after this chapter i'm taking somewhat of a hiatus..sorry, but i'll get you something to read this side of christmas. there's a lot of stuff happening next week- exams. suck.- and i barely have time now. that goes for inner too, unfourtunately.
anyway, the song's by the spill canvas. i love/hate/love-to-hate the last part of this chapter. enjoy!
Chapter Ten: bound to happen
Ashley fumbled with the guitar for the twelfth time that day, skipping her fingers over the strings, trying to replay a melody that had been in her head for the past week but refused to appear now. She was growing frustrated, because she wasn't very patient and even less so when it came to music. Especially bad music, which was coming out of her guitar every time she touched the thing. Horrible refrains and loose melodies, and she didn't even want to think about her song-writing, which had been reduced to pathetic love escapist lyrics.
She had started writing songs again three days ago. Or something like that. She tried not to be specific because that would lead to the assumption that Spencer had induced this sudden rush of creativity and Ashley couldn't admit to that. Wanted to, but couldn't. She hadn't written songs since high school, which was ages ago. Or maybe it just felt that way. Back then, too, she had scribbled out escapist lyrics; long choruses about running away from L.A. and all the lights and noise. Maybe running away with a wonderful guy in tow. Now, she wrote about escaping a lifestyle, still with someone though the pronouns had changed.
Ashley placed her guitar on the bed beside her, resisiting the destructive urge to punch something inantimate. She hated being confused and helpless, especially when she had let it happen. She sighed and laced her hands behind her head, staring up at her ceiling, and started wondering about emotions and mouths and all the other things that cause passion and heartbreak and wars. Spencer Carlin's mouth was soft and sweet and managed to be more inviting than Paul's had ever been. Ashley could see how that mouth would cause wars, because it was doing a fine job of sending Ashley into a sudden, destructive backspin.
The clock read three o'clock, brightly declaring that Ashley had been struggling with her thoughts for near eleven hours. She rolled away from the sight, attempting to ignore the fact and then relaized that she was barely awake and her eyes were drifting shut. She was probably delusional, she decided, which was why it was so hard to let go of Spencer Carlin. And to stop thinking about the girl's mouth and the wars is would cause. The single, completley personal war that it was causing right now.
Yeah, she was definitely delusional.
She closed her eyes and tried to go to sleep, because right now dreaming about Spencer- which she knew she would do, which she had been doing for the past couple of days -was better than blinking eyes and bad lyrics.
Two seconds later they flicked open again and she reached for her guitar.
IOIOIOI
"So how was dress shopping with Ashley today? Is Paul going to love the dress?" Paula asked, stabbing a lettuce leaf on her plate rather viciously and shoving it into her mouth to munch on it threateningly. Spencer glanced back at her melodramatic actions and got the feeling that her mother had wanted her to stay home today. As if her "design crisis" hadn't pointed that out earlier.
"Fine. And yeah, he will." Spencer answered, her gaze transfixed on the newest Real World and trying to stay that way. She didn't want to talk about Ashley Davies, or Ashley Davies' wedding, or dress reactions, or Paul. She definitely did not want to talk about Paul.
"Is that all? Just fine?" Paula questioned, apparently not going to let it go. Spencer pressed pause and then turned the tv off. She turned to her mother, who sat ten feet behind her at the kitchen table, a salad before her.
"It was fun. I helped with the shoes." It wasn't a lie, it was just a selective commentary of the day's events. It was four o'clock in the morning and Paula had just gotten home from work to find Spencer zombie-like, watching MTV reruns. Paula hadn't exactly sprung into action, but she knew her daughter and she knew somthing was up. To tell the truth, she wasn't the best mother until she had a few drinks in her-at least three. After three she was all ears and smiles.
"Are you going to see her any more this week?" Paula was unknowingly prodding sensitive territory, because she was asking questions Spencer didn't know the answer to, nor expected to find out. She was asking questions that had been driving Spencer crazy for the past hours, in addition to a bittersweet vivid memory.
"I don't know." Spencer stated simply, licking at her lips for a taste she could still feel and wishing that she could relive kisses. No, wishing that she could relive one, specific kiss. "I'm gonna go out." Spencer stood up, shedding the blanket that had been draped over her knees, and trying to keep the slightly pained look from her face. Paula frowned, confused and a little worried, but mainly focused on what Spencer was currently preventing her from doing - getting wasted beyond belief.
"Well, I can't stop you." Paula stated ambigously. Spencer shot her an unreadable, aged and experienced look that halted Paula for a second. It was a look that belonged to someone who had been hurt and torn and had come back only to keep getting pounded. Only to bruise on her barely healed scars. It was a look that Paula saw in herself and one she had never wanted to see on her daughter's face. One painful look that made Paula guilty.
