13. SEVEN
SEVEN
Eden
“Oh my God, you have to do it!” Aspen squeals, pelting a throw cushion at me in her excitement.
“What? I thought you didn’t want me going anywhere near him.”
After meeting Alex at the bar the other night, my sister spent the rest of the evening monologuing about how wrong Alex would be for me. I’d told her that at no point did I believe Alex was right for me, but she’d continued as if I’d declared my undying love for him.
At one point, she’d pulled up Google and forced me to look through page after page of photographs of him with beautiful women, each one different from the last. And then, in her closing argument, she’d told me that I deserve more than a man who will “fuck me once then leave me out to dry like a pair of crusty underpants.”
She has a way with words, my sister.
“Yes, yes, I know.” She waves me off as if nothing she’s said until now matters at all. “But three million dollars? Three million dollars, Eden!”
I’d had the same reaction when I heard the figure for the first time too.
I’ve never even dreamed of having that kind of money.
Have never allowed myself the luxury of fantasy, because fantasy breeds hope.
And hope, though a nice thought, is an indulgence and a distraction. One I can’t afford to have.
Hope doesn’t pay the bills. It doesn’t go to work sick because it can’t afford a day at home.
It doesn’t drag itself out of bed, exhausted and depleted, because it has a ten-year-old boy counting on it to get him to school on time, to feed him, to be his source of safety and strength so things don’t fall apart.
Three million dollars would change everything for us, but at what cost?
“I know.” I nod, curling my legs under me on the couch. “It’s insane.”
“Think of what it’ll do for your life. You’d have your own bedroom.
Imagine, an actual fucking bed that doesn’t need to be folded back up every morning just so you have a place to sit.
And you could go to design school, just like you’ve always wanted.
Oh my god”—she shoots up to stand and bounces on the balls of her feet—“you could get a dog!”
Sleeping on an actual mattress that doesn’t have a hump in the middle from the bar support would be spectacular, I admit.
“Aspen, slow down. I don’t know if it’s a good id—”
“No, seriously, think about it. You’d never have to see Anderson again, and Sebastian wouldn’t be able to use money as a reason to take custody of Macon. You wouldn’t need to worry about how you’ll make rent for months. Hell, maybe even years!”
Her eyes are so wide and bright as she grins at me that I almost don’t have the heart to tell her that I’m pretty sure I’m going to turn Alex down.
“That all sounds great, but…” I sigh, picking at the stitching of the cushion she threw at me earlier.
Her face falls. “But?”
“It’s too risky. If Sebastian finds out I’m lying, he’d have an even stronger case against me to take Macon away.”
She waves me off like it means nothing. “Then don’t let him find out.”
“It’s not as easy as that. He’s famous, Pen. There will be media and paparazzi and PR outings, whatever the fuck they are. So, I wouldn’t just have to convince a small handful of people that the relationship is real. I’d have to convince the entire fucking country.”
Aspen pauses her manic pacing to stroke an imaginary beard in thought. She first started doing it as a pre-teen to make us laugh, but it developed into an unconscious habit over the years. “That complicates things a little.”
“And there will be media interest. Paparazzi. I’ll be photographed with him just like all those other women you showed me, and I don’t want to live under that kind of scrutiny.
I especially don’t want Macon having to deal with that bullshit.
He didn’t choose this. It wouldn’t be fair to him to disrupt his entire life like that. ”
She lowers herself to the couch beside me. “I think you can keep Macon out of the media. Celebrities even more famous than Alex do it with their kids all the time.”
“Yeah, but they have money and lawyers.”
“So does Alex. And so will you if you accept the deal—the money part, at least.”
She makes it sound so easy. Like all of the reasons stopping me from doing this have simple fixes.
But Aspen hasn’t had the same life that I have.
She hasn’t spent the last ten years of her life imprisoned in a cage of someone else’s making.
She doesn’t have to risk assess every decision she makes because of how it might impact someone else.
She can live her life for just her. But I don’t have that same freedom.
“Well, that’s sort of another reason why I don’t want to do this.”
Her eyebrows shoot toward her hairline. “The money?”
“Wouldn’t I effectively be an escort?”
She throws her head back with a laugh and slaps her knee.
“First of all, there’s nothing wrong with sex work, you know.
So long as it’s by choice. Women have been policed on what they can and can’t do with their bodies for centuries, so let’s not look down on the ones who actually exercise their agency.
” She flicks me on the nose in admonishment.
“Best believe I’d sleep with a man for three million dollars, especially if he looked like Alex.
You know, I’m not usually into the whole man-bun thing, but I wouldn’t mind pulling on it while he—”
“Aspen?” I cut her off before my ears start bleeding. “Can we stay on track?”
“Oh, right, sorry. I was saying that while there is nothing wrong with sex work, I don’t think that’s what this is at all.”
“But he’d be paying me to be his girlfriend.”
She nods. “Yes. But it’s not like it’s just one way, is it?
You need him too. And you said so yourself that he’s not expecting you to have sex with him, though I really think you should.
I reckon being railed six ways from Sunday would help you be a bit less…
” She trails off, looking at me pointedly.
“A bit less what?”
“Stiff.”
My mouth drops open. “Excuse me? I’m not stiff.”
I take the cushion from my lap and slap her across the face with it. She yelps, swiping it out of my hands before stashing it behind her back with a soft laugh. “You know what I really think?”
“I dread to think,” I deadpan.
“I think you’ve spent so long living in February.
And now Alex has come along, and he’s July, and he’s offering you this incredible thing that, yeah, is super risky and probably makes you want to throw up, but it’s fun, and it’s different, and you need something fun and different.
You need to remember that you’re so much more than just a mother.
Let this opportunity pull you out of the depressing gray skies and into the sunlight.
” She pauses, her eyes softening as she reaches across to wrap her hand around mine.
“And, E, you deserve to feel the sunlight. You deserve it more than anyone I’ve ever known. ”
I don’t know what it says about me that I understand every one of her bizarre analogies, but I think she’s right.
It would be a blind leap of faith.
A risk so great I don’t think I could live with myself if it failed.
But if it worked…
Crazy as it is, agreeing to Alex’s scheme would be an infusion of summer in the Februaryness of my life.
And I’m so tired of February.