*009 | TOO CLOSE
( too close — alex clare)
❝ you know we're headed in separate ways...
and it feels like i am just too close to love you
there's nothing i can really say
i can't lie no more, i can't hide no more
got to be true to myself
and it feels like i am just too close to love you,
so i'll be on my way ❞
6 YEARS AGO ( 2018 )
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
___________________________
ASPEN WALKED THROUGH the door of her and Stiles' new apartment, dressed in a denim skirt, a pale pink button down shirt tucked into the waistband, a tan suede blazer and matching tan knee-high boots. Her hair was long and filled with thick, caramel blonde highlights.
She had gotten new job since her and Stiles made the choice to move from Virgina to New York, but it was still a magazine writing job, which had fairly lenient dress code. It paid a lot better than the last one, and was more promising long term.
She let out a sigh as she set down her handbag on the couch. Their apartment in Brooklyn was even smaller than the one they had in Quantico, the entire thing was just one room, plus a small bathroom that only fit a toilet and a very run-down shower.
Stiles was sat at at the kitchen counter with his head buried in some work, dressed in sweats and a navy t-shirt. His hair was fairly long, very disheveled and messy as if he'd been running his hand through it in stress all day.
Aspen noticed the whole room was in the dark, so she went to switch on the light, only to find it wouldn't turn on.
"Stiles, did you forget to pay the electricity bill again?" she sighed a little irritably, setting down her keys.
"I didn't forget—" Stiles murmured in response, "We just didn't have enough to pay it—again."
Aspen could hear the annoyance in his voice, and she didn't reply as she just let out another sigh, heading over to the corner of the small, one-room apartment where the 'kitchen' was, to make a cup of coffee while he sat there on one of the two stools they had, barely looking up from his work.
Aspen tried to pour some hot water from the tap into a mug to make her hot beverage, but when she held her hand under the running water that was meant to be hot, it was freezing cold.
"And the hot water?" she muttered, clenching her hands around the sink as she had her back to him, but he wasn't looking up anyway.
"Aspen, we barely make enough to pay rent." Stiles sighed.
Aspen turned around to look at him, feeling like his tone was somewhat resentful towards her.
Things had been tense since they moved out of Quantico to Brooklyn a few months ago, normal life problems were starting to pile up on them. While they were living in Virginia, Aspen had gotten a job offer from a magazine firm in Brooklyn, which she was more interested in than her previous job, and it payed a little better too. Stiles said he was willing to up and move their life to New York if she really wanted to follow this dream, even if it meant he had to leave the Quantico FBI office, where he was finally starting to earn respect and make a difference, to move to the New York headquarters.
"Why are you saying that like it's my fault?" Aspen asked, making him finally look up from the counter to look at her.
"I never said it was your fault." Stiles replied dismissively, "I said we barely make enough to pay rent."
"It's the way you said it." Aspen replied, the atmosphere around them growing tense.
"What do you want me to say, huh?" Stiles said, his jaw ticking a bit, "That our apartment in Virginia was double the size of this dump, and cost less than half the rent this place does? Because that's just the facts."
Aspen rolled her eyes, taking off her blazer and draping it over the edge of the other barstool.
"I know what the facts are, Stiles." she muttered under her breath.
Aspen then headed for the fridge to find something to eat as she'd been starving for hours, but when she opened the fridge door, the light was off and nothing in it was cold anymore.
"Of course..." she mumbled, slamming the door shut irritably. "Have all the groceries gone bad?"
"We don't have electricity, what do you think?" Stiles shot back with a sigh.
"Okay, that is it—" Aspen snapped, raising her voice as she looked at him from the other side of the small counter, "Do you resent me for this, Stiles?"
Stiles pursed his lips, letting out a deep breath as he put down his pen and gave her his full attention.
"Aspen, of course I don't resent you." he said, trying to sound soft and endearing, but the tension just made it come across as annoyed.
"You say that," Aspen shot back, "But lately, it seems that everything that goes wrong is my fault— because I'm the one that wanted us to move here. I asked you if were okay with moving to New York and you said yes! You were supportive, you never expressed any concerns or seemed like you were against the decision!"
"What, and if I had?" Stiles argued, "If I told you I didn't want to leave Quantico, I wouldn't have been supporting your dream— and you would've ended up resenting me!"