"I'll see you tomorrow." Spencer muttered, knowing her mom would be asleep until two, draining her body of whatever alcohol she would down tonight. What had been endearing until she realized the extent of it was now horrifying. She padded into her bedroom, pulled on a pair of jeans and a zip-up hoodie, and then slipped out the front door. She took her mom's car keys from the garage and peeled out of the driveway with only one thought on her mind. It stemmed from, reflected, but didn't concern Ashley Davies, as much as Spencer wished it did.
No, tonight she needed Aiden. She needed the boy and their relationship, which was really nothing more than a series of repeating mistakes. He was her ex. Her first ex, though definitely not her last; and she was his first love, and probably his only. He loved her so hard and so desperately and made himself Spencer's secret- dirty or otherwise. They had a friends with benefits thing now, much to her disdain. It was Spencer's one secret, her one serious mistake and she hated it and loved it and it made her utterly human and wrong and screwed up.
Not that her actions with Ashley eariler hadn't proved that.
But that had been a slip that was entirely her fault and she regretted it, though she thought she might do it again if she had the chance. She relazed she would do it again, if Paul would just die. And she hated feeling that way and owning that disgusting emotion. She wanted to go back to having one dirty secret, to being human and screwed up and not just a mess of a person who slept with obsessed boys and kissed taken girls. She was going to forget Ashley, in the arms of someone who thought he needed her.
But tonight, she needed him.
IOIOIOI
Christine, bagels in hand in true Cohen style- a tradition stemming from mother-daughter O.C. marathons - knocked lightly on the Carlins' front door. Her hair was pulled back, her jeans were old, and her face was makeup-free. She still looked gorgeous, and she was easily aware of it, though not concerned with the fact. She hadn't come here for anything concerning her looks, or at least that's what she was telling herself. Well, she most certainly didn't need approval from Paula Carlin, who was becoming a friend and nothing more. Christine sighed, bagels slumping in her hands and knocked once more, deciding that after one more knock, she would leave. She wasn't the pathetic type.
A bird tweeped from somewhere to her right and Christine glanced over, across the bright green grass and blooming trees. The sky was bright blue, even in the light ten o'clock sunshine, and a bird sprung into flight, soaring toward the sky. Christine tried to steady her nerves and thumping heart. Just friends and nothing more..she wasn't really sure whether that was the truth or not. She lifted her hand to knock a third time, when the door creaked open. Paula stood there, eyes sleepy and hair pulled into a loose bun. She looked dishelved and exhausted, but wary. She looked like nothing would ever crack the facade she wore constantly. She smiled softly when she saw Christine, her mouth turning up at the edges.
"Hey." Paula relaxed a little, hand still on the door. "You wanna come in?" She asked, stepping back to let Christine through and thanking God that someone had appeared at her door this morning. A night without alcohol made her weak and when she was weak she was cruel-especially to those she loved the most; she didn't want Spencer to have to deal with that.
"Yeah, sure. I brought bagels." Christine smiled brightly, offering the warm bagels, carefully wrapped in a paper towel, toward Paula. Paula grinned, reaching out for the food and brushing Christine's hand.
"Thanks." She said softly. She looked again at Christine, this time with something different in her mind, and was surprised to see that Christine echoed the look. She smiled again. "So, what brings you around?" Paula asked curiously, stepping backward to the kitchen. Christine followed, tapping down the wood floors, light from the windows-which were everywhere-reflecting white squares onto the floor.
"Just in the neighborhood." Which Paula knew was a lie, because her house was out in the middle of nowhere and the only people who were ever "in the neighborhood" were the ones who lived in it.
"Yeah? Well, thanks for stopping by." Paula said, glancing back to see if the echoes were still in Christine's eyes. They were barely there, hidden well but then again Paula had spent years looking for them.
"No problem." Christine grinned again and Paula smiled back. And they both saw echoes and echoed and wondered and concealed. And there were steps to be taken and sheilds to build if those steps faltered. Both could see paths and bends, but neither were sure of how they were labled.
But then again, maybe there were no echoes, only delusions.
IOIOIOI
Ashley held her phone in her hands, held her hands in her lap, and tried not to call Spencer. She was doing an awesome job of it, because she had held off for almost three hours now. Of course, one of them had been spent in the shower and eating, but the other two had passed by painfully slow. She needed to talk to the other girl because when she was confused, she had to talk it out. She had to put the words and the truth out there and see what came of it. On the other hand, maybe she should just forget about Spencer Carlin. Maybe, she should delete the number and hope Spencer never called her and just go on with what was her life. Go on with the imposing wedding and forget about blonde girls and their shoulder kisses.
