Hello loyal readers of the worlds slowest Spashley tale EVER! Thanks all for sticking by this! This is Chapter 7 and i think it's drawing to a close - nope no epic 40+ chapter fic like Finding The Story - which i am still getting notifications for! Madness, but a great honour :)

So, onwards. Spencers monologue is courtesy of Kate Nash's "Don't you want to share the guilt". A cracking British singer, go youtube the track and see if you can spot the influence. Many thanks to the Nash for cheering me up on my walk and inspiring me to crack on!

Disclaimer...usuuuuual!


Chapter 7 – Don't Think.

The installation was done. It had taken all week but finally every last frame was on the wall, each canvas was mounted, projectors were positioned against perfectly smooth white surfaces and every student was exhausted.

Except Spencer.

She was feeling invigorated. She was excited.

It had been five days since she had seen Ashley, which had given her five days to clear her head and organize her emotions. In this time one thing had become clear, Chelsea had definitely had a word with Aiden. The comments had stopped, the funny looks and snide remarks were no more. It was a weight off her mind to not have to watch every little thing she said. IT was hard enough to wrap her own mind around what she was experiencing, without having to lug Aiden around with her too.

He was meant to be totally cool with the whole thing, whatever the 'whole thing' was. Spencer wasn't even convinced there was a complete 'thing' to be cool with in the first place! Maybe a small something, so even smaller than a 'thing', but not a whole thing. Essentially Aiden needed to be cool with an incomplete, smaller than small something. And now he was.

It was Tuesday, after receiving a text from Ashley that had inspired the world's supply of butterflies to spontaneously fly around her stomach and settle their wings on the hairs of her arms, when Spencer had decided that there was an actual possibility that she might be…how would she describe it…not what she thought she was?

On the Wednesday morning she woke up to find the screen of her cell phone stuck to her cheek. When she peeled it off her skin and rubbed sleepiness away from her eyes she saw Ashley's name shining back at her. They had fallen asleep texting each other. A silly smile spread across her face.

By Thursday she has built up the courage to call the brunette. It was her lunch break and she had pleaded boredom. As the ringing grew louder in Spencers ears she felt anxious and nervous and excited and sick. So sick. The panic was threatening to overcome her, it built and built until she nearly put the phone down. The swell of emotion was too much, too fast, too soon. Then the husky voice sent a timely greeting down the phone line and all ill-feeling was washed away. Replaced by calm. Replaced by happiness. Replaced by, Ashley.

So it was Friday and the exhibition was set up. Tomorrow would be Saturday and true to her word, Ashley was coming to see Spencer's display. Normally nervous about letting others see her pieces, especially people she knew, the blonde was just excited. She had surprised herself earlier in the week by immediately agreeing to the barista seeing her work, so had just gone with it. The more she thought about seeing Ashley and less about Ashley seeing her work, the better she felt about the whole scenario.

Ashley made things better. She saved her, she calmed her, she excited her.

Grabbing her Nikon SLR off the cabinet, the student walked out of the building and into a mild evening. The sun had just decided to start setting and was casting a warm glow of pinks and oranges across the city. As she walked, she would occasionally stop and snap a picture.

It was a strange sensation for her to just stop and shoot. Her photography classes had pushed her to a point where every image was staged, timed or forced in some manner. Working within the confines of a project title and theme had greatly expanded her ability to find a theme in almost anything, but it had restricted her freedom. Photography inspired freedom, that's part of the reason why she loved it so much.

Hiding behind the bulk of a camera and capturing a moment that she thought was worthy of capturing was freeing. That moment was saved on her sd card. It was there only for her. Nobody else had to see what she found beautiful. They didn't have to understand it and they didn't have to agree with it, but they could if she chose to show them. If she chose to display the things she found beautiful and worthy and interesting, then her audience could have an opinion but it would never change how she felt in that moment.

Spencer had come to this realization as she stood back and looked at her work on the walls. Placed next to everyone else's, her work certainly stood out as a fine display of skill and talent, but it lacked the passion she knew she contained within her. It didn't have the colour and vibrancy her life had recently adopted.

So she stopped and she took pictures of sunlight streaming between leaves of the trees. She lay down in the park and captured a small ladybug sitting on a blade of grass. An old lady walked arm in arm with her old husband as he carried her single shopping bag, this image saved itself to the Nikon. Anything and everything was free to be captured.

Nobody would judge her. She had time to sort the images and prepare them for viewing. For now she could enjoy the moment, capturing memories and figuring out what she wanted to do next. Where she would take it from here. She was in control of her freedom.

Mid-snap the blonde's cell phone buzzed, it was Chelsea sending her usual post-class, Friday night beer text. Agreeing to one small beverage at the bar in an hour, the cell was pocketed once again. Chelsea had always understood Spencer's photography, her art. It was an extension of her. She would never judge, she had always been the first to see the memories on the card, the first to look at her friend and smile. Making no comment, understanding the difference between support and opinion. Support didn't need to be spoken whereas an opinion can start to dissolve the very foundation upon which a memory was founded. It can change the nature of it, swap the meaning, alter how you originally saw it.

Then the memory is gone, it belongs to someone else.

Spencer focused her eye through the camera and saw a brunette. She was slight and short, her full hair was swept up into a deliberately messy ponytail. Her eyes caught the sun rays and sparkled, the lids dropped slightly causing small frown lines to mar her forehead. Moving the camera from her face, the photographer viewed the girl naturally. Her small hand was intertwined with another, feminine fingers wrapped around each other and held on tight. There was the smallest of squeeze from one, causing a smile in the other.

Spencer ducked her head and smiled to herself. Closing her eyes she saw her own brunette. She didn't know how more people didn't have mental health problems, thinking was the most stressful thing she had come across. And not being able to articulate what she wanted to say drove her crazy, she'd tried to talk to Aiden and had stopped too many times. She had decided to read some more books, learn some new words, her brother used to read the dictionary, she was going to start with that.

Spencer had spent most of the last week in her head. She liked it in her head, it was a place where she could shout and also be quiet. When she was quiet around people, they usually thought she was sad and usually she was. Sometimes when she was at a busy train station, one of those ones with the really noisy trains she wished she could just put down her bags and shout, because she had so much to say.

With her eyes still closed, warmed by the setting sun, Spencer let her internal monologue come to a gentle close.

She did like Ashley. She had figured this all out on her own. No drama, no tears and no anger. It was an exciting time, it was a change but nothing serious in the grand scheme of things. Nobody was hurt. She was feeling quite nervous and not quite herself, not knowing how to fix it or how to proceed was making her unwell, so she just stopped.

Accepting the change wasn't easy. So she stayed in her head. It was peaceful. It was there that she didn't like thinking. Thinking was hard and confusing and made life scary. Ashley was none of those things. She was gentle, cute texts, soft looking hair, pretty smiles and kind words. The fact that Ashley hadn't once mentioned the great big elephant in the text made it even easier for Spencer to fall under her spell.

So it was Friday night. Tomorrow would be Saturday and Spencer would get to see Ashley. It had been a week. It was a normally sized week, but lots had happened for the little change that had occurred.

For all her head space and photo-taking, all the accepting and understanding, one thing had become clear to the blonde and she was determined to live her life by it from now on.

Don't think, just try and feel.


There we have it, our Spencer isnt doing the typical Spashley gay breakdown. Ive had enough of reading those and experiencing them for that matter! Down with Lesbian freak outs for this fic Oi Blondie says no!

Please review guys, I work long hours in a really hot office, so they do amuse me greatly :) Thanks!