that wasn’t abrasive, I didn’t know what was.

  His features didn’t change even a little bit as he replied to the voice on the other end, “I’m fine. I’m sure Colin told you I was fine when you talked to him.”

  Who was Colin?

  “Look,” he basically growled after a moment, making me lean toward the glass panel separating the deck from the living area like that would get me closer to the action going on inside. “If I had wanted to see you while I was home, I would have. Sorry.”

  I’d already known Aaron had sarcasm down stat, but he’d never sounded more insincere ever. Who was he talking to? Who would have the home’s phone number anyway?

  “I’m at the beach house—”

  The beach house. Not a beach house. Wait a second….

  “—I need to go. If you want to talk, call Colin or Paige—”

  I knew that name. Paige was his sister’s name. Was Colin his older brother? It had to be. So who—

  “I’m going now. Bye,” he ended the call abruptly, still talking and sounding like a totally different person from the warm man I’d gotten to know.

  He stood there. All long and lean, his body strung completely tight. It wasn’t until his head drooped forward and his hands went up to lace behind his head that I turned around, my heart beating quickly.

  I tried to process everything. A phone call. Aaron’s entire personality changing like Jekyll and Hyde. Him mentioning his sister and who I could only imagine was his brother. The beach house.

  He’d never once mentioned renting the house, had he?

  He’d brought up several times having a decent relationship with his dad, so there was no way that could have been him on the phone, but… had it been the woman he’d repeatedly called his “birth mom” who had “left?”

  My mind was running a mile a minute as I tried to think. Think, think, think.

  A brief memory of the T-shirt he’d worn the first morning flicked through my thoughts. Hall Auto. He’d never mentioned what his dad did exactly, only that he had employees and that his brother and sister wor
ked for him.

  I knew it was none of my business, but the need to know lingered in my brain as my stomach turned at the not-lie but not-truth Aaron might have been hiding from me. Maybe not hiding exactly, but he hadn’t been forthcoming either. With a glance into the house one more time to find Aaron in the same position he’d been, I brought my phone up to my face and launched the browser, quickly typing in “Hall Auto” and “Shreveport” into the search.

  It didn’t take more than two seconds for five different results to fill the screen. Five different results for five different auto dealerships in the state of Louisiana, all called some variation of HALL AUTO. This lump formed in my chest, and even though I knew I didn’t deserve to feel like he’d lied to me, I couldn’t help it. It took about a minute of searching before I found an “About Us” section on one of the dealership’s websites. Keywords like “family owned business since 1954” and “family values” caught my eye. But it was the three pictures at the bottom that made me not move.

  One was an old picture that had to have been taken in the 50s with a gentleman and a woman beside a car that would have been vintage today. That one was no big deal.

  The second image was a recent one of a man in his late fifties standing beside a white car.

  The third was a clearly dated picture of a man standing in between two males and a younger girl. The older man was obviously the one who had been standing solo in the first photograph, but it was the male beside him was almost a mirror image of Aaron just a little younger than what he was now. Standing a few inches away was the younger girl, not touching the man. And on the far end was a face I knew well. A face much younger than the one I’d been seeing constantly.

  It was a seventeen maybe eighteen-year-old Aaron standing there besides who I was sure had to be his brother.

  If the physical proof hadn’t been enough, Aaron had told me his dad always owned white cars.

  His dad owned car dealerships. Not just one or two, or the little, used car ones on the side of the freeway or took up space on corners of streets in certain neighborhoods. They were huge dealerships. And his dad—granddad, family, whatever—owned them.

  Hadn’t he told me he didn’t want to join the family business and everyone thought he was dumb? Hadn’t he said his dad would have supported him financially if he’d needed something? Hadn’t he specifically told me he was fine on money? Always so vague.

  Why hadn’t he just… told me? Did he think I was a gold digger?

  The answer to that question came to me immediately, making me feel foolish. No, he wouldn’t think that. He had to have his reasons for not being up front with me about his family’s businesses. He had to. I knew that.

  The greatest question remained: who had he been on the phone with? Did his dad own the beach house? I knew I could find out at least the second question, but going behind his back felt sleazy.

  I needed to trust him. I needed to not take his silence personally. I needed—

  “Sorry about that,” Aaron said, stepping onto the porch with an expression that seemed a little too forced. He cleared his throat as he sat down and gave me a smile I knew he wasn’t feeling. “What do you think about going fishing again?”

  “Goodnight,” Brittany and Des called out as they made their way toward the stairs.

  Everyone else had already gone to bed, or at least headed to their rooms.

  Aaron, who had been seated on the love seat while we’d been watching a DVD of The Mummy that he’d “found” in a binder full of other movies, sat up in his seat and looked over in my direction, his expression carefully blank, just like it had been the entire afternoon and evening since we’d gotten back from fishing. He’d been trying his best to act normal, sweet, like usual while we’d been out in the surf, but I could tell something was on his mind. I just didn’t know what exactly. “You tired?”

