Chapter 9

Ashley's POV

I'm not sure what to feel anymore. I love Sarah, still... a month and a half after she's been gone. My heart unequivocally and undeniably still belongs to her. Yet, a part of me can't deny the connection I have to Spencer. She gets me somehow. Without me having to speak a word, she understands.

And I can't deny my attraction to her. She's beautiful. Those ocean blue eyes and her long blonde hair that cascades effortlessly over her shoulders. I've never felt so drawn to a person before. Since the moment I laid eyes on her... I felt it and it scared me. It scared me not only because I've just lost Sarah but because I've never allowed myself to feel the things Spencer makes me feel. I don't like becoming attached to people because people leave. It's human nature.

Every time I think about Spencer, I feel like I'm betraying Sarah—even though she's miles and miles away. Probably never coming back. I knew eventually I would get over her and move on, but I never expected the process to start so soon.

After talking to Spencer earlier, I know that I can't fight it anymore. I need to talk to her... to be around her. But my feelings for her contradict my feelings to stay true to Sarah. I promised her I wouldn't forget her. Just as she promised the same to me...

Six weeks ago...

"I don't wanna go, Ash." Sarah leans in and whispers in my ear.

"I know." I say simply. "But you have to." I lean forward and rest my forehead against hers, breathing in her scent—ingraining it into my memory.

"I wanna stay here with you." She whines out like a child. We've been together for three years and inseparable since she got here almost five years ago. I can't imagine being here without her.

"You have to go live with that family, Sare. You have to go be a teenager, with a real family—in a real home." I tell her lifting my head to kiss her forehead. "I love you." I whisper, barely audible. But I know she heard me.

"You promise to come visit me?" She asks through sobs.

"I promise." I know that it wasn't likely that I would. She was moving to another state.

"You promise not to forget me?" She asks and I smile knowing this was a promise I could keep.

"I promise." I whisper into her lips as I place a chaste kiss on them.

"I love you, Ashley Davies." She pulls me forward and kisses me again.

"I love you too, Sarah Anderson." I mumble into her mouth, willing myself not to start crying again.

"I'll never forget you." She says pulling back smiling. "Never." She says again slowly backing up from me. As she becomes out of arms reach our hands release and she quickly makes her way out of the door. I turn and look at her now empty area in what used to be OUR room and the tears start to fall freely. I jump up on my bed and curl up in ball. Telling myself that I would never leave my room again—no matter what.

"Ashley." I voice calls out from below me. I know it's Kyla. And I'm sure that Madison, Stacy and Rachael are close by as well. "Ashley, it's Ky. I'm here if you wanna talk." She pauses and I hear her sigh. "I'm not going anywhere." She tells me and the bed shifts and I know she's taken a seat on Rachael's bunk below me.

"We're all here, Ash." Stacy tells me. I turn over and look at the bed once occupied by Sarah. I shut my eyes and picture her face in my mind. Engraving it into my memory. I would never forget her. That was I promise I'd be keeping.

And up til now I'd been keeping that promise. But Spencer... we've only had a few conversations if you can even call them that, and she's been filling my mind. Thoughts of her haunt me at night. I dream of her and then I wake up to her face. I was breaking a promise to Sarah... I was forgetting her.

I hadn't even realized that I'd started crying until a voice pulled me from my thoughts.

"Are you okay?" Spencer asks leaning down in front of me. I take off my rubber glove and nod my head as I wipe away the tears.

"You know, I'm starting to think you have some kind of radar that tells you where I am when I'm crying." I smile weakly. "Cause you always seem to find me." I add and she smiles.

"Actually, I heard you." She tells me standing up and helping me to my feet, too. "I was on my way to the library and I heard you crying." She purses her lips. "Is this about Sarah?" She asks with prudence. I nod, not trusting my voice not to betray me right now. "Oh." Is all she says. We both stand quiet for a moment—awkwardly, before she asks, "You want me to help you?"

"I.." I pause and glance down at the floor of the bathroom I was currently cleaning. I hadn't gotten anywhere. This whole time I was in my thoughts I must have been scrubbing the same place for at least an hour. It would take me all night to finish now... I'd miss dinner. "I don't want you to miss dinner."

"If we work really fast, we'll be out of here in an hour tops." She tells me with a smile, not giving me a chance to respond. She was already putting on gloves and cleaning out a stall by the time I'd registered her words.

Spencer was right, working together, it only took us about 45 minutes to knock out the whole bathroom. Alone it would have taken me at least four times that.

"Thank you." I tell her as we make our way out of the now clean bathroom.

"No biggie." She shrugs and smiles.

"I'm sorry I kept you from the library." I tell her as we walk down the hall towards our room.

"Ashley really, I enjoyed helping you clean." She lets a smirk form at her lips as we reach our room.

"Still... I thank you." I say and she nods. "I'm gonna go take these supplies back to the janitors closet. I'll see you at dinner." She nods again before opening the door behind her and walking in. I smile as I make my way down to the janitors closet.

"What are you smiling about?" I turn around and see Madison standing behind me.

"You really should stop doing that." I say after throwing all the supplies in the closet and shutting the door.

"Doing what?" She contorts her face in confusion.

"Never mind. Did you want something?"

"I need to talk to you." She says slowly.

"Okay. I'm listening." I retort just as slow as her.

