Page 22 of Among the Screaming Trees

I can’t comprehend her pain. Both my parents are alive, and two out of my four grandparents are too. I have a sister and a brother as well. Seven-year-old Aspen only had her dad, himself a broken man.

“Ugh,” she says again, blinking away tears she will not let fall. “There would be days where he’d work for almost twenty hours straight because his notes took precedence. He was meticulous with them; they both were. Then on other days, he would barely get out of bed. He’d drink to the bottom of a gin bottle and cry a lot. I’d get myself up for school in the morning, get dressed and brush my teeth and hair. When I arrived home, I’d make sandwiches with whatever food we had in the cupboard.”

“At seven years old?”

“No, I was eight by then,” she adds, almost wistfully. “The Aldereyne surname is now more than a noose around my neck. A curse, if you will.”

“Why?”

“Because some of Dad’s peers said he was drunk when he submitted the last of his paperwork to journals for review. He was brutalized, his findings slammed not by some peers, but by all of them. Yes, he was drinking heavily for some of that research, but I read over what he and Mom had discovered when I was a teenager. Their findings had merit and warranted further investigation, not ridicule and abandonment.”

I crawl over to where Tali is tapping away on her phone screen. The search brings up page after page of the former trailblazer who spiraled into a discredited drunk following the death of his young wife. Young wife. Why the media has to seize on morsels for clickbait, I’ll never understand. Then there are articles related to his disappearance, and more theories about whether he remains alive.

“Your dad went missing when you were fifteen?” Tali shrieks.

“Yes. I was almost sixteen. Almost eight years to the day after we lost Mom, Dad disappeared. No note. Just… gone. It was the day after the school formal, so I slept late. I heard Dad get up, make coffee, and start the car. He left and never returned.”

This time, I scoop her onto my lap. Aspen curls into me instinctively, her limbs locking into the recesses of mine. I hold her to my chest, so she can feel the steady thump of my heart through her skin. Both her parents left. She was sixteen and on her own. She’s not on her own anymore. Aspen has Tali as a roommate. I can be… whatever she needs. Right now, under me is where I’d prefer her to be, so I can kiss away all the pain and replace any tears with orgasms.

“Shhh,” I soothe, although she’s not crying. Tears are held hostage by lids that refuse to let them fall. Stoic, brave, and beautiful.

“There was an investigation into Dad’s disappearance. The police came and took things from the house. Some of his work from his old college tenure. It’s like he vanished into vapor. There is no way he would leave me on my own. None.”

I rocked her gently, content to let her drive the dialogue. When I suggested she tell us about herself, I never expected this to tumble from her full lips. She’s been through one hell of a wringer. And life spat her out again. “So, your interest in botanical science is in your DNA?”

“You could say that,” she agrees, perking up somewhat. “Please don’t repeat what I’m about to tell you both to another soul.”

Tali nods at her friend, stuffing a fifth slice into her mouth while her thumb picks at the label on the beer bottle. “I promise,” I breathe into her neck as the skin under her ear breaks out in gooseflesh.

“The research my dad and mother started, and what Dad was still working on after she passed, was connected to his disappearance. I’m sure of it. Something in his notes was too important, or too damaging. I don’t believe he disappeared. I think he was taken.”

“Fuck,” Tali squeaks again, the label long forgotten. “What was he working on when he went missing?”

“A cure for MND. Or if not a full cure, an inhibitor. He has narrowed it down to proteins that slowed the nerve atrophy based on a plant they discovered together.”

“Whoa,” Tali says, committed to this fairy tale. She’s invested. “And you know this from the research the cops didn’t take? Anything he left behind?”

“I know this,” she says with surety, “because I’m the one continuing their work.”

I carry a comatose and snoring Tali into her bedroom, and with Aspen’s help, lower her onto her unmade futon. I’m tempted to throw a blanket over her and call it a day. Talking may slow down her food consumption, but not her drinking pace. That chick can throw beers back as enthusiastically as her next sentence forms. By the time Aspen has removed Tali’s makeup with a wipe and placed a bottle of water on her nightstand, it’s late.

“I’m sorry we kept you up talking. You must be exhausted.”

On her tiptoes, she can just reach my chin to plant a soft kiss. Through two days of stubble, I can just make out the contact of her pillowy lips, and I want more. So much more.

“You can stay if you don’t want to go back to your dorm,” she says. Every movement of her tongue inside her mouth has my dick stirring.

“I would love to stay. Let me just text Fox real quick. I don’t want him worrying when I don’t come back.”

“You make a habit of staying out all night?” she teases, and my stirring cock is now wide awake.

“Only if pretty girls are involved.” I tap out a message to Foxglove, letting him know that I’m with a friend who needs me, and I’ll see him in class. Then I follow my little tree into her bedroom, before we strip down to underwear and climb under the comforter. Simple skin is my preferred pajamas; I get too hot for layers of fabric. But, as I’m a guest in Aspen’s space, and a gentleman, I keep the boxer briefs in place, and cuddle up behind the most surprising, strong, and sexy little tree. I kiss her shoulder, listening to the sounds of our breathing fill the room. With my leg resting atop hers, and my arms around her in my cocoon, we drift to unconsciousness.

Chapter Eleven

Aspen

THE LARCH (LARIX LARICINA)