The news takes me by surprise. I knew Aidan was trying to quit; I didn’t know it had anything to do with me. Not that it changes anything. I still hate him.
Lindo smiles. “Looks like he finally met his match.”
24
Aidan
Oh. My. God.
If I thought Aster was red in the face after Lindo’s breath-stealing bear-hug, I was mistaken. Her cheeks are flaming right now, and I don’t know if it’s rage or embarrassment, but I don’t want to find out.
“So where should we do the interview?” I interject loudly. “Right here? Maybe in your truck? Or on another day?”
Lindo grins at me. The asshole knows what he’s doing. I’d failed to mention to Aster that he’s kind of remained my mentor, albeit infrequently, even after graduating and getting on with his life, so he’s fully aware of the situation. When I called to set up this interview I made him swear not to do anything to humiliate me, and ten seconds in he’s already broken his promise.
“Let’s go over there,” he says, indicating a half-finished house with no construction going on. “That one’s quiet.”
We trudge across the street and up the dirt driveway, trailing after Lindo through the non-existent doorway. The ground level is poured concrete and exposed wooden beams, construction supplies scattered around. He gathers up empty buckets and turns them over to use as stools, and soon enough the three of us are sitting in a weird triangle formation.
I’m expecting this to be awkward and strained, but to my surprise Aster pulls a notepad and pen out of her denim jacket and smiles at Lindo. He actually blinks at the brightness of her smile, the novelty of it, considering the story I’d told him about our fight and her enrolment in the program.
“Thanks for meeting with us,” Aster begins. “We really appreciate you taking the time.” She tucks her hair behind her ear and scribbles on her notepad, looking every bit the super keen academic I thought I’d met when I moved in with Jerry. I listen, perplexed, as she gathers Lindo’s background information, the year he started at Holsom, the year he graduated, his major, his work assignment, extracurricular activity.
Her ability to transform is astounding. This is not the woman I lost nine minutes talking to in the car before realizing she’d put in ear buds and wasn’t merely ignoring me. I’ve spent the past week thinking I might have broken her with my lie, shattered the perfect image she’d made for herself and sent her reeling. But that’s not the case at all. She’s either not affected, or she’s really good at hiding things.
I’m pretty sure it’s the latter.
It’s what I do every day, after all.
“So now you own Lindo Construction,” Aster is saying. “Did you always want to have your own business?”
“Oh, yeah,” Lindo says. He props his huge arms on his huge knees and twists his wedding ring around his meaty finger. Last year he’d married his longtime boyfriend, Tony, and I’d gone to the wedding. Maybe the PPP makes you marriage material.
I glance at Aster.
Maybe not.
“I’ve never been good at following orders,” Lindo continues. “But I loved giving them. More than that, however, I loved making something out of nothing.” He touches his chest. “Case in point.” Then he looks at me. “Another case.”
Aster nods politely. “So you—”
“Did you know that when Shaw first showed up, I thought he was a girl?”
Oh shit.
Lindo pulls out his phone. “I took a picture, showed all my friends.”
“Lindo, no,” I say, reaching for the phone he’s passing to Aster. But she’s already snatched it out of his hand and is holding it away so I can’t touch it.
She laughs then, so loudly it bounces off the concrete and makes me freeze, arm extended. I’m not thrilled she’s guffawing at my move-in day picture, my scrappy concert T-shirt and tight jeans and hair halfway down my back, but it’s nice to hear the sound. I never thought I’d hear it again.
“You’re so skinny!” she exclaims, wiping tears from her eyes as she studies the phone and compares that me to this me, briefly forgetting she hates both of us.
“Well,” I mutter. “I was...young.”
“I got him to work out with me,” Lindo says. “First he was my water boy, then I bench pressed him...”
“Would you shut up?” I interject.
“Then he started realizing the guys at the gym were watching him like he was something they might like to take a bite out of, so he cut off his beautiful hair and got serious about bulking up. Don’t worry, Shaw. You’re still pretty.”
Aster returns the phone. “Thanks, Lindo. This has been worth the trip.”
* * *
An eternity later, we’re back in the car, Aster waving an enthusiastic goodbye to Lindo as I glare at him in the side mirror and pull away. He’d spent the entire interview half-answering Aster’s questions and half-exposing any embarrassing details he could drum up about yours truly. When he wasn’t embarrassing me he was praising me, which was more embarrassing than the outright humiliation. Do you know Shaw’s got a 3.6 GPA? Do you know Shaw helped cook thirty-seven turkeys to feed homeless people at Thanksgiving? Do you know Shaw fell down the stairs in the Student Union Building in front of hundreds of students and limped away, crying?
“Fuck,” I mumble, sipping the last of my cold coffee and wincing. “That was horrible.”
“It was awesome,” Aster replies distractedly. She’s jotting down more things in her notebook, back in her junior reporter role.
I turn left out of the subdivision, toward the main road that cuts through the center of town and leads to the highway. It feels supremely unfair that I was the one who was stoked about this errand, and Aster’s now the one who enjoyed it.
“Drop me off up here,” she says abruptly. The click of her pen punctuates the statement.
