29. Aaron
TWENTY-NINE
AARON
It was almost two full weeks into Operation Get Gemma Back, with regular updates going to both my producer and my director—my mother, and Alex, respectively—when she finally started speaking to me, more than a grunt or two at my reactions or predictions for whatever book I was mid.
“I know we need to talk. I know you have things you need to say. But so do I. And I need to say mine first. Soon. Before you throw whatever you’re going to at me and I forget every reason I have to be mad at you.” That’s what she said. That’s the first thing she willingly said to me after all this time. I could’ve wrapped her up in my arms and spun her around the room, I was so fucking happy to hear those words from her.
Instead, I tried to play it cool. Pretend my stomach wasn’t leaping into my throat, that I wasn’t halfway to jizzing my pants at the progress. “That’s fair. I’m here, Gem. I’m not going anywhere. Whenever you’re ready to talk, or to listen, you let me know.”
She nodded once at me, almost solemn, but I could see this glint in her eyes, this fucking sparkle that’s all her, hiding right there behind the surface, where she’s been trying so hard to keep it locked away from me. And that’s fair, I mean it. She deserves to hold on to her anger at me. I have so much to make up for with her. So much trust I need to win back, earn once again.
It’s fucked that I took twelve years of trust, of being her everything, and I ruined it in just a couple of tantrums. I still don’t know quite how I fucked everything up so spectacularly in such a short time, relatively speaking, but I fucking did. And now I’m here to eat crow for it, forever, if that’s how long it takes.
But, I can’t lie, I’m having a pretty damn great time. The library is chill as fuck. These books she’s having me read are wild , man. Who knew the quiet ones could be so kinky. This shit is a blast. A few have been…particularly eye-opening, and that’s all I’ll say just in case you report back to Gem that I was hating on her precious book boyfriends.
But nah, it’s been great. Watching her in this environment, she seems to be in her element. Having a good time, helping customers out, keeping the place running smoothly, whatever the fuck she does behind that desk, or running around here, half the day, I don’t know. But she looks damn good doing it. Never had a librarian kink before, but if I ever win her over, I hope we get to explore it.
That first Saturday I spent here, ball cap down low, kinda shrunk down in my seat, hoping the influx of people there on the weekend didn’t pay me much notice, it was fascinating. She led this kind of book club thing with all these women, most of them a fair bit older than her. It was a biweekly romance readers' book club, apparently. I definitely eavesdropped, and I know Gem was a little embarrassed about it, but too bad. I’m definitely gonna join in on the next one, now that I’ve read almost ten books these past two weeks.
There’s this guy that volunteers here a lot, Ken, man that dude has some insane stories, he’s been a damn hoot. Doesn’t have a clue who I am, or just doesn’t give a fuck, and I’ve had a blast shooting the shit with him. I’ve taken to sitting in on his weekly sci-fi and fantasy book club meetings just to hear him talk more.
I haven’t learned to use the Dewey Decimal System yet, but can you blame me? It’s the closest I’m able to get to Gem, her leading me through the aisles, me following close behind, my eyes trailing how hot she looks in absolutely anything she’s wearing. That little ass of hers has definitely become one of my favorite images in my spank bank. TMI? Sorry. Anyway, it’s just encouragement to read faster, so I get to follow her again that much sooner.
I’m outraged when I get through the fantasy series she’s had me on this week, only to find the next series on my list isn't stocked by the library system.
“What the heck, Jellybean?” Maybe it doesn’t sound as mad as I feel when it comes out. But it’s bullshit! This is a library! It’s supposed to have books!
She tries not to laugh at me. “Those are self-published. An indie author. They’re almost never in libraries, or even bookstores for that matter.”
“Well how are people supposed to find and read them then!?” I sound indignant. I know I do. You want a book, you go to the bookstore, or else the library. It makes no sense.
“E-readers? Kindle app? You can buy them online, on Amazon, or the author’s site? Support them directly?” She says it like it’s obvious. Like there’s so many ways to do it. I still think it’s bullshit.
So I go through the rest of her list at once, sacrificing several days’ worth of my favorite walk of the day to get her to pull all the books they have in stock for me, so I can mark which ones aren’t here.
And then I do some online shopping.
