The River Speaks

Chapter Thirty Seven: The Necklace

Chapter Thirty Seven: The Necklace

Feather like kisses are being placed all over my face, forcing me out of sleep.
I stir slightly.
"I'm sleeping." I mumble.
I hear soft laughter.
"Merry Christmas Eve."
I shift slightly and open my eyes.
I'm facedown in bed. My clothes are strewn all over the floor, and Aiden is sitting next to me in his boxers. He looks like he's been awake for a while.
"It's Christmas?" I mumble
"Tomorrow." He says, brushing my hair out of my face.
I become increasingly aware that I'm naked.
I glance at the floor where my clothes are, the memories of earlier or last night or whatever it was surfaces in my mind and I can't help the shit eating grin from taking over my face.
I hide my face in the mattress and his hand reaches out to brush through my hair.
I'm so happy.
He makes me so happy.
I peek my head up.
"I've never felt this way before." I admit, sitting up, I hold the sheets to my chest.
"What do you mean?" He murmurs.
"I've just...never felt this way about another person before. God Aiden, I think I love you more than Ruby."
Aiden knows that I don't love anybody more than Ruby.
"You make me so happy. I've never felt this way before. Have you?"
"No." He shakes his head, smiling.
We had sex, but it wasn't just...sex.
It was more than that in so many ways. It was slow and intimate and he didn't take off any of my clothes unless I said he could and he didn't touch me unless I said he could.
He was so cautious, making sure I didn't feel like I had to do anything.
And we kept telling each other we loved each other and when he couldn't get off my bra because the clasp is broken, it wasn't awkward. We were both in just our underwear and he kept trying and he hid his face in my shoulder and was laughing and my hand was in his hair, and he kissed my shoulder and shamelessly admitted he couldn't get it off.
It wasn't just sex.
He's so much more than just a guy.
He's everything.
I think about all the things I've wondered about him since we've been apart, about all the questions I've thought of.
"Can I ask you something? You don't have to answer it."
"Go for it."
I hesitate.
"How did you get caught?"
His eyebrows raise.
"What?" He asks.
"Like...how did you get caught?"
"Caught?" He repeats. "Do you mean how did I get arrested?"
I nod.
He takes a deep breath.
"Lily, you know I did some messed up stuff." He says. "But some of it was really messed up. I hate talking about it because I hate who I used to be."
I take both of his hands in mine and squeeze gently.
"You don't have to tell me."
"I want you to know what you're getting yourself into." He smiles a little bit.
"Aiden, you're not that person anymore." I murmur.
"I know." He says. "So I started stealing when I was fourteen. I know you know about how my aunt would...touch me." He clears his throat. "But I never really understood why it was such a big deal until I was fourteen. I was mad at the world and I remember I hated my Dad for leaving my Mom and I and taking Olivia away, and I was mad because my Dad had more money than my Mom, therefore Olivia got whatever she wanted because Dad could afford it. Well one day I was at Walmart with my Mom and there was this digital watch. It was like fifteen dollars. I asked Mom if I could have it and she told me that she couldn't afford it. So she went off to the groceries and I told her I had to pee and walked away from her, went back to the watches, and put it in my pocket. It didn't have a security strip or anything on it, so when I walked out without anything happened, I was astounded. I started going to stores and taking stuff, hiding them in my drawers. I got a little older and started watching people I lived near to see when they weren't home. I learned their schedules, even when they went to sleep. So when the kids were at school and the parents were at work, I would go over there and I had an iPod Touch so I was close enough to my house to still have WiFi, so I was watching a YouTube video on picking locks. I tested it out on their house and got in. I took all of the wife's jewelry and sold it to this guy who..." he sighs. "Okay, he was my drug dealer."
"Aiden." I sigh softly."
"You asked." He puts his hands up in defense. "I can stop if you don't want to hear more."
"No, I wanna know." I say, and it's true.
He's still the same incredible man to me. He's made mistakes, but mistakes don't define us unless we let them.
"Alright. I got a ton of money from my dealer and it was around Christmas so I used the money to get my Mom a watch. And she was so happy. I told her I was saving my allowance all year." He looks down, frowning. "So I started taking bigger things. TVs. Game consoles. And I sold them at school. I would take stuff from stores and sell it at school. Literally Lily, I had over a thousand dollars in stuff that I sold." He pauses. "One day though, my grades were slipping and my Mom wanted a conference with my high school teachers. This is after I stole somebody's Maserati and took it on a joyride. Keep in mind that I was careful not to leave any traces, so they couldn't find me. Anyways, at the parent teacher conference, my math teacher had a really expensive diamond necklace that her husband in the military bought her before he died. After the conference, my Mom commented her necklace. Fast forward three weeks, my Mom told my teachers I was staying after school on certain days to study. I'm in math and my teacher excused herself to the bathroom. When she was gone, I decided to go through her stuff. Stealing was just