Tell me what you eat, I'll tell you who you are. - Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
Is it that simple, though? Can you be catalogued so easily? Are you always going to be the ingredients that others put inside of you - a piece of this, a shred of that - a DNA salad all your own... but not by your own hand?
Ashley is in the very back of the SUV today, not feeling the urge to look as the road and the flatlands pass her by as they barrel back towards 40.
And soon they will be in Arizona, more arrid lands and dust-devils and such.
There is already talk of checking out the Grand Canyon and Ashley figures that they kind of have to.
It'd be strange not to, really...
But she is in a funny way today, in the back of this automobile and ear-plugs in and staying very quiet. Kyla darts those worried eyes back every so often, to the point where Ashley must shut her own eyes just to escape the concern.
She likes it most times, that much is true.
But, today... Today the past is close and the present is a mystery.
And Ashley cannot be pushed to participate.
Kyla and Madison share the middle seat this time, their voices like the hum of a fan.
Steady and sure, cutting through the air in a nice way - they move the atmosphere around that would be stagnant otherwise.
It's a good thing in every way.
Because Spencer is driving and, apparently, the girl must concentrate. She isn't talking either. And it must be for the driving.
Must be why she isn't even talking to Aiden, who sits in the passenger seat - alternating between gazing at Spencer and sighing towards the window.
Madison's comment about a soap opera on wheels lurks and Ashley closes off her brief moment of watching - closes her brown stare with a hard finality.
Because, really, why should she care either way?
If they fight. If they make-up. If they do nothing at all.
It's none of her concern.
But her eyes are looking once more, against her will, and Spencer catches it.
Caught, however not just one-way... or that is what rumbles around Ashley's brain as the song in her ears plays on and her sister keeps talking and Aiden keeps staring unhappily out the window and Madison nods her side of conversation.
Caught, blue eyes bear witness and slender fingers grip the steering wheel just a fraction tighter...
...This time, Ashley breaks it off, though.
And she wonders if the biggest part of her is timidity, is fear, is trepidation.
She wonders if that is the main ingredient in the dish that is Ashley Davies.
And, finally, who made her this way?
Ah, there it is... I knew you'd find your way back in, 'coz you never really left...
The past is no longer close. The past is here, living and breathing by Ashley's side, knocking on her door. It won't be denied. It won't be shoved aside.
And the old ways of ignorance have been cast aside, not a slim needle to be found nor a swift inhalation, and she is lost to the memories.
/ / /
She's talked about it all.
At first, very unwillingly - imagine dragging a two year old child away from Mickey Mouse and into a store full of clothing - that was her, sitting in that circle with those strangers.
And she was rough around the edges, hard to touch and even harder to hold.
No one owned her. No one knew her. No one could save her and she knew it.
Eventually, though, she talked.
About it all.
And you go through stages, you know... After the anger and the denial came the shattering.
Like putting glass up to light, the fractures appear if you look closely enough.
And she was riddled with delicate fault-lines, criss-crossing the structure of her existence.
And she finally broke apart.
What she once deemed a 'pathetic group of fucking losers, who can't handle their shit' soon became the people who picked her up when she fell so far down.
They consoled when it was needed. They chastised when it was warranted.
They didn't let her keep on stumbling. They forced her to stand up and walk.
And she felt sadness at how messed up things were.
And she felt long-buried tears drown her face - and that just kept happening. Every day for about a month or two.
She never knew that there was that much painful sorrow in her body.
And then came the guilt.
Ashley wanted to take the easy way out once that particular stage hit in.
She pictured a blade to her wrists. She daydreamed, quite morbidly, of breaking out of the rehabilitation center and jacking a car and racing it off a cliff.
Anything to not feel what she was feeling anymore. Anything to assuage the agony of knowing what you've become - and what you've done in the meantime.
She thought of Kyla, the one who stuck around and made that bold move... she thought of Kyla with black-and-blue around one eye and Ashley would stare at her knuckles like they were not a part of her - a foreign enemy, a traitor in her midst.