"I've always wanted to live in New York— you knew that!" Aspen's voice raised.
"I didn't think you meant you wanted to live here when we're twenty-two years old!" Stiles shot back, "I mean you basically just graduated college— we're not making enough money to afford this life!"
"Well what do you want me to do about that?" Aspen exclaimed, "I just started this job a few months ago, I can't storm into my bosses office demanding a raise or a promotion! I'm working my damn ass off right now, Stiles. I'm doing the best I can!"
"I don't wanna argue right now," Stiles sighed, "Please, it's been a really long day, can we just table this for another time? Or hey— you could just write down all of your angry thoughts and feelings and send me a letter or something?"
Aspen fell silent, her eyebrows quivering as her eyes widened, in disbelief that he just said that. Whether he was doing it on purpose, he was just mocking her whole career, her whole dream—the whole reason they moved to this city. He mocked her for what she spent her whole life trying to achieve.
"Do you take me seriously, Stiles?" she asked, lowering her voice from the raised argumentative tone. "I mean— do you really support my dream or do you just say all that stuff because you feel like you have to?"
"That's not it." Stiles replied, "I'm just sick of barely paying rent, taking cold showers and opening the fridge to make dinner only to find all the groceries have gone out of date because we can't afford the electricity on this place!"
"Just say it." Aspen scoffed, "Say you regret this, that we never should've left Quantico, and that you're miserable here."
"I just don't really understand, that's all!" Stiles said defensively, "There was nothing wrong with your job in Quantico, you were happy there! We were happy there!"
Aspen let out a humourless laugh. "Stiles, the office I worked at in Virginia was on the verge of going out of business. It was literally me and seven other writers crammed into a cardboard box of a building. My career wasn't gonna go anywhere if I stayed there."
Stiles just glanced at her, not replying and then pried his eyes away and went back to his work in front of him.
Aspen scoffed, and then headed over to the other side of the crammed one-room apartment to the bed and closet. Before she walked fully out of the kitchen space, Stiles spoke up again, stopping her.
"I got a job offer." he suddenly said, making her stop in her tracks and turn around with a quizzical look.
"When?" she asked, this being the first she'd heard of it.
"Yesterday." Stiles replied bluntly.
Aspen ran a hand through her hair in distress and slowly walked back over to him, trying to put aside their arguing to hear him out.
"What's the job?" she asked.
Stiles went quiet.
"Stiles—" Aspen said again more affirmatively, "What's the job?"
Stiles looked up and met her eyes, seeing her growing impatient as her eyebrows raised, waiting for him to give her an answer.
Stiles pursed his lips hesitantly, and then finally let out a sigh as he responded.
"CIA."
Aspen was taken aback by his response, her eyes widening as she processed. The fact that this happened yesterday and he was only just telling her now in the midst of a fight spoke loudly.
"CIA?" she questioned, like she must've heard him wrong. "What, they want you to be a spy? Or— or some secret agent?"
"It's a federal government agency, Aspen." Stiles muttered, "Stop making me out to be some Bond villain."
"You don't just get recruited by CIA out of the blue." Aspen replied, "How'd you even get an offer?"
"Some guy approached me while I was out on a field task." Stiles explained.
"Some guy just approached you?" Aspen scoffed at the sentence, "That doesn't sound sketchy to you? That a stranger just came up to you and offered you a job to become a secret agent?"
"He said he was impressed with my skills," Stiles shrugged, "They're trying to track down the same killer the FBI has been trying to for years."
"I don't want you to take it." Aspen said with honesty, shaking her head.
"With all due respect, I'm not asking your permission." Stiles muttered under his breath. "It pays a hell of a lot better, we might actually be able to afford hot water!"
"Stiles, I don't want you to take the job!" Aspen exclaimed, "CIA might be governmentally supervised, but we both know it's hardly on a par with being an FBI agent!"
"What about you, huh?" Stiles shot back, "What about that book you've been working on since high school? Surely that could help us with the rent situation?"
"I sent it off to every publisher in Brooklyn a couple weeks ago." Aspen said in a deflated, disappointing tone. "None of them wanted to publish it— it clearly wasn't good enough."
