Page 8 of Never Say Yes To Your Brother's Best Friend

Aspen

I’ve learned two things since yesterday afternoon when I gave my hand away in a sort of—I’m ashamed to say—unholy matrimony. I know I’m cheating at this. We both are. The fact that we only got married because of the letter, and then we set a deadline to make ourselves feel better. We did it so we can both move on and have peace.

One, I’ve learned that my new husband—and jeepers, that word is total cringe—is a crabathon, through and through. He’s the crabbiest of apples, a total crabfest, crab bag, marathon of crab.

Two, money will get you anything, even a fast wedding in a backyard full of unkempt gardens that were once probably nice, with a stranger marrying you and a stranger as a witness.

We got married right away. Might as well get it done and over with and start the timer on the two-week countdown. We both agreed we would keep this between us and as secret as we possibly could. My parents don’t even know I’ve left Atlanta.They’ve been kind of distant over this past year. We were so close before, but now, when I text them every other day, they’re fine. There have been weeks where I haven’t gone over to the house, and they haven’t visited me at my apartment. That would have been unheard of before, but now I think we all need our space to process, grieve, and try to get our lives and hearts back. It doesn’t mean we don’t love each other.

They work. I work. We’re all busy being up in our heads. I don’t mean to say they aren’t involved in my life. Because they are. We still do things together. Things like family dinners, hanging out, and holidays. I go and help them with yard work, we go for walks, and they come and chill at my apartment. We also still sit and do nothing at all. It’s just that if I say I’m busy or preoccupied, they’ll think I need space.

I don’t want to lie to them, but they aren’t ready for this kind of truth yet.

I wore a white sundress I packed, which was the nicest of the few dresses I owned. It was a gauzy number—like it was made for the beach—with a bit of lace. Patrick, on the other hand, wore black jeans and a black Henley. I almost laughed when I saw him dressed that way for the ceremony because I thought about how I first imagined him in a suit. I’m not even sure he owns one. He looked entirely menacing, and I think the JP was glad to get out of the twisted, decaying backyard. We both said the words. And yes, it’s official. I’m now a wife. When Patrick recited those vows, he sounded so disconnected. We both probably did.

But.

But it’s a brand new morning.

I get out of a king-sized bed that is about as comfortable as the couches downstairs, which is to say, it feels like it’s a sheet of super soft fabric over total concrete. Oddly enough, nothing hurts. Not my shoulders, my back, or my neck. That’s probably because the feather pillows make up for what the bed isobviously trying to perform in good posture miracles. The sheets were so soft that they felt impossible. Like they came straight from clouds or from a spider’s arse. I suppose they aren’t silk, but if they were, then they would come from a worm’s arse, so it’s not as far a stretch as you’d think.

The house is what most people would call minimalist. I call it cold and bare, but hey, it’s not mine. I’m just a guest here, and if Patrick likes the rooms spartan to the extreme, then all the power to him. He said he doesn’t, but who knows? He could be saying anything. I wouldn’t know. I don’t know the first thing about him.

I’m wearing my fluffiest pair of pink pajama bottoms and a black tank top. I brought Hilda One and Hilda Two with me, and now, they flip and snap as I walk to the huge set of windows. Yes, they do happen to be furry slides, and yes, I did name them.

The house is basically a series of cubes and wild slanted rooflines. And from here, I get a good look at the backyard. You can tell it was once glorious, but that was a hot minute ago, and now it’s just bleak. The only things living back there are weeds and a few trees that look like they’re barely hanging on. There are also no flowers. Just a lot of dead brown grass, dead twisted vines, dead brown branches, and dead brown other things.

Looking at the sad, sad backyard reminds me of how I feel inside right now. Bleak. Not good. There’s a decided lack of flowers blooming in my heart.

I fulfilled Jace’s last wishes, but no, as I didn’t do it the right way or in the right spirit, I was tormented by the dishonesty of it all night. I am not going to get more than this, but it is my choice where I go from here. I can wait out the two weeks like it’s the most unbearable time of my life, or I can try to get to know the sour crabapple who is my husband. I can shut myself off, and we can live in a world of silence before we go our separate ways andcall it total incompatibility, or I can open myself up and fill these fourteen days with happiness and kindness.

I study Hilda One and Hilda Two. My toes stick out the front, nearly covered by all their fluttery purple furriness. They look like they want me to try.

Sometimes, people act like prickly pears, Aspen, because they’ve had a shit run of things. Sometimes, they’ve been seriously wounded on the inside. Sometimes, it’s a persona, but other times, it’s real because there’s been a decided lack of goodness.

“Umm,” I grunt. I know I’m carrying on a conversation with my slides here, but hey. It’s not like I’m going to confess to my parents or any of my friends that I just went across the country and married a total stranger. They’d lose their ever-loving minds and shit total bricks. Shitting bricks cannot be good for bowel health. Just saying. “He seems incredibly rich. He could buy goodness if he wanted it.”

That won’t make up for what he hasn’t had in the past.

“How do we even know that’s true? That’s just a thing I was thinking.”

Money can’t buy happiness.

“It can buy a heck of a lot of things that spark joy. It can take you to places where it’s easier to cultivate peace or whatever.”

Money can’t change the past.

My throat gets thick. “You’re right. Look at you. Smart slides. It can’t.”

I know what I said yesterday. And I know what we decided. But now I’m deciding that even though this marriage might not be real, I’m going to try. I’m not going to try to love Patrick in that way, but I think he does need some kind of loving, even if it’s just friendly. I need to honor the spirit of Jace’s wishes, and I can start there.

So after getting dressed and heading to the bathroom down the hall to brush my teeth and throw my hair into a braid to keep it from turning into a knotted mess throughout the day, I head down a staircase that looks like it’s made of concrete and engineered by the willpower of some very clever architect. Both those things are probably true, but it appears to be floating on air, which is incredibly unnerving.

I head into the kitchen. The house is utterly silent. Like, the appliances aren’t even buzzing or humming kind of silence. I’m so scared shitless of this first day, this first meeting, the first moment of the next two weeks, that I probably have a constipated look on my face.

The whole place is a work of art, but the kitchen is a masterpiece. It’s torn right from a design magazine and brought to life. It’s better than state-of-the-art. The cupboards look like they’re floating above the lower bank. Half are open, raw wood shelves, and the top? I think it might be concrete. Jesus. I run my fingers along the smooth, hard edge. It’s definitely concrete.

Talk about trendsetting.

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