  We hadn’t talked much while we’d been fishing, with Des coming along. I’d gone to the beach with Mindy and Brittany once we got back when Aaron had claimed he needed a nap and had stayed at the house. By the time we made it back after two hours of lying under the umbrella, we had found all three of the guys passed out throughout the house. Aaron on one recliner, Max on the big couch, and Des had apparently been sleeping in his room from what Brittany had said. I’d helped her make dinner, and by the time we were done, everyone had woken up.

  It wasn’t too much of a stretch to say that I had tried to give him his space when I could still tell there was something going on with him that he didn’t want to share. I’d spent the last few hours, especially during the movie, reminding myself that he’d invited me to spend time with me. Because he cared about me. Not for me to act like a heartbroken twat who ignored him and got her feelings hurt for no reason.

  You would figure I’d know by that point how complicated life could be, but apparently I didn’t.

  So his dad—his family—was rich and he hadn’t said a word about it. So what?

  So there was someone calling the house who made him mad enough for his entire demeanor to change and he didn’t want to talk about it. So what?

  I shook my head, trying to keep the expression on my face a clear, easygoing one that didn’t have you break my heart by keeping things from me written all over it. It wasn’t like I hadn’t known that coming here. “I’m not tired, are you?”

  “No,” he answered, rubbing his hands over his khaki shorts.

  I watched him, that beautiful face, the resigned-looking language printed all over his body, and honestly, it made me ache. What could I do?

  “Want to take a walk on the beach?” I asked him before I thought it through.

  To give him credit, he didn’t hesitate. He nodded and stood up.

  It didn’t take us long to go down the stairs and out of the house, Aaron grabbing a flashlight from the mudroom on the first floor though he didn’t bother turning it on during our walk down the moonlit street and through the homes in the neighborhood. I’d already done the walk enough to know exactly how many beach umbrellas we would find and how many chairs would be under each.

  I wasn’t surprised when Aaron headed straight to the same spot we’d gone to watch the sunrise that first morning. He lowered himself to the ground, the sound of him sighing the only noise other than the waves I could hear. It made me want to cry. I didn’t want to see him like this; I didn’t care who or what could have caused it. I just didn’t want him with this… whatever it was, taking away so many of the things I loved about him. Knowing there was a line I needed to straddle, I tried to think of what I could say or do and simply went for the simplest option.

  “Are you okay?” I asked as I took a seat a foot away from him, stretching my legs out. I didn’t have the heart to punish him for being secretive. He was my friend, and most importantly, I cared about him.

  He nodded, his gaze on the water, but it was this distracted kind of thing that only reiterated he was going through something and not exactly winning.

  I was sure he had his reasons, and if I hadn’t already made it clear enough he could talk to me about anything, well, he was dumb and he should have known better by that point. “Are you having a good time so far?” I went with instead of pressuring him to talk to me about whatever or whoever was on his mind.

  Aaron nodded, and I forced myself to quit wondering things that had nothing to do with me. “It’s gone by faster than I thought it would.”

  “I know,” I agreed with him, shifting my gaze toward the dark water. “I’m dreading going back home.”

  There was a pause and then a “You are?”

  “Yeah. I wish I could stay here for another month or two.” I sighed. “How perfect would that be?”

  That had his head pivoting to look at me, a flicker of the man I’d started getting used to hiding in plain sight on the sharp bones of his cheeks and jaw. “What’s wrong? You’re stressed about work?”

  I kept my gaze on the water as I nodded. “Yeah. I’m trying not to let it freak me out, but
it is. My mom sent me a link to that job opening that’s still available at her work while we were at the beach, and it’s just got me thinking about what I’m going to do when I get back.” I told him the truth. My mom had sent me a link with a smiley face at the end of it, but the problem was, I’d thought about it, only I’d thought more about what was going on with him.

  “You’re not going to do it, are you?” he asked, sounding more like himself than he had all day. Not totally like the Ron to my Ruron, but close enough.

  I couldn’t look at him then. “I don’t know. They’ll probably hire someone before I get back from my dad’s. But… I can’t keep going with my money situation the way it is, at least not for too much longer.”

  “But you don’t want to get an office job,” he reminded me.

  “I know I don’t.” I swallowed and shifted my focus toward the midnight-colored gulf again, not wanting to look at him as I told him the truth. “I’m a chicken, Aaron. I’ve told you that already. I’m too scared things won’t work out. I’ve already told you the craziest things I’ve ever done. I was freaked out to go fishing. Fishing. I think I’ve taken enough risks just these last few months since I quit the job I had with my aunt.”

  “You’re not a chicken,” he said, as what I could only assume was his foot slid across the sand to touch mine. I didn’t let myself focus on his affection. What I did let myself zero in on was this gesture that was all my Aaron. It wasn’t like I could bring attention to it though and tell him I noticed what was going on.

  Instead, I told him, in a weird voice that almost sounded disappointed, “I hate to break it to you, but I am.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am. We talked about this.”

  “Yeah, we did, but you’re still not.”

  “Aaron—”

  “You’re not,” he insisted. “What are you scared of that you haven’t done?” he asked, his voice rising.