A/N: This is kind of a filler chapter; not to much going on. But it sets it up for the next chapter, which is definitely full of action. Drama-type action, that is. Oh, and bold is a dream, but I'm sure you'll all figure that out when you get there.

A few days have passed since that last meeting with Reverend Phelps, but Ashley hasn't let that discourage her. We've mostly been hanging around the house and going out to the park. So far, I don't think anyone other than Reverend Phelps has recognized me. He hasn't told anyone, I think, because we haven't been bothered. I've been wondering, though, sitting on pins and needles waiting for the day when he does decide to tell everyone. Ashley, as usual, advises me against this.

"Spence, you're just going to have to get used to it," she explains one lazy afternoon when we're out back in Clay's yard, lying in the hammock together. "All your life, people are going to be like that to you. God knows I've had so many things thrown at me because of who I date. It shouldn't be an issue, but it is. And one day, Reverend Phelps is going to tell the town. And on that day, you're going to face them. But until that day, you don't have to worry."

I nod into her shoulder, little tears dripping down from my eyes. Because the last few days, I've been going over and over my memories. Over and over every last one of them until I've analyzed them to death and can't even think about them anymore. Maybe that's why we've been spending so much time in this hammock together lately; so I can think. I know that Ashley's waiting, just like me, on pins and needles to know what's on my mind, but telling her still feels just a little out of reach, like a pendulum swinging for hours and hours, taking ages to get to the pins, always just a little too far away. Until that one moment when it finally gets there, and knocks the pin down, and it's all different, but better somehow.

I saw Elle once after we broke up. It was a couple of days before I was set to leave for the therapist's. I hadn't really been out all year, and knew little of Elle's life. I'd known she was dating Glen for a while, but other than that, no news of her really reached me. The only people I even talked to anymore were Luke and James, but they didn't talk to anyone either.

I had decided to find myself a good book to read to read before heading out. Even then I'd made arrangements with my cousin about staying with him instead of going to the therapy home. I knew that going there would be a big mistake and that going to LA would be a huge risk, but it was a risk I was willing to take.

The bookstore in Harbor Hills was simply a locally owned one that received many of the regular books that chain stores got, but also some less known ones as well. I hadn't expected to find her there on that rare rainy day, but there she was, browsing the fiction section.

I tried to get away without her noticing me, but I tripped over a stack of books in the corner and she turned around to see me.

In that brief second, I felt something that reached deep inside of me, to a place I'd never accessed before; never even knew I had. It wasn't a good place.

"Spencer..." Her voice dripped with something a little less than disdain, a little more than sadness. "I heard you were going to that therapy place." She smiled lightly. "That's good. Maybe someday you'll be lucky like me; you'll find someone like Glen to lo-"

"Don't," I hissed, shocking both of us. "You don't love Glen. It's impossible."

Elle smiled at me. "Of course I love your brother. He's the best boy I've ever dated, met, loved."

"But see that's the problem," I whispered quietly, suddenly not feeling like riffling through the shelves for a good read. "You aren't looking for a boy."

She changed her demeanor immediately. "I am. I've found him. And if you haven't gotten it through your thick skull that that's the way it should be, then maybe you should stay away from me."

"I think I will." And I ran out of that store, crying harder than I'd ever cried, even harder than when she'd outed me. I ran all the way to the cemetery, and sat beneath our tree, and I cried.

I try not to think of that scene as we're lying around on that lazy afternoon. It crosses my mind because Ashley is reading something; I'm not quite sure what, but it's something, and that's enough for me right now. In every little thing, I find some way to relate it back to my pain. I know that's not healthy, and I shouldn't do that, but I just can't help it. Reverend Phelps brought the world back into focus. When we kissed, Ashley and I, it put me in a kind of suspended reality, where it was just us, and no one could touch it or ruin it or even find it. And then Reverend Phelps pulled me out of there like a mother pulling child passing unknowingly in front of an oncoming car.

The last thing I can think of as I drift off to sleep in her arms with the sun warm on my back is how everyone will react when they find out I'm back. When they find out I'm back and with a girlfriend.

I'm running through a huge maze of hedges in a dark night. The rain comes down in torrents, splashing me as I go. I don't know where or why I'm running, but the one thing my brain tells me is that I cannot stop, no matter how much it hurts.

Frantically, I turn the corner and bump into something. For a moment I think it's another hedge, but I'm wrong. It's Elle, standing over me with a baseball in her hand, one that resembles the ones they throw at the dunk tank at the barbecue. It's raining, pouring even, but she's completely dry. The rain touches her skin, her face, her hair, her clothes, but it doesn't affect her.

"Filthy lesbian," she spits out, throwing the baseball at my face.

