15. In Which Aiden Remembers
IN WHICH AIDEN REMEMBERS
W hen I emerge from my bedroom a short time later, it’s to find Juniper talking on the phone.
“Yeah,” she’s saying, her face serious. “All I’ve been able to find are a couple news articles about his death. Beyond that I can’t tell what else happened.”
I meander over to the fruit basket, grabbing an apple and polishing it on my new, non-ketchup-stained shirt. Then I lean back against the counter, making myself comfortable as I wait. I take a big bite, my eyes remaining locked on Juniper.
“Yeah,” she says again. “So his name was Thomas Freese. T-H-O-M-A-S ,” she spells. “Last name Freese. F-R-E-E-S-E .”
She falls silent as her friend—Matilda, I think she said—says something on the other end. She bites her lip as she listens, her face growing even more serious. Then she sighs.
“Honestly?” she says, playing absently with the bobby pins on the counter. “Someone mentioned that he and my mom might have been involved right around the time I was conceived.”
Another beat of silence as she listens, and then she nods slowly. “Yeah. It’s possible. So that’s why I wanted to see what else I could find. You know I’ve never really stressed too much about finding my father, but…” She shrugs. “I kind of want to follow this and see where it goes.”
After another moment of listening, her body relaxes, tension draining out of her shoulders. “Thank you,” she says, sounding relieved. “I know you’ve got a lot going on. How’s Ned?”
Matilda’s answer to this question is longer than anything she’s said so far; Juniper is quiet for probably two full minutes.
I watch with a growing smirk as her attention visibly wanes, until she’s tapping her fingers impatiently on the countertop.
When she finally speaks again, though, her voice is warm.
“I’m so glad,” she says. “You guys deserve to be happy. Let me know when you decide between princess cut and oval. And send pictures!”
They exchange goodbyes and then hang up, and Juniper’s body sags slightly.
“You know how some people just require a lot of energy? Matilda is sort of like that. And she cares about a lot of things that I don’t care about, but I always feel like I have to pretend.
It involves a lot of nodding and smiling.
” She turns to me, looking tired. “That’s why we get along better over text and chat than we do in real-time conversations.
She’s going to look into Thomas Freese, though.
She said she has a few ideas of places she could search. ”
“I’ve known a few of those people,” I say. “I think keeping things virtual is fine.”
“Me too,” she admits. Then she brightens. “Enough of that. Are you ready to pick some locks?”
“I guess,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck.
I’m rethinking this whole plan, to be honest. This always happens to me; I make a commitment and then regret it not ten minutes later.
And while I do still understand Juniper’s desire to research firsthand the things she’s going to be writing about, it’s been a long, food-fight-filled day.
I want to sit down and read a book or ten.
I also want to force each and every student involved in that food fight to spend a week volunteering at the food bank.
How can I make those kids understand? How can I make them get it? I can’t send an entire cafeteria’s worth of kids to Rodriguez. We don’t need more workers; we need more funding.
“Hey,” Juniper says, waving a hand in front of my face, and I jump.
“Yeah,” I say quickly.
“You’re spacing out,” she says. “There’s no time for that. We’re on a mission.” Then she smiles at me and says, “Let’s use your door.”
“Oh, no,” I say quickly. “No. If you fail horribly and end up breaking a lock, I don’t want it to be mine.
And you know what”—Ha! A potential out!—“maybe we should check with my sister to see if she’s okay with you doing this.
She might not want to risk damage to the doors.
” Yes, that sounds good. Surely Caroline will say no, and then I’ll have a socially acceptable way out of the plans I already regret making.
“Ooh, yes,” Caroline says over speakerphone three minutes later. “Try it. What are you going to use?”
I roll my eyes, rubbing my temples. What is it about my sister and Juniper that gives me a headache?
“Bobby pins,” Juniper says. She’s leaning over the counter, speaking into the phone, her chin propped in one hand. “I’m going to try bobby pins.”
“And this is for a book you’re writing?”
“Mostly, yeah. Although in the interest of full transparency, I do have to admit that part of me is just excited to try it. But if I somehow end up breaking something, I’ll pay for a replacement,” Juniper says quickly. “Is that fair?”
“Yep!” Caroline says. “As long as you’re willing to cover any damages you incur, I think it sounds like fun—oh, hang on.
” There’s a shuffling sound on the other end, followed by the sound of my sister bellowing at her children, “ Hey! No! Do not put that in your mouth —hey.” She returns to Juniper and I sounding breathless.
