If she were a year younger… perhaps the tide would have shifted and tossed her up on Spencer Carlin's shore, an art class and a detention and then love would have bloomed.
But it's not to be and it is a minor inconvenience, really and truly, just a minor blip on the screen of life.
Or that's what Ashley tells herself, when this boy holds her hand and when her eyes just catch on to blonde hair fluttering back.
Ashley wants to let the strands caress her face – it's like a kiss – and she can't breathe for the wanting.
She kisses the boy, though.
She kisses the boy and allows his hands to roam up under her top, all so she won't look to the front seat of this car – to the two girls holding hands and being so intimate, to the two girls whispering out lust and other desperate things.
Ashley hates the envy most of all, because it cuts into the ground – fault lines of jealousy – and she wants to scream in her own sister's face. Because it is just a year, just a silly and stupid year that kept Spencer from her life and thrust Spencer into Kyla's life.
Just a trick of fate, just a coincidence… or that's what Ashley tells herself, when she sees a small smile in passing and then just the back of a beautiful girl going up the stairs, going to Kyla's room.
Ashley stares at the ceiling and let's that boy spend the night and tries to ignore the giggling from down the hall – innocent and still seductive, sexual and sweet… that's how Kyla and Spencer sound.
And Ashley wants to wreck it in the most delicious way.
Ashley wants to dip her tongue down into every single secret that Spencer Carlin has and never come up for air again… but she doesn't want to watch Kyla crumble and fall, doesn't want to be the reason for those big eyes to break out in tears.
And she kisses the boy and allows his body to smother her aching, all so she won't find her feet moving fast to steal Spencer away from her sister's arms.
/ / /
The middle of the night finds her outside, walking barefoot in the dewy grass – blades' sticking to her skin, cool and sharp – and every light is turned off now, streets bathed in black.
She can see the outlines of cars and the edges of houses and, somewhere in this darkness, sleeps the girl that Ashley cannot ever have.
It snuck up on her, like gazelles and like lions, and those eyes pinned Ashley down.
Those eyes caused many a moment of stuttering, many a time of nervous coughing and quick excuses… and then Ashley would walk away, single-minded and almost running, down hallways or into classrooms or out into the wilds of the world…
Those eyes are making Ashley slowly bleed out, life just draining away.
She used to say that no one was good enough for her baby sister, but that was just a line – it was just words to fill up the silences, just a thing to say so she wouldn't say something more dangerous – just so she wouldn't say things like Spencer is good enough for anyone, Spencer is good enough for everyone…
But the dawn is nearly here and she'll hug that boy close and she'll let his lips claim her over and over.
Just to blind her, temporarily, to two girls slowly waking up wrapped in one another.
She'll let that boy conquer her mouth just so she'll stay quiet.
/ / /
The sweetest torture of all is when there are no obstacles and all that is between them is air – heavy air, oppressive air, the kind you could cut with a knife – that's all that is there between them as they sit in this big kitchen and wait for their eager counterparts… waiting for Kyla and that boy to come in, all grins and all hands, waiting for one girl to be happy and for the other girl to fake it.
Ashley ties her voice up, doesn't allow it to make a sound.
That's just asking for trouble and she must fight the urge to beg for trouble right now, with Spencer sitting opposite and making halting talk about nothing.
Their eyes meet sporadically and Ashley grips her knees, nails digging past denim – to keep her body from fleeing or to keep from reaching out… oh, it is probably both by now…
Spencer sighs and Ashley can almost feel it against her face, imagines it against her neck and a shudder runs up the length of her spine.
"I, uh… can I ask you a question?"
And Ashley nods her head, because she refuses to talk and maybe – really and truly – maybe she cannot ever say a single thing to Spencer, not without the love seeping into every utterance and Ashley won't risk that – not ever.
She won't be the reason for strife and she won't be the cause of pain and she won't take what is not hers to have… no matter how much she craves it.
"Do you… not like me or something?"
It is so shy and so delicate, the thin glass of this question poised too high, and how can Ashley stay silent now?
/ / /
If she does this, in the seconds before Kyla bursts in and is laughing and is joyful…
If she does this, in the moments before that boy jogs in and is joking and is hanging on her every word…
If she does this, if she cracks the door just a bit, Ashley fears the flood will follow - torrents of yearning will just wash them all away.
But how can Ashley stay quiet now, with Spencer watching her and those eyes looking wounded?
It drives the last nail in and Ashley is resigned to already being buried.
And she is moving as if in a dream, the best dream, stepping up to the girl's side and placing her hand ever-so-gently upon the girl's cheek.
And she is making this last longer than it should, because she can do nothing less than that – not with Spencer's eyes, those blue fucking eyes that go on forever, growing just a fraction wider.
"I like you a lot, Spencer… so don't worry about that."
Her voice sounds like a confession, all hushed and warm and Ashley tries to rein in when all she wants is to break free – but those eyes, Spencer's eyes, they see it and they get a little wider… but they don't flinch, they just darken and they just grow deeper and Ashley knows the rushing water is now rising.
And the doors open and the voices carry and Ashley does what she has to in order to save everyone – she pulls away and pulls back and she cuts off the gazing and she throws her arms around that boy…
…all just to not see Kyla and Spencer hold each other and mean it.
/ / /
It wasn't everything, but it was too much and Ashley can't scoop up those words, can't put them back inside now. And they linger above, storm clouds that only two people can see.
So, Spencer is only there when Ashley is not and the double-dating comes to an end.
And if Kyla cares, it is muted. And if that boy notices, it is kept hidden.
Ashley witnesses Spencer in glances now – brief and gorgeous – at the corner of rooms or sliding fast against the wall and then gone again.
And she wonders how it must look to an outsider, to someone who is not a sister or a love-struck boy… is it agonizingly obvious this avoidance? Do they stand out with their complete denial of one another, color in a black-n-white room?
Or is it just their own blinding awareness, the way Spencer's eyes – those blue blue eyes – stare firmly past Ashley's minute gaze… the way Ashley's head tilts in whatever direction the girl is not in, if south than north – if east than west… Are they the only ones going through this willing break of something not even there?
/ / /
That boy wants her so badly, pleads and whimpers, but she cannot give him what he wants – fences and children and a home – she can't give what never rested within her.
But she won't tell him that their whole involvement was merely distraction. She won't break the past just to have a future and she won't deny his last kiss and she won't destroy anyone else – not this time.
This town is too small, though, and swelled to the point of bursting with an unrealized hunger – Ashley feels her stomach churn with the thoughts of what could have been… if she had been a year younger and if that detention had happened…
Kyla cries and Ashley bitterly thinks that Spencer will be there to hold her sister's shaking shoulders, but she takes it all back when Kyla burrows into her – still so little, still so needy for protection – and Ashley takes it all back, the harshness and the self-pity… Ashley takes it all back and takes her sister in instead.
"Will you come back?"
That's the pricey question, the one worth so much, and Ashley isn't sure if she has an answer.
But she'll give one anyway, for the sake of a sister she never wanted to bruise.
"Yes. Soon."
/ / /
And she wonders, on a plane going somewhere, if those eyes – if Spencer Carlin's breathtaking eyes – ever reached such a dusky shade for Kyla… or was it just for that moment, in a kitchen and just the two of them… was it ever anything like what Ashley wanted it to be?
Or was she just seeing what she so wanted to see?
And she wonders as she falls asleep, on this plane going somewhere far from home, if Spencer ever thinks about it, too…
/ / /
END