I duck, but when I stand up, I'm somewhere different. I'm in the Blockbuster in LA with Aiden.

"Spencer!" he says eagerly. "Check this out!" He proceeds to jump into the air and stick his fingers onto the ceiling, like Spiderman. "Pretty cool, huh?" He lands perfectly back on the desk in a crouching position. "I'm trying out for the circus!"

Mitch and Luke appear out of the racks with stacks and stacks of DVDs in their arms. "These are so great!" Luke exclaims. He shows me one of them, and it's Brokeback Mountain. He turns to Mitch.

"Isn't it nice to just rent these things without anyone caring who we are?" Mitch laughs. "I feel sorry for those losers who are still trying to hide it. What wimps."

"Yeah, they're such losers," Aiden agrees in a slightly flirtatious manner.

"As are you," Mitch tells him, giving Aiden's hand a squeeze.

"Here, look at it, Spencer," Luke implores, shoving the DVD case into my hands.

I reluctantly sigh and open the blasted thing. I see the DVD itself, with Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger and the beautiful mountain scenery, and then there's a flash of light.

And I'm there, on top of that mountain. Ashley is there, too, dressed in a cowboy hat, red plaid shirt, jeans, and some black boots. She's smiling goofily and holding some firewood in her arms while stumbles towards me.

"Hey. How's the farm going?"

I look at her cluelessly until something inside of me registers that I do indeed have a farm. And a husband. Well, I had a husband. "It's doing well." I feel nervous and sweaty as I put my hands in my pockets timidly.

Ashley laughs at me. "'Course it is. Your farm's always good. How's your man?"

"Gone," I reply sharply.

She becomes sober. "I'm sorry about that, Spencer, I really am. But... can there be an 'us' now? With him out of the picture?"

I give her a disgusted look and my mind flashes back to the body of someone in a creek. I see myself at twelve years old, with my father, looking at that body. The body of Elle. "No. I... Ashley, I can't."

"Oh." She turns her back to me, losing her composure. I can hear the soft sobs, almost feel the tears. She takes off her hat.

I'm about to reach out to her, when a black-clad, cowboy version of Glen comes in front of her with a knife. I want to cry out to her, to help her, but it's too late. He stabs her in the stomach, and she screams, cracking the peace of the mountain tops, the shrill scream echoing throughout the world.

Ashley falls over on her side and Glen stares at me, holding the knife triumphantly above his head as the blood dripped slowly off of it. "You can't belong here."

And again I'm somewhere else, this time in the glittering ballroom of an 18th mansion. I'm wearing a long gown that sweeps up against the floor. I'm in the center of the dance floor, people spinning happily around me while I laughed and joked with them all.

My mother, also dressed in fine garb, rushed over to me excitedly. "Oh, Spencer, there's a fine young man over there who wishes to dance with you. He's quite charming; he owns a mansion just down the road, as well as some land in the colonies. Oh, Spencer! You simply must meet him."

As nice as the man sounds, I decline. "Mum, how many times must I tell you? I'm simply not interested in those upper class dolts."

My mother sighs at me. "Honestly, Spencer, why couldn't you have been more like Elle? She's a year your junior and already married." I don't respond. She sighs again. "Well, I suppose I must continue looking. There is someone out there for you somewhere." As soon as I see her retreating back disappear into the crowd, I instinctively turn my head to one of the large windows that show the patio and see her out there.

Ashley has changed from cowboy clothes and is now in a lower class set of male clothes. She's clearly waiting for me out on the veranda, and I feel no reason to discourage this meeting.

But again, I'm too late. Glen, this time dressed in a wealthy man's clothing, stabs her again. And she screams again. And she falls again. And she bleeds again.

He flashes into the ballroom, casually wiping off the knife. "You don't belong here either," he laments.

I'm crying now, tears rolling all over my face. "Why not?"

"You don't fit," he says with a shrug. "There's no love story for you."

"Yes there is!" I scream at him. Around us the people stop dancing the world is frozen save for the two of us. "There's Ashley!"

"Ashley?" Glen laughs. "There is no Ashley. There is no love. Look around you." He gestures to the ballroom and starts pointing at people. "Tall man and short woman. Man with a bowler and woman with a mole. Man from Italy and woman from England. Man from the back and woman from his house. See the pattern? Man and woman. That's what it is Spencer. You can't exist. Not here." And he takes the knife and plunges it into my heart.

I wake up from the dream, shaking like a leaf in the wind. The world isn't much different from how I left it; the sun is setting and the purple hues play across the sky with a lasting glow. Ashley sleeps next to me, her arms loosely holding me and her book lying open on top of her chest. I don't want to leave this moment, because it feels so perfect.

But that dream. Nothing feels perfect anymore. Not as perfect as it once was.