as addicting as the drugs I was on, so I picked the lock to one of her desk drawers and there was the necklace." He glances at me to make sure I'm not hating him or something. "I took it and put it in the pocket of my jeans." He clears his throat. "When I had gotten home it was Friday and Mom always did the laundry on Saturday's. I forgot the necklace was in my pocket and I was upstairs watching my next door neighbors because they were my next target when my Mom started screaming for me to come downstairs. I was high and pissed off, so I went downstairs yelling at her to leave me the fuck alone, and in her hand was the necklace. She kept asking me where I got it and threatened to call the police if I didn't tell the truth." He looks upset so I scoot closer and take his hands in mine, kissing each of his knuckles. "I told her everything from start to finish in detail. She grabbed a master lock, you know, one that you put on a locker? She told me to pick it and I had it open in under fifteen seconds. She started crying and told me to go in my room." He pauses, lowering his voice slightly. "Three hours later there was banging on the door and Mom told me to come downstairs. When I walked down the staircase, two police officers were in the living room. I will never forget the humiliation. The fear." He stays quiet for a few seconds. "I went into withdrawal in jail. I got sober. I learned my lesson. I tried hard in school, since I went to school in jail. I got out and never even thought of taking anything again. It took a very long time for my Mom to trust me again. And as you know, my relationship with my Dad's side of the family is still rough. Olivia got whatever she wanted and I got the short end of the stick. As always."
I'm quiet for a very long time and he looks desperate for me to say something.
"Do you think part of your Mom doesn't trust you?" I ask.
"No." He shakes his head. "No. Whatever part of her that didn't trust me went away because after Amelia and I broke up I kind of changed. I went from jail to college to my relationship with her. I never had time for me to breathe. We broke up and after I graduated, I saved up a lot of money and went to all the people I stole from individually and gave them back the money. And I gave my math teacher back her necklace."
Neither one of us really says anything, mostly because I don't know what to say and he doesn't have anything to say.
"Does that change things?" He whispers.
I look up from our joined hands into his eyes and he looks anxious.
Instead of responding right away, I lean in and kiss him tenderly.
We pull away and open our eyes in sync.
"I've known who you are since the day you drove out to pick me up on the side of the road." I murmur. "The only thing that could make me turn back now is like...a kidnapping or murder or something."
"Well luckily for me, I was never that fucked up."
"You just struggled." I nod. I pause for a minute. "So when in that whole mess did you start writing books?"
His eyes practically bug out of his head.
"How do you know about that?" He asks.
"I found one in your old room."
"Oh god." He says. "Which one?"
"There's more than one?" I ask.
"Maybe."
I get out of bed and pick his shirt up off the floor, pulling it over my bare skin. I pull on a pair of fresh panties from my suitcase and grab the backpack from his Mom's house, sitting back down on the bed.
He watches with wide eyes as I take out the white book.
Gently, he plucks it from my grasp, flipping through it.
And then his eyebrows furrow.
"Did you find me because of this book?" He knocks on the cover.
"Yes."
"Wow." He murmurs.
"What?" I wonder.
"Nothing, just...me being here has absolutely nothing to do with his book. I'm just here because I want to be. What made you think I would be here?"
"You had a quote in there. Something about how you're supposed to get inspiration from-"
"The place of your imagination?" He laughs a little bit and nods. "I wrote that quote when I was like...seventeen, I think?"
"Aiden?" I ask, dragging my finger up his forearm.
"Yes?" He smiles.
"Can I read it?" I point to the book with the hand that isn't tracing the veins in his arm.
"Oh...no." He says.
"But why?" I ask.
"Because it's sloppy and this book is trash."
"Please?" I beg.
"Lily, in the course of literally two chapters they go to Amsterdam, Venice, Paris, and Sydney."
"So? Your Mom said it's good."
"My Mom is my Mom. She's supposed to lie about this stuff."
I pout slightly.
He tosses the book across the room and it thuds into the trash can.
"Please?" I try again. "I promise I won't make fun of you."
"I wrote that book when I was sixteen." He says. "It's the first one I ever wrote."
"But Aiden-"
"You can read the one I'm working on a little bit later." He offers.
My eyes light up.
"When did you start writing? Are you published?"
He opens his mouth and closes it, glancing inside the backpack I have.
"I'm published." He says. "And I started writing in jail to help me focus on my goals. I stopped in college though and started again later."
"Why did you stop?" I wonder.
"Amelia thought it was too feminine." He says. "Which by the way, that's why I didn't tell you."
"I think it's awesome." I say. "It's not too feminine. That's sexist."
"Yeah well she's sexist." He glances at the clock on the bedside table and sighs. "If we want to get back to America before Christmas, we should probably head to the airport."
"Are you coming to Kentucky?" I ask hopefully.
"My Mom wants to see me for Christmas."
"She can come too." I shrug.
"We'll see."

*****

Sorry I've been so busy today
~Sam