Finally. Finally . It’s my lucky night.
Not my night to get lucky—to clarify. I’m not the kind of cocky that assumes I’ll be blessed by the gods of sweet, sweet release anytime soon. Not with the girl in front of me at least—the only one I have any interest in, the only one that matters. Nope. So it’s just her (in my imagination) and my hand for the foreseeable future. But wow, is my imagination about her something special every night when it’s just me and said hand, alone in my bed, or again in the shower each morning before I bring Gem her morning coffee with that same hand.
Ever since my awakening, as I’ve come to think of it as, I can’t not see her raw beauty every time I look at her. Her delicate features twist my insides with this fiery desire every time I look at her. It’s fucking distracting. That little nose of hers is so damn cute, and the way she’s got the lightest freckles that go across it, out to her cheeks on either side—you’d never notice them unless you’re just inches from her face, and then you can’t miss them. It’s like an optical illusion or something. But it’s her top lip that I find my mind wandering to the most. It’s always been a little larger than her lower lip, but I’ve never been so obsessed with it in my life. It looks so damn soft, so full and plush, I need to know how it feels against my skin, my mouth, wrapped around my?—
“Hello.” Her voice sounds formal, detached, almost cold when she uses said lips to interrupt my train of thought before it hits the tracks of no return, but I know she’s putting this air on to keep distance between us. That’s good for me. That means she’s warming up to me, but she isn’t ready to yet. And that’s okay. I haven’t gotten to tell her hardly any of what I need to. That night, after my mom smashed me into a million pieces before putting me back together again, when I came to see her and beg her not to shut me out…I hardly said a thing of what was on my mind. Just the bare minimum for her to not kick me out forever. I’ve been waiting for my chance to open up to her, but she hasn’t been ready. And that’s okay. Now that I know what I want, what my life should look like, I’m a patient man. I’m going to keep putting in the work until she hears me out, and beyond that. Forever, if she’ll let me. And if she won’t? Well, I’m not ready to consider that possibility yet.
So tonight, that looks like hearing her out. Letting her tell me her side of things. I’m not sure I’m ready, not sure I can handle the blows that will hurt so much more than physical ones to my gut at hearing how badly I hurt her, all the ways I ruined what we had between us. But I need to, and I know that.
So here I sit. On one of two cheap, flimsy, white plastic chairs that sit on her back stoop, a sorry excuse for a patio. But no neighbors are out, so it feels private, and we’ve got the cool, autumn air of the early evening to keep us company, along with the breeze rustling the leaves in the trees bordering the shared yard for this building. The distant Blue Ridge mountains far beyond are fading with the sunset, no color visible in their silhouette, just shadows against the pinkish orange sky, but the sight is a comfort all the same. It grounds me, makes me feel like I’m home, just like she does.
When she plops down in the other chair, not two feet from my left, my eyes latch onto hers and don’t let go. “Hey.”
She takes a deep breath, eyes scanning the horizon, hopefully taking comfort in that mountain view, just like I do. Gem’s gorgeous, impossibly soft brown eyes come back to mine and she could break my heart with the look in them alone. But her words don’t help that situation, either.
“I’m going to talk. There’s a lot I haven’t said to you, and some stuff you might need to hear again, or maybe I just need to say it again.” There’s a break in her voice that hints at how much pain she’s holding back right now, and I don’t have the words to tell you how much I loathe myself in this moment. “I need you to listen. I don’t want you to say anything to me, just let me get everything out, okay? There’s things I haven’t had the courage to say for ten years, and I’m going to try to get it all out tonight. But I need you to realize how hard this is for me, and just…let me talk.”
I lick my lips, pressing them together to hold back everything I won’t be able to say tonight, and just nod my head, silent assent. I promise to be what she needs tonight and always. I just pray she lets me prove that to her.
“I fell in love with you a long time ago, Aaron. I couldn’t tell you when, what day it was that I realized it, because I don’t think there was really a time where I wasn’t in love with you. As kids, that looked like something else. But as we grew up, went through puberty, matured, so did the way I felt about you. What started out as just a constant desire to be around you, be with you as much as possible, turned into this…longing. You’ve always been my happy place, you know? You were the constant in the storm for me. Where I could go for comfort, for a little bit of joy even if other shit sucked, you know? And that wasn’t something I was willing to risk rocking the boat on. I didn’t want to lose what I had with you for anything, even if it meant all of my dreams maybe coming true. The chance of me scaring you off, of you telling me you didn’t see me like that—you didn’t want me in the same way I wanted you…nothing was worth that risk to me.