“I have to go. My kid is eating soap.”? *
“Naturally,” Juniper says with a nod. “Go.”
“Great,” Caroline says. “I’ll just continue to live vicariously through you.”
Juniper laughs, but it doesn’t sound quite natural. My eyes narrow as I study her, trying to figure out why she sounds so weird. I think…huh. Interesting.
I think she can’t quite tell if Caroline is making fun of her or not.
“Yeah?” Juniper says, running one hand self-consciously over her hair.
“Yeah,” Caroline says. “You’re rocking the pink bob and wearing sexy dresses and writing books and picking locks— no, Myra, put it back!
Put it back on the counter. We do not eat soap, sweetheart —hey, you two, I have to run.
Let me know how it goes.” And then she’s gone, the call ending in a flurry of breathless chaos.
“She was being serious,” I say, because Juniper is still looking like she can’t quite tell. But whatever else Caroline is—loud, nagging, overly involved, nosy—she’s not a bully, and she’s not mean. “About living vicariously through you or whatever. She wasn’t making fun of you.”
“Ah,” Juniper says now, looking uncomfortable. It’s a weird expression on her, one that doesn’t fit quite right. “Glad to know I’m so transparent.”
I shrug, picking up a handful of the bobby pins still piled on the counter. “So are we gonna do this or not?” Changing the subject seems like the tactful thing to do here.
“Yes,” she says, her expression clearing. “Yes. Okay. So if you don’t want to use your door?—”
“I really don’t.”
“Then we can use mine. But I need you to go inside the room in case I can’t pick the lock. I don’t want to end up locked out of my own bedroom.”
“So you just need me to hang out in your room while you try to unlock the door from the outside,” I clarify. “That’s it?”
“Yep,” she says, scooping up the remaining bobby pins. She pushes them to the edge of the counter and then catches them in her other hand, and for the first time I notice that today her nails are army green.
Well, sitting in her room won’t be bad. I’ll bring a book.
So I run to my room and grab Hamlet , emerging a second later. “Okay,” I say. “Let’s do it, I guess.”
Juniper eyes the book I’m holding, mutters something that sounds an awful lot like “wildly pretentious,”? * and then heads out of the kitchen, bobby pins in hand.
I follow her—up the big stairs, around the corner, and up the little stairs.
? * I wait for her to open the door, just to be polite, and she ushers me inside.
“Go in and lock the door,” she instructs. “Feel free to poke around or lie on the bed or whatever. Make yourself comfortable.”
I nod, stepping into the small loft and closing the door behind me. I turn the lock and then take a second to look around, trying to decide where to land.
And…well. My intentions really are pure at first.
I brought my book for a reason, after all. I fully intend to sit on the bed and read while Juniper tinkers with the lock.
Except…I’ve never been in Juniper’s room before. Not since she moved in. And regardless of my hold-ups about her, I can’t deny that I’m interested. Not interested interested, as in romantically inclined. I’m just…interested. I’m curious. This woman frequently leaves me scratching my head.
“Hey,” I call before I can think better of it. When I hear a pause in the clicking and scraping sounds coming from the other side of the door, I say, “Can I really poke around?”
There’s a beat of silence before Juniper answers, “Yes—if you promise you won’t judge me no matter what you find. And…if I can do the same in your room.”
Of course I’m going to say no to that.
Right?
I’m going to say no to that, right?
“Deal,” I say. It slips past my lips too quickly, too easily.
I press my hands to my cheeks, feeling them burn; I feel strangely naked having agreed to this.
Not because of what she might find in my room, either—more because this proves to her that I want to learn more about her.
I don’t need her getting the wrong idea.
But it’s too late now. I’ve opened the lid to my Pandora’s Box, the part of me that’s almost hungry for more information about this woman.
I don’t want to count her bras or peek into her underwear drawer; I want to peek into her mind, her heart, her past. She’s managed to interrupt my life so thoroughly, and I want… more.
I want more .
More interruptions. More pink hair. More insults flung back and forth over the dinner table.
I want more, and I will take that secret to my grave. No one—not Juniper, not my sister, not my solitary friend at work—will ever know that there’s something about this woman that I crave.
I can’t have a relationship with this woman, romantic or otherwise. We’re roommates. She has baggage. And I…
I swallow.
I’m keeping a secret from her.