And on a completely different hand, maybe she should just run off with Spencer and forget every world where weddings ever happened.
Her guitar had been abandoned in the den downstairs, after- finally -she had written something worth singing. She had eaten and showered and slept and was left with nothing to do except sit here and tell herself she couldn't call Spencer. So she was giving it her best shot, and if you asked her, it was a great shot. It was working fine.
"There's no turning back for us tonight. Lace up your shoes, here's how we do. Run baby-"
Ashley stared at the phone for a few seconds, not really believing that Spencer was calling her. When it finally hit her, she fumbled with the phone, hurridly flicking it open.
"Hello?" She asked, pulling her legs up beneath her. Her face such of mixture of confusion, hope, guilt, and restraint that they all merged together and cleared her of any discernable emotion. She bit at her lower lip.
"Hey, it's Spencer." The girl said softly, voice drifting. She picked at the chair she was in.
"Hey." Ashley returned just as softly, as if speaking clearly and openly would break this fragile connection. Would shatter half-kisses and guilty pleasures.
"You wanna meet me?" Spencer asked.
"Sure. Now?" Ashley got up too quickly, already going for her shoes and jacket.
"Yeah. How about that park off Garrington?"
"Sounds good. I'll see you in ten." Ashley tried to keep her nervous apprehension out of her voice, but she wasn't sure it worked.
"Ok. Bye."
"Bye." Snatching the keys from the bowl by the door, Ashley shoved her phone into her back pocket and practically fell down the stairs in her hurry. On her way out the door, she saw her mom pulling out of the garage.
"Hey Mom." Ashley kept jogging down the front walk. Christine frowned and turned to watch her daughter almost sprint off.
"What's the hurry?" Christine called after Ashley. Ashley didn't bother to glance back.
"Wedding stuff." She didn't like lying to her mom, but the woman knew her better than she would have liked to admit. And Ashley knew that even if she didn't say it, Christine knew she was going to see Spencer.
IOIOIOI
Spencer let the steam from her coffee rise up and warm her chin, as she stared out across the lush green grass of Garrington Park. It was a usual L.A. winter, seventy degrees and a hot afternoon sun glaring down at her. But, despite the pleasant weather, she had clammy hands and nervousness deep in the pit of her stomach. She hated feeling like this, in the calm before the storm, and she knew once Ashley appeared all of it would just fade away. She knew she would feel better than she had for hours, just because the girl was near.
Now, though, she was caught up in all the wrong.
Ashley pulled up in the parking lot across the grass and climbed out of her car. She came toward Spencer, the toes of her dark brown cowboy boots peeking out from under her jeans and the words on her big green sweatshirt half-covered by her crossed arms. She looked cold and nervous and out of place under the warm sunshine. She looked like she belonged in a coffee shop somewhere, or a library. She didn't look like someone who was going to be married in three weeks; she looked far too undesicive and confused for that.
She looked like a half-grown girl. What's that song? I'm not a girl, not yet a woman? Ashley looked like a Britney Spears song.
Spencer scooted over a little on the bench to allow Ashley to squeeze in next to her.
"Hey." Ashley said, uncrossing her arms and looking over at Spencer. She curled her fingers around the edge of the bench, but found herself steadily relaxing. Spencer had that effect on her.
"Are we gonna talk about it?" Spencer blurted out, past small talk and avoidance, and now determined to find some solid ground.
"Do you want to?" Ashley probed gently.
"I think we have too." Spencer placed her coffee on the ground beside the bench, and turned to meet Ashley's eyes. The girl's chesnut brown threw her for a second; made her stomach drop in that exceedingly pleasant way. She forgot why they had to talk and why they couldn't just kiss away the questions.
"Ok." Ashley looked away first, out across the almost empty green park. "I kissed you." She muttered into the air, bringing her hand up to scratch at her ear, a nervous habit.
"Yeah. I kissed you." Spencer echoed. Well, that conversation was going nowhere. Ashley's hand accidentally brushed Spencer's knee and the blonde girl felt a tingle go up her leg. She bit at her lip and looked off to the side, trying to grasp onto any thought that had been floating around her head before they fled at Ashley's touch. Ashley sighed and sat back.
"Well, I'm getting married." Ashley stated simply, trying to put some sort of casual into words that were never casual.
"I know." Spencer sat back too and turned her head to Ashley, studying her face but avoiding her eyes. "I still want to kiss you." Spencer admitted softly, her eyes falling onto Ashley's lips traitorously.