“Where up here?” I ask. The street is lined with fast food restaurants and gas stations; there’s nothing here she can’t find at Holsom.
“Never mind. Just drop me off. I’ll find my own way back.”
“To Holsom? It’s twenty-five miles from here!”
“I’ll be fine. Stop at the gas station.”
“What are you doing?”
“I said never mind.”
“Well, I don’t want to just abandon you somewhere. I’ll drive you back after you do whatever it is you need to do at the gas station.”
“I’m not going to the gas station, Aidan. Just stop.”
I pull into the next parking lot and idle in front of a laundromat. “What’s going on?”
“I have to run an errand.”
“How long will it take? I can wait.”
“No, thanks.”
“Well, how will you get home?” Holsom is in another town; there are no city buses or trains that run between them, just a long stretch of highway.
“I’ll hitchhike.”
My jaw drops. Sure, I’ve hitchhiked in my day and the mysterious new Aster probably has too, but it just seems so...unnecessary.
“Aster, that’s ridiculous. You don’t need to hitchhike with a stranger when you can ride with me. I’m already here. I can take you exactly where you need to go.”
She looks ready to argue, then picks up the donut still waiting for her in the cup holder and breaks off a piece. “Don’t ask me any questions.”
“Okay...”
“And don’t get out of the car.”
“Is this a drug deal? That’s against the PPP rules.”
She rolls her eyes. “That’s against all the rules. It’s not a drug deal.”
“Okay, last question. Is it prostitution?”
“No, you ass,” she snaps, tossing the remaining donut back into the cup holder. “Now drive.”
She directs me through town, which, like my hometown, has its good parts and bad parts, until we come to a quieter section with official green signs pointing the way to a cemetery. I’m hoping we’ll cruise past it, but whe
n we come to the entrance for the parking lot Aster says, “Turn here. Stop and stay in the car.”
“Aye aye.” I shouldn’t have agreed not to ask anymore questions. I have so many questions. But I know what happens when people lie to Aster, so I keep my mouth shut and watch her ass as she strides across the empty lot and disappears behind the wrought iron gate to the plots.
I don’t know this girl at all, I think. I thought I did, but I had no idea. The first day I saw her I judged her the way I assumed so many people judged me when I arrived. They saw the hair and the tattoos and the scowl and figured they knew me. I looked at Aster and saw how perfect she was and thought she had a charmed life. I thought I was dark and she was light.
I know I’m lucky to have been selected for the PPP, and every day I do just enough to qualify. I go to class, I study, I pass. I show up for work, I stack books, I go home. I play Frisbee baseball, laugh at their jokes, bail on drinks.
My promise and potential is something the judge saw, that Jim sees, but for me it’s always been a pile of kindling, waiting to be lit.
When I met Aster, I thought she was the light I’d been waiting for.
But I was wrong.
She was the spark.
25
Aster
When I step back through the wrought iron gates of Chester Cemetery, Aidan is still in the car, seat reclined, playing a game on his phone. I’d only been inside for fifteen minutes, just enough time to wind my way through the tombstones to find Ramsay’s plaque, lying flat against the ground in the west corner. There was a tiny bouquet of tulips sitting on it, still fresh enough to let me know my mom has been by recently.
I don’t come here often. When Ramsay died I wasn’t allowed to come to the funeral, and after that I swore I’d never come at all, but the prison counselors and Jim recommended that I visit when I can. When I learned where we’d be meeting Lindo, I decided to drop by. It’s only my fourth time here in the three years I’ve been at Holsom, but I still haven’t figured out what to say. Mostly I just kneel on the grass and wait for inspiration that never comes, then give up and go home.
The only thing different about today is that I’m not alone. Aidan’s here, like it or not. Aidan, who I thought for sure would trail me through the cemetery, hiding behind headstones, trying to spy. But he didn’t. I’d tripped over my own feet three times looking over my shoulder, but here he is, waiting in the car like I’d asked him to.
I try to muster up some of the righteous anger I’m supposed to have, but I just feel tired. Ever since the night he came over and I planned to lie and tell him I was fucking Shamus and stomp on his heart until it was a bloody mess on the ground, I’ve been tired. I totally failed that night. I’d burst into tears like a nitwit, absolutely not the picture of cold defiance I’d intended. It’s exhausting trying to be angry when you’re supposed to be trying to be happy.
I get in the car and fasten my seatbelt. I can hear Aidan next to me, faint beeps as he wraps up whatever game he’d been playing, the slight groan of the chair as he straightens the seat. Then I can feel him. Feel him watching me, feel him waiting.
“You okay?” he asks after a moment.
“Fine.”
In the handful of times I’d visited this place, there has never been anyone to ask me how I felt about it. If I was okay.
I’m not okay.
Aidan backs out of the parking space and retraces our route through town until we find the highway and pick up speed. The pressure in my chest eases as we leave Chester in the rearview, the past in the past.
“So what’d you do?” he asks.
I have my forehead pressed against the window, and I see my eyes narrow at my reflection. “I said no questions.”
