Chapter Forty Seven

Aspen


I'd returned to my former school in Monument, Palmer Ridge last week, lucky to be able to still enroll in all of my classes that I needed to keep on the course of going to college to get my nursing agree.

Each day was just as the last, going through the motions but feeling as though I wasn't actually living. I felt empty. I mean, my stomach pretty much always is, seeing as how I can't keep anything in it for more than half an hour, but I'm talking about in my heart, my soul.

It was like I'd left a piece of me behind in Hawthorne.

The only time I feel anything is when my phone screen lights up with either a text or phone call from Boston. The more we talk, the more guilty I feel or how I reacted, even though he's tried to comfort me by reassuring me that he doesn't blame me for my reaction.

I've tried talking to mom, trying to explain that I think I was wrong and that I would be fine if she wanted to go back home and be with Collin, but she seems reluctant, always saying that she'll think about it.

"Dude!" my friend, Camilla-Cami to all of those close to her-said coming to a stop beside my locker before the first bell of the morning rang. "You look like death warmed over. What's going on with you?" She asks, not one to pull any punches.

Placing her hand over my queasy stomach, I gulp, swallowing down the rising bile, "not feeling well," I manage to murmur, keeping the bagel that I'd eaten before leaving the flat not even a half hour ago at bay.

"Seriously though, babe," she says, sliding her arm through mine as we begin making our way to class, "what's the deal? You up and leave suddenly, no one hears a word from you for months-I'm still pissed about that by the way-and then you just show back up, looking like you've been brought back from the dead. I've not asked, trying to respect your privacy and hoping that you would talk to me on your own about whatever it is, but you look worse and are becoming more withdrawn with each day that passes." She stops just outside of the classroom door and takes my free hand in hers, "I love you, and I'm worried about you. You are not the same happy, feisty girl that left. What happened to you?"

I sigh, realizing that there's no getting around this, "Come on." I tell her, pulling her from the doorway and back down the hall until we're shoving through the entrance doors to the gloomy, overcast, fall day surrounding us.
"So, it started with my mom marrying this guy, Collin," I start, once we're sitting in her car. I come clean, telling her everything I can remember, even telling her about my being pregnant. "So...yeah..." I mutter, tears filling my eyes once I've finished, feeling emotional all over again.

"That's fucked up!" Are the first words out of her mouth seconds before she's wrapping her arms around my neck in a near strangling hug, "I'm so damn sorry, Aspen."

We stay like that for several long minutes, Cami allowing me to cry it all out on her shoulder before pulling back, "So, a baby, huh?" she says, glancing down at my still flat stomach like it's going to pop out at any second.

I nod, pressing my lips together, "yeah, crazy, right?"

She smiles, and it's genuine and one of pure excitement, "I'm going to be an aunt!" she squeals, jumping up and down in her seat, "How far along are you? You're still so tiny."

"I'm only around ten weeks. Most women don't show until around their forth month during their first pregnancy-at least, that's what I've read." I tell her, hoping that's the case. If so, I'll be graduating before anyone should actually notice anything more than me looking like I've just put on a few pounds.

"So, this Boston guy, he has brothers?" she asks, lifting her eyebrows up and down suggestively.

"He has three other brothers, their quads." I tell her, thinking about the four boys I left behind and what Raleigh, Cheyenne, and Brooklyn have told me about them.

"Damn girl!" she says, shoving my shoulder, "how did you pick just one? And how do you tell them apart?"

"Honestly, I don't remember." I tell her, shrugging because this is the awkward part, not being able to answer questions that should be so simple.

"You'll get there. You're already having flashes. It's only a matter of time." She pulls her phone from her pocket, busying herself with scrolling through her social media as I think about what little I remember, as well as what the girls have told about the boys that I left behind.

Boston was crazy about me, and that I could believe. He sounded so heartbroken when we spoke the other night, and it kind of broke my heart.

Lincoln and I, although *clearly* not as close as me and Boston, we're pretty close as well. He was always there for support, someone to talk to if I couldn't talk to Boston about something and knew how to make me laugh. He treated me like I truly was his little sister.

Jackson and Dallas, I guess we weren't really that close. They were there anytime Boston needed to go to the hospital, but I don't really know that much about them, and Cheyenne, Brooklyn, and Raleigh haven't really been able to give me much about what type of relationship we had either.

"Is it weird that I miss him?" I ask her, suddenly breaking the silence inside of the car. "I mean, I don't remember much, but yet I miss him. I feel like a part of me is missing, and that he's that missing piece."

"Awe!" she says, making a face to match the sound, "that's *so* sweet."

"It's weird. How can I miss someone that I don't really even remember? A relationship that I only have brief glimpses of?" And now, I'm beginning to confuse myself by getting in my own head, a state that I've basically lived in since the fragments of time started coming back to me.

"I've never been in your shoes," she says, rolling her eyes and shaking her head muttering "obviously" under her breath, "but wouldn't being around them and the people and places that you *don't* remember, help you *to* remember?"

"That's kind of my thoughts too, but Mom doesn't seem like she wants to go back." I shrug, voicing a thought that Mom hasn't said, but it's what I think is going on, "I think she's torn and hurt. Her daughter is having a baby with her stepson, and she doesn't know how to feel about that-especially on the heels of me accusing him of what I accused him of," I say, refusing to say the word again. "But, I also think she's hurt that Boston told Collin about us and he didn't talk to her about it, and instead kept it to himself."

"I can see where she's coming from." She says, making a face that shows exactly how she feels about it, "I mean, she's hurt-she doesn't know if she can trust him. Him knowing about you and Boston, although it was you two's story to tell, was big and he didn't come to her about it when she found out. And then, when it all was said and done, lines were drawn, and sides were taken. Maybe she doesn't know where she fits in anymore."

"Maybe." I say, really trying to put myself in my mom’s shoes and see things from her perspective. "You know, I tried to fight it, my attraction to Boston. I was terrified that it would come between Mom and Collin and look what happened."

"Oh, honey, it's so much more complicated than that." she says, placing her hand on top of mine on the center console.

"Don't I know it." I snort, thinking, and not for the first time, just how fucked up this entire situation is.

"Thank you for telling me,” she says softly, the look on her face conveying just how much it means to her that I confided in her, especially after being apart all these months, even though, for me, it doesn't seem like months at all.

"Thank you for letting me cry on your shoulder." I tell her, glancing at the wet patch on her shirt.

"Now, we need to figure out how to get your memories and man back." She tells me, rubbing her hands together like she's plotting something.

And honestly, I don't know whether to be grateful, scared, or excited.