"I still want to kiss you." Ashley admitted as well, her own eyes on Spencer's lips. "But I don't know if we can."
"We can't." Spencer answered automatically, but there was no conviction in the words. "We shouldn't." But Ashley's lips were coming closer- almost unnoticabley so- and Spencer wasn't pulling away. In fact, she might have been the one pushing toward.
"So they say." Ashley's voice was almost so freaking close to normal, but it wasn't. There was the slightest undertone of want, of guilt and secrets. Ashley closed the distance, the centimeters that one of them had left in their involuntary movement forward, and pressed her lips into Spencer's. Spencer kissed her back, breifly, that nervousness in her stomach dissipating and something else taking it's place. With just mouths they kissed, until Ashley untangled one hand from its curl around the bench and caught Spencer's cheek in it.
Spencer pulled away first.
"We can't do this here." She said quietly, not meeting Ashley's eyes. Ashley studied her face, until finally, Spencer looked up and then stood up. Taking Ashley's hand she pulled her down the cement path.
They reached the roughly elegant bathrooms and Spencer tugged Ashley inside, pushing open the door with one hand, the other still entwined with Ashley's. There was no one in there, in the grey cement building. The small room was dark green and pale white, no lights save the natural light streaming through gaps high in the wall. Spencer turned back to Ashley and pulled her as close as she could. Wrapped her tan arms around the girl's waist and held her close. Kissed her with tongues and teeth and everything she wanted to say. She kissed her with everything she was starting feel and everything she felt already. She kissed away Paul, for both of them.
Ashley pushed her backwards, until Spencer was against a wall and there was no definable space between the two girls. Until Ashley's worn sweatshirt rubbed against Spencer's bare arms and her rough jeans slid between Spencer's legs. She braced her hands on the rough wall. Spencer rolled Ashley over, switching spots. Ashley tangled her hands in Spencer's loose curls and Spencer hooked her fingers through Ashley's jeans and pressed her against the wall and against herself, and, there in the privately public bathroom, they kissed until they couldn't breathe.
When Spencer finally pulled away, she pressed her hands against the wall behind Ashley, and let her hot breath come in pants against the side of the brunette's face. She leaned against the older girl, trying to keep upright and sane, and not lose it all, here in this bathroom. Only, the problem was, pressing herself up against the gorgeous girl was not helping. Ashley's hands slid down to Spencer's waist, and her own breath came short and fast against Spencer's neck. Her leg still caught between Spencer's thighs.
"You wanna get out of here?" Ashley breathed into Spencer's neck. Spencer paused, but the thrill in her stomach and the thump in her chest took over all her brain cells. The leg between her own made her eyes shut tight.
Spencer's barriers were falling, crashing and splattering before her in grand style. She barely had time to realize they were there, and suddenly, they were on the ground. Barriers her mother had helped her build up, and maybe the only honestly good thing her mother had ever graced her with, these walls of decency and strength. But, no matter now, because they shattered before Ashley's fingertips. Before her soft, sweet smile and her husky voice.
"Yeah." She managed, barely able to pull away. Meeting Ashley's eyes, she smiled gently, because there was a reason for all this. And she knew it wasn't just simple lust. Ashley pushed off the wall, and had to stop herself from leaning over and pressing a kiss into Spencer's cheek. She wanted to let all the tender and all the sweetness out, and not just this rough want and need. Instead, she laced her fingers through Spencer's and pulled her toward the car.
They drove the eight and a half minutes in tense silence, the knowledge of what was to come enough for both of them. Ashley glanced over to look at Spencer, at how gorgeous she looked in the fading afternoon, and didn't bother to try to think anything out. She just did it, just flew down the streets to her house.
Spencer twisted her hands in her lap and tried to remember Paul and the way Ashley was attached to him, but none of that mattered when Ashley kissed her like that. None of it mattered when all Spencer could feel was her racing heart and her tingling skin.
The pulled into Ashley's garage, vacant save a few cans of paint, and Ashley looked over at Spencer before she got out. The words were missing, but the question was evident. Are you sure? Spencer tilted her head slightly and bit her lip, studying Ashley's eyes for any hesitation, any second-guessing. There was none. She nodded, her eyes still dark and her mind still flustered.
They touched at the door, when Ashley pushed inside and Spencer followed and Ashley turned and Spencer kept going and suddenly they were tangling limbs and meeting lips again and pushed against the island in the center of the kitchen. It wasn't planned, bit it wasn't clumsy. Spencer was sure if the island hadn't been there, they would have kept stumbling until something else stopped them. Like a wall.