"You wanna go down to the Junior/Senior lounge?" She asks and I shrug and follow her down to it. When we get in we take the first two seats closest to the door.

"So what's up?" I ask turning to face her.

"It's about Sarah." She starts but pauses when she see's me roll my eyes. I really didn't want to have this conversation. Thoughts of Sarah have been consuming me enough today as is.

"Mad, I really don't wanna-"

"I know." She cuts me off. "And you know that I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't seriously worried about you, Ash." She's right. She's been a pretty great friend since Sarah left. Knowing when to jump in and when to stay away.

"Okay." I breathe out as she continues.

"We're worried. We know that you've been crying." She tells me sadly. I guess I wasn't being as discreet as I thought I was with my somberness. "You know that you can always talk to us, right?" She asks and I nod. I know that they're hear for me but honestly, there's nothing that they could do that I couldn't do on my own. This was something I needed to figure out on my own. Or with Spencer's help—depends on how you look at it.

"I know, Mads." I say grabbing her hand. "I've been down lately, I'll admit that. I miss Sare a lot. More than I had in the beginning...but I'm getting better, I promise." I tell her truthfully and she nods.

"Still, if you need to talk or just a shoulder to cry on..." She trails off and I smile and nod.

"You'll be the first person I call." I say sincerely, pulling her into a hug.

"Okay, lets go eat dinner." She says pulling me out the lounge and towards the dining hall.

"Wait, where'd you just come from?" I ask quirking a brow and she smiles wider than I've ever seen her smile in the entire time I've known her.

"So the guy you were dancing with at the party was Spencer's foster brother, Aiden!" Stacy shrieks, trying to wrap her head around the whole coincidental situation.

"Damn Spencer, you lived with him and didn't..." Rachael trails off, looking at Stacy. She drops her head and continues to eat her food. I shake my head at Stacy who gives me a triumphant smile and wiggles her eyebrows before taking a bite of her pizza. Those two are crazy.

"So, how was it?" Kyla asks. She's been out of the loop for the past couple of days. You know on bed rest and all. I've been filling her in here and there but really there hasn't been much to tell. Besides me feeling some kinda way about Spencer, and Rachael and Stacy having sex every single chance they get—but that's nothing new.

"He was amazing." Madison gushes and Spencer smiles widely. From what I've heard she thinks pretty highly of this foster brother of hers. He better know that if he hurts Madison he's gonna have four angry girls knocking on his door, though. "We went to the park and had ice cream and just talked and walked for two hours. We didn't even realize it had been that long." She says and I can tell she's replaying it all in her head.

"He really likes you, Madison." Spencer finally spoke up. "He hasn't stopped texting since he dropped you off." She says waving her phone in front of Madison.

Madison let's out a high pitch squeal before reaching over trying to snatch the phone out of Spencer's hands. "Give it to me." She demands Spencer who smiles and shakes her head no.

"Now what kind of sister would I be if I let you read all his thoughts?" Spencer asks Madison playfully.

"I don't know. But I know that you'd be an amazing friend." Madison tries to persuade her.

"Nope. Can't do it." She shakes her head to a disappointed Madison. "But." She says and Madison perks up. "I will tell you this." She pauses for dramatic effect.

"Oh just spit it out already, Spencer." That wasn't even Madison, it was Stacy. Spencer shakes her head and laughs and how into this conversation everyone at our table was.

"He said that he was gonna call you tomorrow and ask you out again." She finally says and Madison squeals yet again.

"Oh my God. I need to go pick out something to wear." Madison says getting up from the table. She barely touched her food. She's gonna regret that later. "Stacy come help me." She demands and Stacy jumps up on command and follows her. I shake my head and smile at my friends as they make their way out of the dining hall.

"I better go with." Rachael says getting up from the table with both her and Stacy's tray in her hands.

"I'm gonna go too." Kyla says suddenly, getting up from the table. She throws me a innocent smile before dumping her tray and running out of the dining hall behind Rachael.

"It looks like you've started an epidemic." I say jokingly to Spencer.

"I do what I can." She looks at me and smiles. We make eye contact briefly before she looks away and her face flushes red.

"You do that a lot." I say observantly.

"Do what?" She asks me, looking up but not holding my gaze long.

"Blush." I say softly, causing her face to flush, again. I smile and shake my head at her. "Thank you again for helping me." I tell her standing up—tray in hand.

"Sure." She nods.

"You wanna go up and um... I don't know help?" I ask stopping in front of her, awaiting her answer.

"I think they've got enough hands. Don't you?" She asks raising a brow.

"I guess you're right." I nod and go dump my tray. "Wanna go for a walk then?" I ask walking back over to her.

"It's almost nine." She points out and I laugh a little.

"I know." I shrug. "You scared?" I asks quirking an amused brow.

"No." She says firmly before getting up and dumping her tray. "Let's go." She says walking past me, towards the dining hall doors. I couldn't help the smile that formed on my lips.

I was breaking a promise that I vowed to keep...a promise that I figured I would always keep... but how could I not, when someone as alluring as Spencer was practically daring me to?


Hope you enjoyed the update. Reviews make me happy. :) So review and tell me what you thought. And I know everyone is getting a little impatient about the slow development of Spashley... Patience you guys. We're definitely getting there.