Chapter Twelve
Aspen didn’t really sleep. Most of the night was spent rolling around inside of her sleeping bag, her stomach in knots.
How had a fun, flirty trip turned into dragging a self-centered grump through the woods against her will?
Especially one that she was actually interested in.
If Virginia was here for the previous day’s trip, she’d make some snide joke about Aspen’s type being jerks.
Which was correct; antagonistic people were her bread and butter.
But there was something even worse going on here, something that Aspen had not quite experienced in her life.
Mo had taken responsibility.
In all the years of conflict where Aspen felt she was being treated unfairly, the other person had never apologized in the way Mo had last night.
It was so unfamiliar that she had nothing to compare it to.
Her parents had never apologized, always projecting their own mistakes back onto Aspen.
Kyle had apologized, but only as a way of bringing back Aspen’s affection and usefulness.
Mo, on the other hand, let her know that she was fully in the wrong for how Aspen had been treated and placed the ball of moving forward into her hands.
And it had kept her up all night.
The birds had been singing for hours at this point, and the heat of the sun rolling around inside the tent finally urged her to move.
With a deep breath, Aspen tried to suppress her anxiety as she made herself presentable before unzipping the door.
Her eyes easily adjusted to the morning light as she stepped out into her Crocs, extending her back to full height in a stretch.
After she took in another deep gulp of redwood air, Aspen finally looked in the direction of where Mo had decided to camp for the night.
She couldn’t help but smile at the woman, who was seated cross-legged on her sleeping pad, her hair pushed in four different directions.
“Good morning,” Mo offered sheepishly. “Did you sleep well?”
Staying mad wasn’t in Aspen’s DNA, so she sighed and trotted toward her companion. “Morning. And, uh, no.”
“Me neither.”
“Mmm,” Aspen hummed, wondering if she should sit on the ground cover with her.
Mo must have read her mind, patting the other end of her sleeping bag before asking, “If you are comfortable, I would love it if you’d have a seat with me.”
Aspen dropped to her butt easily, mirroring Mo as she scooted to face her.
“I don’t want to make any excuses,” Mo began, her eyes dropping to her hands where she was absently picking at her cuticles. “I know better and I uh—I wanted to explain but I don’t want you to think that it’s an excuse, ya know?”
“Honestly.” Aspen squirmed, her eyes also on Mo’s hands. “I kinda get why you yelled—”
“Don’t.” Mo looked up, concern in her eyes. “You had nothing to do with any of what I said. I was frustrated. I’ve been frustrated for a long time, actually, and I blew up on you. Which is shitty and totally not what you deserve.”
Warmth spread through Aspen’s chest at Mo’s carefully chosen words, and she met her hazel gaze, seeing conviction behind her eyes. “Yeah, it sucked.”
“It did and I’m sorry.” Mo’s face was as genuine as Aspen had heard in her voice. “And I’m even more sorry I lied to you about being a backpacker. I—I don’t know why I did that.”
“To seem super hot and cool?” Aspen joked, breaking some of the tension.
“I wish.” Mo laughed. “I’ll be totally honest, I said it because I wanted you to leave me alone.”
Aspen giggled. “That didn’t pan out did it?”
“No, no it did not.” Mo smiled crookedly before adding, “But that’s all I lied about. Backpacking was Annie’s thing and I came up here to…” Mo dropped off, her eyes now unfocused. “I don’t know why I actually came up here.”
“To honor her?” Aspen offered.
“No.” Mo shook her head. “To die?”
The honesty in those two words hit Aspen hard. How would she go about talking to Mo about something like that? So she decided not to respond, instead allowing Mo the space to explain herself further.
“But, I think even that was an excuse.” Mo nodded, her voice sounding relieved. “I just want it to stop hurting so much.”
“I read you all wrong,” Aspen said, pulling her knees up to her chest.
“How so?”
“A sad, attractive woman trying to grieve?”
Mo’s eyebrows went up in contemplation before she nodded in agreement. “That might be more accurate than you think. I just like to complicate things and make everything harder than it needs to be.”
“Losing someone doesn’t mean the feelings die with them.”
A small smile curved at the edges of Mo’s lips. “You are too nice to me.”
“Thank you for apologizing,” Aspen said, her voice stronger. “And thank you for coming clean about not knowing what you were doing. I will admit, I let you suffer a little bit there.”
“You did?” Mo chuckled, rubbing her hands together nervously.