"Bedroom." Ashley breathed between kisses, and then lead Spencer up a flight of stairs and into Ashley's slightly familiar bedroom. The covers Ashley's fingers had curved over and the stool Spencer had perched on where still there, only this time Spencer didn't hesitate to fall onto those covers with Ashley. To handle being with the girl on the bed. Spencer tugged Ashley's sweatshirt off and pushed her onto the bed, stomach into stomach, legs tangled with legs. And they kissed away the questions and the guilt and kept the closeness through every whimper and every yell.
Through every memory.
IOIOIOI
When Ashley woke up, hours later, Spencer was gone. If it wasn't for the crumpled sheets and her state of undress- the bite marks and the sore back -she would have believed it to be a dream. It felt so unreal, so sudden and impulsive, that it couldn't have happened it real life. You don't act that uncaring and that dismissive in real life. But here she was, lying naked in bed, and there was a note on the bed table. A page with what Ashley assumed was Spencer's handwriting, saying goodbye and not much else.
It was ok, because Ashley wouldn't have known what to say either.
What she had done hit her fully six minutes after she woke up, like jumping in an outdoor pool after sitting in a hot tub for hours. Every pleasure left over, every tangible ache, washed away with sudden reality. Three missed calls from Paul blared on her phone. It cut into her, god it cut into her. Guilt and relief and so many conflicting emotions- but what had she been expecting? What had been simple since Spencer Carlin had walked into her life? She didn't blame the girl though.
She blamed herself.
God, what had she done.
Outside, rain threatened, the low rumble of thunder calling across the formerly clear skies. Figured. Ashley wrapped a robe around herself numbly and gathered the sheets in her arms, knowing she had to wash them before her mother returned. Somewhere during the washing cycle, she changed into sweatpants and a tank and downed a couple shots of scotch. Her carefully constructed, carefully regulated world was slipping from her fingers. The one she had built up from absolutely nothing, save a tumultous youth and a hard-earned college degree.
She was dazed. It was the only adjective worthy of her position at the moment, and she was every bit of it. She could still feel Spencer's hands all over her, like sweet burns on her skin if there ever was such a thing. If there wasn't, Spencer had just created them. She had four bite marks- she counted and then drug out the concealer. It wasn't a first for her, but it was something she had never wanted to repeat.
God, what had she done?
She was sore- pleasantly sore and ashamed of it. When the skies opened up outside, she was switching her white sheets from the washer to the dryer. She watched the rain pour down in it's own sheets out the window and shut the dryer door. Walking to the clear glass door, she pressed her nose against it and stared outside. Still so very dazed.
Finally, she slid her hand down to the doorknob and pushed open the door. The minute she stepped outside and out from under the canopy, she was soaked. She just kept walking, into the middle of the lawn
She stood in the rain, letting it pelt onto her head and drench her clothes in a matter of minutes. She stood there like maybe the sweet-smelling water would wash away the pleasant burns she could still feel in her skin and the deserved but hardly felt shame. The water was running down her neck, rivulets streaming under her tank top only to dampen her stomach; her sweatpants were sticking to her wetly, her feet squishing on the sopping grass. It was pitch black and it seemed as if the furious storm was trying to wash away everything created by the calm weather. She was something beyond drenched.
She hadn't bothered to turn on the porch light, not because she had ignored it, but because she didn't even think about it. Now she did, because someone had flicked it on behind her, sending her dramatic shadow splashing against the muddy grass. The water droplets were illuminated for the few moments they fell, as if recieving their fifteen seconds of fame in the startling white light. Ashley, arms folded across her chest, her wild serenity interrupted, turned toward the deck.
A blonde haired man stood just inside the door, the lights behind him and before him showing him perfectly. He had broad shoulders and khaki pants, a confident stance and blue eyes Ashley couldn't see but knew were there. He grinned, flashing white teeth and adorable dimples. Ashley, standing wet and tainted, still being pounded by relentless raindrops, felt so far from him in that moment. She hugged her arms to her even closer and tried to push away the tears that had been mixing with fresh rain moments ago. Her strongest instinct was to turn and sprint. Away. She wanted to tear through those bushes behind her and not stop running until she was sure that he had forgotten about her.
"Hey." He said, dropping the word laden with amusement and love and tenderness. Ashley felt her heart pull a little and her feet echo the feeling, though with an opposite idea. They wanted to turn and sprint, but her heart didn't want to hurt anyone anymore, especially not him. Especially not the people, few as they were, who loved her. She was shivering now, the cold and the hurt getting to her more than she could admit, even to herself. He stepped forward, still out of the rain, and offered her a fresh white towel, steadily clenched in his hand. She felt her heart ache.
"Paul." Ashley breathed.