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Gloria cringes at my use of the F-word.
“Buck, please…” From Aspen.
“Look. Unless you can tell us who these people are, and why they had something against Aspen, it sure as hell looks like you’re involved.”
“I had to wait in the locker room until they left,” Gloria says. “I couldn’t risk them even thinking that I might’ve heard them. So I waited. I waited, and when I finally heard them walk out, I waited some more.
“Why?” Aspen asks.
“Because if the two of them saw her coming out right after them, they’d know she might’ve heard them,” I say dryly.
“Yes, exactly,” Gloria says.
“Here’s the thing,” I say. “Would you even be thinking that at the time? If you are who you say you are, and who Aspen thinks you are, why didn’t you go straight to the authorities? Or at least to your coach? Why didn’t you report these two?”
“How could I report them? I didn’t know who they were.”
“You didn’t have to know who they were to report them,” I continue. “All you had to do was go to your coach. Go to the volleyball commission, or whoever governs professional volleyball. Go to whoever would listen. Especially after Aspen didn’t return the next day, and then the next.”
Gloria stays quiet.
And Aspen finally speaks. “You didn’t want me to come back. You wanted my position.”
Gloria says nothing more.
“Perhaps you didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Aspen,” I say, “but by not reporting what you heard, you guaranteed she was never found. So those five years she spent on that island? They’re on you, Gloria. They’re on you as much as they are on the people who sold her out.”
40
ASPEN
I’m frozen. Frozen in time. My veins have turned to ice.
Gloria. The look on her face is contorted, sad, remorseful. Tears well up in her eyes. Her lips tremble, but I’m over it.
I can never forgive her.
“If I could go back,” she says. “I would do it all differently.”
I say nothing.
Buck says nothing.
“Please believe me. Things are different now. Things changed after that, and that’s why Taylor and I broke up.”
“How does your breakup with Taylor have anything to do with this?” Buck asks.
“She told me she loved me after that. Told me how proud she was of me that I had the position on the team.”
“You guys hadn’t said I love you before that?” I ask.
“No. We were kind of just fooling around. I mean, I know I’m very close to my religion, but I never took the adultery thing seriously. And I use birth control.”
“Why would you need birth control with Taylor?”
“I didn’t. I use it now. With my husband.”
“So you switched sides?” I say.
“I never really had a side. I’ve always considered myself bisexual. And two years ago I met a wonderful man. But we’re not ready for kids yet, so I use birth control.”
I say nothing.
Buck says nothing.
“Please. If my husband finds out any of this, what will he think?”
“That you didn’t report what you heard?” Buck says. “Well, if I were him, I’d—”
I glare at Buck. Then I wonder… Why do I still care about Gloria?
“Gloria,” I say, “I will find out who did this to me. And you will help me.”
“But my marriage…”
“If your marriage is worth saving, it will be saved,” Buck says tersely. “If not, it won’t be.”
“I thought all of this was behind me…” Gloria sniffles.
“It will be behind you when and only when Aspen is able to confront the people who ruined her life.” I curl my fingers in a fist, and it takes every ounce of strength I possess not to ram that fist down on the table.
“So you’re going to help me,” Aspen says firmly.
Gloria sniffles again. “All right. I’ll help you. If God can forgive me for what I’ve done, perhaps Brian can as well.”
I attack Buck as soon as we get back to the hotel.
I rip his shirt down the middle, sending buttons flying.
“Baby… My shirt… It’s my only one.”
“Yeah, and you’ve been wearing it for days. We’ll go shopping. Right now I need you. Please, Buck. Now.”
Escape. That’s what I want. All those nights I dreamed of escaping that horrible island, but I never was able to escape anywhere but my mind… My escape consisted of blocking out the most horrific memories.
Now though? I can escape into Buck’s magnificent body.
“Do you want to talk? I know you think that Gloria—”
I silence him with a kiss.
I shove my tongue into his mouth and kiss him hard.
He returns my kiss. He’s a man, after all. Sure, he cares. He gave me the chance to talk if I wanted it.
I didn’t want it.
I may never want it again.
I may want to just have sex and fuck and screw his brains out until my own brains are nothing but mush.
Mush for brains.