“Yeah, I regret it, though. You probably fucked up your back a little in the process.”
“Actually,” Mo said, sliding her hands around the ground cover. “The sand wasn’t as bad as I thought. My back feels a bit better this morning. And I’ve always been kind of a grumpy person. I think I just like to complain.”
“That you do. It gets old real quick too.”
“Sorry. Annie said my worst quality was my penchant for complaining. Even at the smallest things.”
“Can I ask you a question about Annie?” Aspen leaned her chin on her kneecap as Mo nodded. “Why didn’t you go backpacking with her?”
Mo’s head rolled back in contemplation. “I wish I had a wild story about a freak accident or terrible experience, but much like Annie’s dislike for my boat, I just was never interested.”
“Oh, she didn’t like your boat?”
“No, and I never really took it personally. When you love someone, you learn their boundaries and what they like and don’t like.
Annie took Opal backpacking once and got her hooked, and since I wasn’t a fan, I never really considered it a bad thing to let them do their thing.
We were in a band, so we had a shared hobby. ”
“You were in a band?” Aspen asked, remembering a bit about a guitar but not a band.
“Country and folk cover band. It’s actually how we met.” Mo smiled wide, obviously reveling in this memory. “To tell you about it, I have to give you a bit of a backstory.”
“All right, how about you tell it to me over there while I get some coffee and breakfast going?” Aspen offered.
“Sounds good.” Mo stood, stretching slightly before offering a hand to Aspen.
“So I grew up in a little town outside of Boston, with normal Christian-adjacent parents. Nothing much happened until my best friend, Bud, who I think I’ve mentioned to you a few times, moved to my town from somewhere in the mountains of Virginia.
We met in marching band, he played snare while I played the bass drum, but outside of school we would jam with guitars and stuff.
We became fast friends, giving each other the support that our families were terrible at providing.
When I applied to Stanford University to get away from New England, Bud followed suit in solidarity, even though he barely made it a semester before dropping out to pursue a career in big-rig repair. ”
“Hold on, let me go grab the bear bag.” Aspen stopped her, moving to the tree down the creek to pull down the bear bag she had hung the previous night, all the needed items for breakfast inside.
She quickly returned, humming in excitement at being allowed actual insight into Mo’s past. “What was your major?”
“Computer Science,” Mo replied. “But I thought about law school, so I took a lot of prerequisites for it. It’s kind of how I ended up doing Internet fraud investigation as a career.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” Mo stood by the fire circle, her hands sliding into her pockets. “Can I help in any way?”
“No, just keep talking,” Aspen said, moving firewood she had collected to start a fire. “I’m happy to be learning more about you.”
“Okay. Uh…where was I?”
“Stanford. You and Bud.”
“Right. Well, Bud dropped out, but he kinda secretly lived in my dorm after my roommate decided to stay off campus with her boyfriend. So toward the end of my freshman year while I was in class, Bud was strolling around Old Union, which was like a place students hung out and studied. He had come across a flyer on one of the corkboards for tryouts for a folk and country cover band that would take pop songs and turn them into country.”
“That sounds really fun,” Aspen exclaimed, pouring water into a pot.
“Bud thought so too, so he grabbed tabs for us since they needed drums, guitar, and a keyboardist. He called and set up a tryout before I could even say no. The band was Annie’s, something she started after her ex had told her she’d never be good enough to sing for a crowd.
” Mo finally sat on one of the large rocks near the fire.
“One thing you’d never do is challenge Annie Reeves. She’d prove you wrong every time.”
“Reeves?” Aspen looked up. “Did you take her last name?”
Mo smiled and shrugged. “Felt honoring her was meaningful, I guess.”
“No shade. I like it.”
Mo blushed slightly, sending a small shiver down Aspen’s spine. She went back to tending to the fire, trying to get it to the phase best for adding the pot.
“Anyway, Bud pretty much forced me to try out. Which I am glad I did, because once I saw Annie on the poster, I totally forgot about my reservations.”
“What did she look like?”
“She was beautiful. Dirty-blond hair, blue eyes, and confidence for days. Every room she entered, she owned. If I had my phone on me, I’d show you a picture.
I was already pretty smitten by the time I got to her rented garage in Palo Alto.
I was also thankful I had brought my steel guitar, showing off my skills a bit, ya know?
Funny thing was, she wasn’t impressed with me. Like at all.”
“Really?” Aspen asked with a laugh, raising up to full height. “I can’t really see that.”