She thought of her parents, who never stopped her - that is just a fact - but they never stopped loving her either. They reached out and Ashley slammed the door in their faces.
And she didn't know how to hold out a hand anymore, how to beg for forgiveness, how to rectify the wreckage she caused.
I haven't. Not yet. I want to... but I haven't. Not yet. Not yet.
In the circle, everyone heard the horror stories of addiction.
And some were really bad - things that no one should have to go through, lives that no one should have to live - and the only comfort they could find was in a bar or a hit.
You seek out solace like flowers seek out sunlight - that is addiction. It seems natural.
You tell yourself that it is, that you are just built this way, that every intake is okay and you can quit whenever you want and why should you quit anyway?
It's all fun. It's all a blast. It makes the night seem better and it makes faces seem more attractive. It blurs the lines between real and not-so-real.
The come-down is where the shit starts, waking you up with a sore head and a raw nose and all your money is gone - the come-down is where you can't hide.
So you just keep chasing the high. If you never let the end happen, then you'll be just fine.
That's what you tell yourself.
That's addiction.
Her story isn't so bad, not really. And that's the thing - most of the stories are not like some Lifetime movie of the week. It's not all abuse and rape, though that is there - it does happen.
More than it should. More than anyone cares to admit.
But there are more of those who just couldn't handle something and sought out escape.
And they just keep on searching, they just don't give up and face whatever the hell it is - they keep on playing hide-and-seek with their doubts.
With their misgivings. With their terrified realizations about themselves.
That's Ashley's story, in a fucking nutshell.
/ / /
So, yea, think about yourself as a kid and the life you had. Think about if you had a good life, the kind with parties and vacations and a family that built up everything for you.
Christmas isn't just Christmas - it's a magical damn day. With cookies and gifts mysteriously appearing and notes for Santa.
Birthdays are not just a cake and a present or two - it's all your friends and games and endless balloons.
What if that was your life and you believed in it like a fairy tale?
What if they made it seem like you were the center of it all?
And then they took it all away. Not because they meant to, not like that, they don't want to wound you as they fight and falter and crumble before your very eyes - but there are always casualties in war. There is always a loss to be counted at the end of the day.
You get lost in their fray.
And you get mad, because didn't they make things this way? Didn't they tell you one thing and then admit it was a lie? Didn't they put you up there only to knock you down?
You bottle it up and you keep it down and you listen to the yells in the other room and you turn up your radio and you start having nightmares - and you don't tell a single soul about any of it.
You just hide it away, bury it, hope that if you don't speak of it - it won't be true anymore.
And you can't care for that little sister, the one wants to tag along as you start sneaking out at night, because you running too fast to give a shit about anyone.
Like a ship going down, you are saving yourself.
Or so you think. So you wish to believe.
And you are let in to places you should not even be at, but you are pretty and look older than you are - a fourteen year old in a house full of eighteen year olds - and that's where you find a new friend.
Looks like tea, tastes like fire... and you drain it dry. And you do it again. And you throw up a little bit, but that's not enough to keep you away.
Because you are running from everything - not just those parents and their bull-shit, not just the lies you perceive to be... but from darker things, from secret things, from potentially dangerous things...
You are running from yourself and, somewhere within, you know it.
Because you don't want to be gay.
But you know you are.
And now the lying begins in earnest, starting with your own lips.
Lips that kiss boys and take in their tongues - not before you get drunk, though - and eager hands all over you, so convincing in the dark of someone's empty bedroom and with vodka spiriting through your system.
And when it won't stop? When you can't stop looking too long, can't stop a fantasy from sneaking in?
Well, you just push harder. You kiss more. You drink more. You sneak out more. You touch more. You are known too well by the time you hit eighteen and you don't seem to care much - for a while, a long while, you really like it.
You've built your own kind of fairy tale, one more honest - right?
