Chapter 35 Genevieve
Genevieve
I hold the little vile in my hand that contains the white substance. I examine both the vile and Aspen's face as I wait for a reply. I think I know what it is. I know I know what it is, but I don’t want to believe Aspen has this in his coat pocket. So I wait for him to give me an explanation.
I wait and wait and wait.
But nothing comes out of his mouth.
It’s just a stupid little glass cylinder, but it might as well be a bomb.
My fingers tremble like they know exactly what it is before my brain can admit it.
It’s not just drugs.
It’s betrayal in powdered form.
“Aspen. Answer me. What the hell is this?” I ask him again more hysterical. I try to keep my cool, but all I see right now is my dad and that is the last thing I want to see or think of when I look at Aspen.
He was supposed to be different.
For a split second, he looks like my dad; that blank, stuttering face.
That silence that’s louder than any apology could ever be.
His mouth is open like he’s about to reply, but nothing comes out. He better have a damn good explanation. This better not be what I think it is. I already had to deal with my dad and his problems. I don’t want to deal with Aspen’s.
I won’t.
He takes too long to reply so instead of waiting any longer, I toss the vile in his lap and exit the balcony, heading into the apartment.
Maybe it’s not his. Maybe it’s old. Maybe it’s…
No. Stop.
I know what this is, and I know what it means.
I go into the room and without giving it much thought, I begin to pack my bags.
I won’t stay in the house of someone who does cocaine.
Aspen followed after me and is now speaking to me, but I don’t hear him.
My thoughts are louder than his voice and all they’re doing is telling me to get the fuck out of his life.
I should have seen the red flags. How did I not?
I always thought I could spot the signs. I had front-row seats to the fallout.
And yet here I am again. Falling for the same kind of ghost.
I feel like such an idiot. It all makes sense now. That’s why he barely eats. That’s why his nose was bloody that one night we were having sex and it dripped on me. That’s why everything!
I stop packing for a second to think about what’s really happening. Tears cloud my vision and Aspen is in front of me looking like a blur. Maybe that’s what he is now.
A blur in my past. And I’m the idiot who thought he was my future.
We literally told each other we loved each other last night. Was that all for nothing? Was I so stupid and blind? Am I like my mother? Too naive to notice such disgusting habits. He was just playing me the whole time, but it ends here. He will not play Genevieve Brown any more!
I continue to ignore Aspen’s words. I can only assume he’s begging for me to stay, for a second chance, anything, but I won’t give it to him. No.
I’m leaving.
My dad did this to my mom and I won’t relive the same heartache. My mom was in love with my father. They lived a perfect romance novel, until my dad encountered the drug. With that he became a totally different person. He stopped eating, sleeping… loving us.
I found him one night cheating on my mom with someone who looked my age.
My mom was on a girls trip in Barbados. The house smelled like liquor and bad decisions and the coffee table was covered in coke.
I found her fucking him on the couch and I will never get that vision out of my mind.
By the time I left he didn’t even bother chasing after me.
He never even apologized for what he did; for cheating on my mom.
For breaking our family. He thought I was spending the night with a friend.
I guess he didn’t know me well enough to know I didn’t have any.
I was just out, hanging with one of my brothers and then decided to go home.
Sometimes I wish I never did so I wouldn’t have seen that, but the other part of me is so glad I did so I could tell my mom.
I hate his guts.
And right now, I hate Aspen’s too.
I zip up my bag and throw my coat on. I leave on the pj’s I was wearing because I don’t want to be here another second. I try to get out of here as fast as I can. I haul my luggage over to my car and throw it in the back seat.
Aspen follows me outside too as if he could possibly change my mind. I get into the driver’s side and am about to close the door when Aspen gets in the way.
“Genevieve, please. Let me explain!” He says frantically. He sounds frustrated and confused and I can’t help but feel the same way. But it still doesn’t make me care about how he feels.
“There is nothing to explain. Goodbye, Aspen,” I say, then I shut the car door creating a barricade between us.
I pull out of the parking lot, my hands trembling against the wheel.
As I shift into drive, I tell myself not to look back.
I shouldn't, but then I shift the gear into drive and I make one last look toward Aspen’s direction.
I wish I didn’t, but I couldn’t help myself.
My eyes find Aspen’s, and for the first time since I met him, there’s no warmth, no comfort, only disappointment, only heartbreak.
The eyes that once felt like home now feel like a place I can never return to, and I think he knows it too.