“But there were so many times where I thought ‘this is it. It’s going to happen today. This is the day he’s going to tell me he wants more from me. He’s going to look at me and see everything I’m not saying, and make a move.’ And you never did. I can’t tell you how many nights I fell asleep to that dream. It just became my way of life. Pining after you. Waiting for our forever to kick in. I kept hoping I’d work up the courage to tell you myself, in case you were just as scared as I was. But after the time you freaked when I wore something revealing for the first time…”
My stomach churns, turns over on itself at the wistfulness, the worry in her voice, and what makes me the sickest is knowing she was right. I really didn’t see her like that. Never noticed her in that light. I wouldn’t have wanted her back. Had she confessed her feelings to me years ago, I probably would have gotten spooked. Of course I would’ve tried to maintain the friendship, I know she would’ve too, but there’s no doubt in my mind that we would’ve been irreparably changed after that. There would’ve been a distance between us after a confession like that, a fear on my part of getting too close to her, leading her on. To say nothing of how the embarrassment, the letdown, the devastation of an admission like that not being reciprocated might hurt her, affect how she felt around me.
“I knew I didn’t have it in me. I wasn’t brave enough to be rejected by you on something as big as how I felt, what I wanted for us. And I vowed to wait for you to make the move. I just didn’t realize you’d wait until it would hurt the most to do it.”
She scoffs, turning her head away from me, staring off for a few heartbeats where I’m positive mine isn’t beating at all. Her voice is smaller than I want to hear it when she continues. “I couldn’t bear the thought of that kind of rejection from you. So I took what I could get from you. Gladly.” A sad smile graces her lips. “And then…you started dating.” She lets out a big exhale, her chest falling with the motion. “It wasn’t easy to see you with other girls, I can’t lie about that. But we still spent so much time together, you were so good about splitting your time. We still had our friendship, and it was still sacred. And for so many years, I watched. I watched you with these girls, in and out of your life, and I tried not to take it too personal. I knew they didn’t come close to what you and I had. I think I always kind of had this belief that one day, things would change with us. This weird kind of certainty that we’d end up together, somehow, some way, someday.”
She keeps talking like she isn’t ripping my chest open with every line, every confession that leaves her lips. The fact that she’s talking in past tense isn’t lost on me, and those are the claws that pierce into me the sharpest, doing the most damage to my vital organs. Not just my heart, but my guts, my lungs, too, because it feels like I can’t breathe with what she’s saying to me.
How long she’s gone through this with me—she’s felt exactly this kind of longing I’m stuck with now for a fucking decade. I have no clue how she’s survived it. She’s goddamn amazing. It’s been less than a month for me, and I’ve gone certifiable over it. It smacks into me with unerring aim how many opportunities I missed to have everything I ever wanted, and how fucking stupid, how completely blind I was to never have noticed. Now that I finally have? I know I’m too late, but that’s not going to stop me from trying like hell anyway.
“So I tried to pass the time by dating myself. Except… I couldn’t.” She brings her eyes back over to mine, searching my gaze for a few seconds, looking for something she must not find, because she looks away again, back at the horizon before continuing. “Every guy I looked at, I compared to you. His arms felt wrong, because they weren’t yours. He didn’t laugh at my jokes, couldn’t make me smile the way you do. He wasn’t the right kind of nerd for me. He didn’t get me the way you did. Nobody compared. Nobody was…you.” Her eyes meet mine again, and I know mine are wet, but I can’t help that. I stay silent, just like she asked, despite the unspoken words roaring up my throat, demanding to be heard by her, but I don’t let them out.
“Plus, when I had a ‘boyfriend,’” she uses air quotes on the term to show she was never serious about any of them, “it took away from my time with you. And at the end of the day…I always would’ve rather been with you than any other guy. There was no doubt in my mind, we were supposed to be together. You were it for me. So I stopped trying to pretend, stopped trying to force something that was never going to happen. I just…waited.”