And the lies keep on coming.
They just keep on coming until you wouldn't know the truth if it punched you in the face.
/ / /
Ashley's MP3 player is filled up with whatever songs she once listened to - before rehab, before reaching the status of 'junkie' - and she tries to recall why each song is on the player.
The sad for days when she couldn't shake the feeling of listlessness.
The droning house sounds for when she was too coked up, too wired to stay still.
The moments of ambient that always signaled a good day - whether from a smooth high (usually pot or hash) or easy drinking, maybe a nice girl who isn't totally wasted like she so often was... and they'd sleep together and it would be better than expected - the sex wouldn't be frenzied and the caresses wouldn't feel so false.
It's a good track playing currently and she can feel the rolling underneath her body, the beat of rubber against yellow lines - it feels decent.
And the past gets subtly moved back into its box for now.
And the unknown present returns. But then... it never left, too.
Kyla is dozing and Madison is, too. Aiden and Spencer are having a quiet conversation up front - he looks frustrated to Ashley's eyes.
Spencer, forward all the way, taps one finger against the wheel. Repeatedly.
Ashley wonders what fix the girl is trying to abstain from.
And so Ashley is staring again, much to her own annoyance. And she is thinking about morning, which is hours ago now, wishing the imagery away as much as she wishes she could go back and relive it.
Kyla was prepared. Tents and all. And the dawn greets Ashley's tired eyes. She didn't sleep well.
And she is the first awake - unzipping the flap and stepping out, wrapping a blanket over her shoulders. The desert is hot during the day, sure, but fuck... it is cold at night and not so warm before the sun fully rises.
It is beautiful, though. Purples and blues still, the hints of yellow and orange hovering around the lines of mountains - there is the scurry of animals nearby and then... nothing else.
It is peaceful at some epic level and Ashley kind of likes it.
The night was filled with too much internal noise.
This is a good moment, though.
So, she walks past the other tent - the one that holds Spencer and Aiden - and past the SUV, settling on a small outcropping, one that gives a good view of where they came from. The lay of the land. Then the interstate in the distance. Then, further still, California.
"Goes on forever, doesn't it?"
And Ashley fights every impulse that assails her, that bombards her around the blonde and with no ascertainable reason as to why - and she nods her head in agreement.
"Yea, it does. It's... really wonderful."
There is no response, not of the verbal kind, but Spencer is suddenly right beside Ashley and sitting down. Ashley feels like only a breath of air could come between them right now, arms too near and thighs crazily close.
"Do you mind? Is this, like, your meditation time that I am crashing so rudely?"
Ashley keeps on fighting as best she can - a soft smile grows upon her mouth instead of it being the sound of her feet rushing away.
"Nope. Just, uh, watching the sun rise. Just being... well, here, I guess."
"So... I can watch with you?"
Ashley looks over then, making the first bit of true contact - a full on look into Spencer's eyes - and the blonde girl is smiling so gently, like every answer rests along her lips, and all Ashley has to do is ask the right questions... and she'll tell all.
"Yea. Sure." Ashley replies in a half-whisper.
And they watch the sun remove the dusk from the sky, not saying another word.
And it is a good moment. In fact, to Ashley's fluttering heart, it is the best moment in a long while.
Maybe it is not so mysterious, after-all. Maybe the present is making total sense.
But it doesn't make it any easier to digest.
As Ashley watches Aiden reach out slowly, place his hand upon Spencer's knee - and Spencer does not make him move. Or even feign indifference.
She holds his hand in return.
Oh so naturally, Spencer and Aiden seem to be alright again.
And Madison wakes up, groaning about needing a bathroom break. Kyla keeps on sleeping, a light snore coming from her.
And Ashely closes her eyes, begging them to stay shut this time.
At least until this all passes. At least until this damn trip is over and done with. At least until sunrises and companionable silences can be locked away.
And the lies still keep coming.
/ / /
TBC
