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And no matter which way I went, it was going to hurt.
CASSIDY
“I’m going to miss this place.”
The urge to twirl several times and let out a sad sigh as we walked down the bricked path was quickly squashed by Aspen’s narrowed side-eye. “We’re only leaving for the summer,” she deadpanned, rolling her eyes. “This will still be here in three months when you get back from summer vacation. Actually, if we’re being real, this will still be hereduringvacation, and we only live down the road.”
“Wow, I really do love it when I’m ready to take off, and you just grab me and bring me straight back down to earth like that,” I teased sarcastically.
She shrugged, flicking at the piercing in her lip with her tongue, unfazed by the comment. “I’m a realist, you’re a flighty dreamer. It’s why we work.”
I grabbed at my throat, choking dramatically. “I’m sorry, did you just call me flighty?”
Aspen suddenly started skipping, and for a second, I thought I might actually be in an alternative universe. But then the mocking began. “Flowers and sparkles and orgasms,” she sang loudly, ignoring the couple who grabbed each other and sneered at her as she spun past them. “I love it all!”
I stopped, and she paused just a few feet away, a mischievous grin daring me to deny it. “I do like all of those things.”
She cackled out a witchy laugh and fell into step with me again. “You’re still okay with coming to King’s on Saturday night while I’m on that Tinder date, right?” Aspen questioned casually after a few steps in silence. She pulled at her sweatshirt nervously, tugging it down over her hands.
We paused at the street corner. I had to turn right to work, and she’d head left to the apartment we shared. “Of course,” I told her. “I’ll happily sit in the corner with a hoodie and some dark glasses, watching every move he makes, ready to leap the second he steps out of line.” I placed one hand on my hip and thrust my fist in the air.
The look on her face was classic. With one eyebrow raised, her mouth opened just slightly as if she were trying to figure out how to not offend me. “Um, interesting. Is that your superhero pose?”
I slumped, hands dropping to my sides. “It’s not good?”
“Needs a little work,” she answered, scrunching up her nose.
We walked backward in separate directions. “I’ll try to have it perfected by Saturday night,” I promised, holding up my finger to silence her when she opened her mouth to protest. “Just in case. I promise. I’m sure Benny will be a great guy.”
“It’s Danny,” she called back, throwing her hands in the air and finally spinning on her heel and stomping in the other direction, her inaudible grumbles following behind her.
I couldn’t help but giggle as I turned and began to jog the other way.
Aspen and I had been almost inseparable since I moved in one day after an almost three-hour bus trip where all I did was look over my shoulder and cry the whole time.
I was broken.
I may not have realized it at the time because I’d spent so long in survival mode, but I knew it now. Now that I was free and thriving. I’d even braved a couple of dates in the last month, determined not to let Brian impact my ability to love.
Though they’d both turned into one-night stands because while I was sure he wouldn’t ruin my love life forever, he sure as hell had ruined my ability to get to know someone.
Aspen hadn’t exactly been looking for a beaten, recovering, fearful roommate the day I arrived on her doorstep at her aunt’s suggestion.
I’d even seen the ad she was using to try and find a roommate.
Bedroom available for a female college student only. No weirdos.
I was a bit of a weirdo.
But thankfully, she made an exception because she kind of is too.
The situation was practically perfect.
I enrolled at Boston University a couple of days after I arrived since the campus was close to our apartment. That place was beautiful, and I wasn’t joking when I said I’d miss being there over summer break. Thankfully, though, we had to walk through it whenever we wanted to go to our favorite coffee shop—which was the only reason Aspen had gotten out of bed this early.
She was probably headed back there now, while I hurried down the sidewalk, my bag bouncing on my back as I attempted to powerwalk the four blocks to the small flower shop I worked at—Leaf It To Me.
Flowers kept me sane at a time when there wasn’t a lot of beauty in my life. Once the controlling started with Brian, he slowly eased himself between me and everything I loved. He forced me to cancel so many catch-ups with my friends that they just stopped asking, he made my friends and family seem like the villains for always questioning bruises, and he guilted me into quitting work when a young, attractive guy started working, and suddenly, I must have been cheating.