Stiles' expression softened for the first time since she'd walked through that door, as the arguing and raised voices came to a stop for a bit.
"You didn't tell me that..." he said with sympathy.
"The last rejection later came in today." Aspen shrugged in response. "I wasn't gonna tell you because I'm embarrassed, Stiles. I spent years working on something that never even mattered. Every publisher just said it was too unrealistic, and that they'd love to publish me if I ever came up with something better."
"Then come up with something better?" Stiles replied, not realising how much that comment not only hurt her, but pissed her off.
"Are you kidding me?" she scoffed, standing up from the stool. "That's your response when I tell you that everything I've been pouring my heart and soul into for years is a failure?"
"That's not what I meant," Stiles sighed tensely. "I just meant that— we're drowning in bills right now, Aspen! One of us, if not both of us, need to do something to make extra cash! I can't keep living like this!"
"So you wanna quit the job you've wanted since you were a kid— just to make more money?" Aspen replied, her tone sounding judgemental.
"Yes, actually— I do!" Stiles exclaimed, "And it's not just about the money. The FBI's been trying to track down this serial killer for years, and haven't gotten anywhere. They barely let me in on the details of the case and treat me like I'm still a goddamn intern!"
"You have to give it time—"
"I'm sick of giving it time!" Stiles cut her off, voice raised as their conversation returned to the tense argument it was before. Stiles shot up out of the barstool to stand up as he started flailing his arms around irritably. "If it's not happening now, when will it ever?"
"Like you said before— we're young!" Aspen cried, "We still have so much time ahead of us to figure all of this out! We shouldn't be coming home every night to scream at each other for something as superficial as money!"
"God— how can you be so naive..." Stiles muttered under his breath.
"You're calling me naive?" Aspen scoffed, "You're the one that moved here with the attitude of thinking it would be easy! New York isn't like Virginia— it's expensive, we knew that going into this! But living here has always been my dream—"
"That's it, right there." Stiles cut her off with an accusing pointed finger. "It's your dream—it's never been mine!"
Aspen fell quiet, looking into his eyes with disbelief and confusion.
"Why haven't you brought any of this up sooner?" she asked, "If you hate New York so much, you could've just said something when I asked you if you were okay moving here!"
"We're just going in circles," Stiles sighed, "This fight isn't getting us anywhere."
"You're the one that started it!" Aspen shot back. "Like you always do— with your passive aggressive comments about how it's because of me that we can't have hot frickin' water!"
"I've never said that!" Stiles said defensively.
"Oh believe me, you never have to." Aspen scoffed in return.
Aspen then grabbed her suede jacket off the stool and headed for the door, leaving Stiles stood alone in the middle of the room watching as she just walked away, his eyes narrowing.
"Seriously?!" he yelled after her, "You're just gonna walk out while we're in the middle of a conversation?"
"Like you said, this conversation isn't getting us anywhere." Aspen muttered in annoyance as she grabbed her cellphone she dumped on the couch on the way in.
"Do not walk out that door, Aspen!" Stiles said demandingly, "That is all you seem to do lately, you just walk out when things get tough!"
"And all you seem to do is let me!"
Stiles' jaw ticked as he watched her inch closer to the door—he didn't want her to walk out, he didn't want them to be fighting anymore at all. Both parties were responsible for the constant arguing that was happening to them lately, there was no one person to blame for it all.
"Aspen..." Stiles said in a serious and low tone, "Do not walk out of that door."
"Don't let me." she shot back, her voice just above a desperate whisper.
Stiles watched as she froze still, her hand not yet reaching for the door handle as the two of them just stood there, staring at each other from opposite sides of the room.
"If you leave right now, I can't promise I'll be here waiting for you when you get back..." Stiles said, remaining frozen in his stance.
Aspen knew walking out that door would be a mistake—but she just needed to get out of this small, cramped, suffocating apartment. Stiles had just told her he didn't care what she thought about him taking a sketchy job, he'd mocked her career, and indirectly blamed and resented her for the fact their lives weren't perfect.
She needed time to reel from and process that whole argument before just getting into bed with him and cuddling like nothing happened.
So while she knew it was a mistake, she wasn't thinking clearly when she just scoffed and reached for the door handle—and left.
They didn't speak for four days after that.