“Not at the cemetery,” he says. “What’d you do to get into the program? Come on. I told you my crime. You tell me yours.”
When I exhale, my breath fogs the window, hiding my face. “Retail fraud,” I say eventually.
“Retail fraud? What’s that?”
“In my case, stealing stuff and returning it for cash or credit.”
“Huh,” he muses. “I never figured you for a klepto.”
“There’s a lot of stuff you never figured about me.”
“You can tell me now, if you want.”
“I’ll pass.”
We make it another mile in blissful silence, then Aidan ruins it.
“So you just like shiny things?” he guesses.
“No, Aidan.”
“The thrill of the hunt?”
“No.”
“Sticking it to the man?”
I turn and glare at him. “I was broke. We needed money. I found a way to get some.”
“Is that why you were with Jerry?”
“I told you it wasn’t. I loved him. He was...nice.” I know nice is a damning word to some people, but I like it. It’s comfortable. It’s rare.
Aidan drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “Does he know you’re in the program?”
“No.”
“About the fraud?”
“No.”
“Did you go to juvie?”
“No. Too old.”
He hesitates, then ventures, “Prison?”
I shrug, like it was no big deal. Like I wasn’t terrified every day. “Yeah.”
Now he looks gratifyingly stunned. “Holy shit, Aster.”
“That’s what I said.”
“So how do you do it?”
I sigh. “You just find a receipt, go in, steal the item—”
“Not steal stuff, genius. How do you do this Jekyll and Hyde thing you’ve got going on? It’s like flicking a light switch. You ignore me for half an hour in the car, then you smile at Lindo and all of a sudden you’re perfect little Aster again. What’s the secret?”
“There is no secret. I’m just tired. Perfect little Aster is who I really am.”
“Right.”
I huff. “It’s a work in progress.”
“So if Jerry didn’t know anything about you, how could he love you?”
I flinch. The same fear had circled my brain for the duration of our relationship, but my version was slightly reworded. If Jerry knew anything about me, how could he love me?
“He just did,” I say lamely.
“I see.”
“Well, what about you?” I counter. “You didn’t tell me you were in the program. Do you tell the girls you date that you used to steal cars?”
“I don’t date a lot. And when I do, we don’t do a lot of talking.”
I mock gag. “Spare me.”
“Except you,” he adds. “I talked to you.”
I scoff. “You lied to me.”
“Not technically,” he replies. “I mean, if you think about it.”
“If I think about it I’ll stab you with my pen.”
“Okay, don’t think about it.”
“Who’s Daisy?” I ask. “For real. Don’t tell me it’s your dog.”
“It’s my dog,” he answers. “Was my dog.” He keeps his eyes on the road, even as I stare at him suspiciously. “My dad has a gambling problem. Everything we got, he lost to pay off whatever new debt he’d accumulated. One day I came home from school and Daisy was gone. He’d given her away to cover his ass. Sometimes I’d see her around town with her new family. She didn’t remember me.”
“For real?”
“For real.”
I sit with that story for a second. He seems sincere. “That’s the opposite problem I had,” I say eventually. “My dad wouldn’t give anything away. He held the purse strings so tight we couldn’t get groceries some weeks.”
“Is that who you were visiting? At the cemetery?”
“That was my brother. Drug overdose.” I’ve never told anyone about Ramsay. I didn’t even tell my bunkmate when I got the news in prison.
“I’m sorry.”
“Whatever. My mom must have been there recently. When I went to jail she found a new man to take care of her and we
lost touch. But I think he’s probably okay. Gives her gas money.”
“You lost touch with your mom?”
“Do you talk to your parents?”
“Yeah, of course. They’re fucked up, but they’re my parents. I can’t tell them where I’m staying or my dad will show up and find a way to get in trouble, but I love them anyway.”
“Your mom’s still with him? Even though he lost your dog?”
“She’s an enabler. Helping him is her addiction.”
“That sucks.”
He runs his hands through his messy hair. “I think that’s why I don’t date a lot of Holsom girls. They see me and they want to fix me. I don’t want someone who sees a project.”
“What do you want them to see?”
“I don’t know. What did you see?”
I look away. “Not a project. You were my friend when I didn’t have any. At least, I thought you were.”
He slumps a little. “I was, Aster. I still could be.”
“No. You can’t.”
“Why not? Because of that kiss? It was totally mediocre. There’s no chemistry. Friends only.”
I scoff, offended and amused all at once. With everything that had happened before and after the kiss, I hadn’t given it much thought, which is probably for the best. Thinking about kissing Aidan is a huge mistake.
Kissing him was a huge mistake.
I thought it would be empowering and condescending to kiss him and push him away, but instead it stuck with me, reminding me what I’d been missing.
Because Jerry never kissed me like that.
No one has.
“You’re right.” I sniff. “It was disgusting.”
“Revolting,” he agrees.
I turn back to the window, feeling a little less tired, like the weight of my anger has been lifted, replaced with the relief of having someone learn the truth about me and not run screaming in the opposite direction.
I catch a glimpse of my reflection again. I’m smiling this time.
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