I swallow heavily, my eyes slamming shut. All those times I wondered about her relationships, even pondered her sexuality, all because she was single for so damn long. And that was all because she knew all along what I’ve only come to realize in the past few weeks. I couldn’t feel like more of an idiot if I tried. But I have a feeling she’s about to help me with that.
She lets out a depressed sort of chuckle, looking back at me, eyes dropping down my frame, snagging on my chest, my stomach. “I even thought…these past couple of years, I thought maybe you were realizing it, too. That time you got the call for Rough and Tumble , and you had me pressed against the counter…” Her voice trails off.
I fight the urge to bite my fist, knowing exactly what she’s referring to. How I backed her up against the cabinets, the kitchen counter, flirted with her like I’d never done before. And then I just walked away, like it meant nothing to me. Didn’t let myself see what she saw between us.
She drops her head and gives it a sad little shake. “I thought maybe you were fighting the same thing I was. That you wanted me, too, but were too scared to ruin what we had. For so long after that, I thought we might’ve been on the same page. We had this routine down, it was so comfortable, it felt right. Our lives were completely intertwined, but it was so smooth, so good between us. The only thing missing was that last little bit of ourselves.” She brings one arm up from where it’s been perched on her knee, holding a fist over her heart. “Giving in, giving ourselves over to one another. I was sure once that happened, that would be it for us. And that morning we woke up on your couch, feeling you behind me…” A tear must drop from her left eye, because while I can’t see that cheek from where I’m sitting, staring at her, fixated, her left hand comes up to wipe at that spot almost angrily. I have never wanted to hold her so much in my life as I do in this moment. What I wouldn’t give to have her cradled in my lap right now, my hands on her cheeks, holding her steady as she spills all of her truth to me.
“I was so stupid,” she whispers. “I thought that was it for us. The turning point. Where we’d both finally give in.” Her head tosses back as she lets out a dark laugh, staring at the sky for a moment. “I’ve never felt so stupid, Stone. Never as when you took that moment to tell me you’d found the one . Someone who wasn’t me.”
My stomach bottoms out through my asshole, and I could puke. I’m not sure how I haven’t yet, truth be told.
I plead with her silently to look at me, read my mind, anything it takes to know how sorry I am. I never thought Kayla was the one. Yeah, things were going pretty good between us, but I was just fucking nervous that morning, freaking out that I woke up with a hard-on pressed into the ass of my best friend, and I hadn’t even told her I had a girlfriend. I was seven kinds of fucked up that morning, feeling so disgustingly guilty for all of it, and I regret so many things about that time period of my life. Taking Gemma for granted and pushing her away were the worst of my sins, by far. And it feels like that morning was the start of my downfall. How I ruined us.
“Anyway,” she shakes her head again, like she wants to forget the memory, how it made her feel. She looks back at me, her eyes a little red now, and I want to die. “I can tell you I’m sorry for never taking a chance on us sooner. For loving you so deeply since we were twelve and thirteen, for half our fucking lives, and never being brave enough to tell you about it. But I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for kicking me out of your life, for the things you said to me.
“When you made me doubt my role in your life, in the life we shared, I lost that confidence. Not just in us, but in me. And I doubted everything we’d had, because I could never have done that to you.” Her voice wavers, and this time I see the tears that drip down her face. She turns to look at me. “I already had the whole world telling me I wasn’t good enough for you. I didn't need you to tell me that, too.”
If she keeps talking I might actually die. She does.
“I hate you for waiting until I was finally, finally in a healthy relationship, the first one I had hope for in my entire life, at twenty-four fucking years old, for you to start thinking maybe you want me, too. For the way you acted. Making a move on me.” She tilts her head to one side, thinking it over. “Twice, actually. Making me doubt my feelings for him. Throwing a damn tantrum. Coming between him and I, and breaking us up. I never did that to you, no matter how badly I wanted you for myself. How much better I knew you and I would be together than any of the girls you dated or hooked up with. And I don’t know if I can ever take whatever feelings you claim to have seriously, when all it looks like from here is you throwing a fit for wanting what you can’t have.”