My chest tightens as I press the gas, as the distance between us stretches wider and wider. I watch him in my rearview mirror, his figure shrinking, blurring, until he’s nothing but a shadow, then suddenly he’s gone.
And just like that, I leave half of my heart behind in Colorado.
With my eyes glued to the road, tears sting, burning at the edges, threatening to spill. I blink hard, willing them away, but the past crashes into me like a wave I can't outrun.
The night I found my dad cheating on my mom.
It was my sophomore year of high school.
My mom was on a girls trip, and my dad was in a dry spell, he hadn’t booked a film in months.
I couldn’t help but think he was jealous of her success.
My mom had a steady job with a steady income.
It was the only explanation that made sense, the only thing that could justify the way he drowned his frustration in drugs and women.
I was close with my brothers, so sometimes I’d go over on the weekends to spend the night. I told my dad I was heading over and, for once, he didn’t argue. I drove over after one of my volleyball games, exhausted, but relieved to get away for a bit. But when I arrived, the house was empty.
I shrugged it off, took a shower in the guest bathroom downstairs, and tried to settle into the quiet. But when I came up, dressed and ready to head back up, I found Adam in the living room—with a guy.
I knew Cole was still working at the hospital, so I figured I’d just slip out and leave them some privacy.
It wasn’t a big deal to me. I was happy Adam was getting some romance in his life.
Or so I thought… I always had a feeling he was gay but he’s never come out to me or anyone in our family.
I always just put that night behind me since so many other things were going on.
When I pulled up to the house, the lights were on and through the bay window that overlooked the living room, I saw him. My dad.
And someone else.
It couldn’t be, but as I squinted, my heart dropped. It was.
A woman, straddling my father.
But not just any woman, not the one I’d seen before. No. This was a woman who wasn’t my mother.
I blink back tears, but they burn in my eyes, threatening to spill. I don’t know what to do, where to go, or what to say. So I do the first thing that comes to my mind, storm in and make him feel it, make him feel what he’s done.
I throw open the door with such force that it slams against the wall, and my father jumps, startled. His eyes meet mine, wide with shock, but I don’t care.
The woman who had been sitting on his lap quickly hides her face in her hands, like she’s ashamed, but I don’t feel sorry for her.
She just broke this family.
And I could feel it, the weight of everything shifting in that instant. My world, my family , fractured in front of me.
I stopped caring what she looked like once I saw all the powdered snow scattered across the coffee table.
My dad looks coked out and he still hasn’t said another word. So I scan the room, my eyes wild, desperate to find something, anything, that will make him feel the weight of this. The hardest thing I can grab. My gaze lands on it: the Golden Globe sitting proudly on the mantle.
Without thinking, I grab it and throw it at him with every ounce of fury I’ve got. The globe shatters the glass coffee table into a million jagged pieces.
I move to grab the next thing on the mantle, but he’s faster this time. He lunges for me, grabs my wrist too hard and tries to yank the next award from my hand.
“Stop!” he barks, his voice low and hoarse. But in the struggle, the sharp edge of the shattered table slices across my skin.
I don’t feel it right away, not until I look down and see the blood.
It’s a clean cut, but deep. It’ll leave a scar.
He stares at it for a second like he can’t believe what just happened. Neither can I.
But that’s not enough. I don’t stop.
The girl jumps up, scrambling to run, but it’s in that moment, when her face turns toward me, that my stomach turns. I feel like I’m about to be sick.
It’s Molly.
My best friend. Or, at least that’s who I thought she was.
My very underage, ex-best friend.
The rage rises in me like a storm, I start flinging every damn award off the mantle: Oscar, Golden Globe, Oscar, Tony, Oscar; hurling them at her face like they’ll somehow make her feel the destruction she’s caused.
That was the moment the forest fire began. My dad was the spark. Cocaine was the fuel. And the rest of my family? We were the trees in that forest, caught in the blaze, burned beyond recognition.
After my dad, I stopped believing love was safe.
After Aspen, I’m starting to wonder if love is even real.
Maybe I’m not meant for love that lasts.
Maybe I’m only good at surviving the endings.
I remember the way he looked at me in the spring. Like I was something sacred. I wonder now if he was high then, too.
I wonder if every moment I’ve spent with Aspen was while he was strung out on coke.
I drive faster to get home. Although Nebraska doesn’t feel like home. It just feels far.
But right now, far is all I’ve got.
And maybe it’s the only way I won’t run back to him.
And as I cross the state line back into Nebraska, I feel all those feelings come rushing back.
Aspen feels like the flame now. And once again, I’m just another tree in those flames.