She stares off into the distance, her eyes unfocused, while she breathes deeply for a good half a minute, and all I can do is stare, transfixed at this girl I’ve loved more than anything for all this time—even when I was too stupid to realize it—who I’ve hurt possibly beyond repair. I stay silent, because the least I can do is respect her wishes after all the times I didn’t.
“And the way you treated me as something disposable, attacked my professionalism, my character, at the same time as my friendship, after all the sacrifices I’ve made across my life for you…” Her voice wavers now, she’s blowing a breath out that I can hear the tremble in, and if I had a razor in hand, I might cut my own heart out to try to give it to her if it would help. I couldn’t begin to name the sacrifices she’s made for me, but her skipping out on her entire youth, her college experience, her chosen career path to be by my side, are the first things that come to mind.
“I never had a problem with you, with us, being all I had going for me in my life. Until you turned that against me, used it like a weapon to attack me with. Made me feel so fucking weak and stupid for it.” She takes a second to regain the stability in her voice. “But I don’t think you realize how hard it is to have a life outside of you, kid. The lengths I’d go to to protect you. How I can’t let anyone in, let anyone get close, in case they’re using me to get to you. How demanding our schedule was, how little time I had for anything else, even my own family. There wasn’t exactly a lot of room for growth in other areas of my life. And I never minded, Stone. Not once. Because I thought we were all each other needed. And I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you for taking that away from me.”
The hot burn of shame travels up my throat, all the way up to the backs of my eyes, where it tingles, moisture gathering and pooling there.
However badly you hate me right now? I promise you, I hate me more.
“But it’s been a good few months for me. Spencer was good for me.” It feels like a torpedo went through my stomach, tearing me open from the inside, leaving a hole the width of my entire body in its wake. Surely I can’t recover from a wound like this, but when I look down, I’m somehow whole, in tact. It’s a lie.
“I got to find out more about myself, without you. Who I am on my own. Had some fun. Had a couple jobs. Even made some friends, I think. It’s been healthy for me. Last Sunday, after you gave me a fucking Mercedes and left, which I still think is ridiculous, by the way, I finally launched my designs. Haven’t sold anything yet, I guess I have to figure out how to market them.” She gives a little shrug, almost self-deprecating, but I had no idea she’d launched a fucking business on her own. I’m so goddamn proud of her. I want to hear all about it, see her designs, but continue biting my tongue instead of begging for anything more she’ll give me. “But it’s kind of cool to have something going on for me, just my own for once. Something I love.
“So as sweet as it is that you got me a car, and are bringing me coffee and lunch, and reading my favorite books…what I’m saying is that I’m hurt , Stone. And I don’t think that can be undone. But I wanted you to know what you’re working with. I wanted to be up front with you about the extent of my feelings. For once. It’s time for that. Because it’s a long way to go to get anywhere close to where we were before, to say nothing of taking things further, assuming that’s what you still want. So if you’re not all in on this, if you don’t mean those things you said to me that day—” she gestures behind her, inside her townhouse, where I said what I did, “—with everything you’ve got…I need you to walk away now. Not get my hopes up again , because I won’t recover from another round with you.”
A noise finally escapes my chest—some sort of strangled sob—and I think she can hear the terror in it, the pure fear, because her eyes meet mine, and I know she can feel the panic emanating from me. I bolt out of my chair and drop to my knees in front of her, ignoring the biting cold of the cement through my jeans, the way it ravages my knees, the twinge it causes in my bad one, and I wrap my arms around her, bury myself in her the way I’ve been desperate to since she started talking; since she shut me out long before that, really.
My head is sideways, pressed flat to her chest, and for once there’s nothing sexual going through my mind at the feel of her body against mine. My arms are squeezing her tighter than they probably should, but I don’t know if she wants me to speak yet, and even if she said I could…I’m not sure I actually can right now.
So I show her with my body. I hold her, so fucking tight, my chest rattling as I attempt to take deep breaths, steadying myself against her with each shuddering inhale and eventual exhale. After a few rounds of those, she brings her arms up, out from under my grasp, and gingerly wraps them around my shoulders, holding me to her gently, but it calms me. This touch is the most honest thing I can offer her right now, and I hope she feels the sincerity in every beat of my heart as it’s pressed against her torso. Where I hope it stays for the rest of our lives. Because I’m never walking away from her again.