Here is the next chapter. I hope that you enjoy it and please review if you feel compelled to say anything.
Wednesday afternoon Aiden and Spencer held hands and ate lunch on the strip, watching people refresh themselves in the daylight following a holiday. They were quiet and their heads were clear until the third glass of champagne on the beach later that evening, where they gazed into an open sea.
There was a certain poetry to the scene, and both were compelled to examine carefully that element of the night. Aiden was marveling at the blue of the ocean, comparing it to his lover's eyes, and Spencer was feeling absently along the rough contours of his hand. It was strong and she felt safe as the skies grew opaque.
For several hours they discussed insignificant, easy things—gossip, superficial relations, and drinking. By the time the air had grown restless Aiden was remembering his acid trip. This was the first time they spoke of it at any significant degree of length.
"Did you like your first time?" he asked her. He sounded anxious.
"I don't know if 'like' is the word for it," Spencer said. She paused, noticing his nervous state. "Where were you?"
"Downstairs."
"What were you doing?"
"I was by the couch…you know, a little bit in back of it. Behind it. A couch."
"I didn't see you for at least nine hours."
"That's the way it goes," he explained importantly. "I did LSD three times before that. I was somewhere far away, those times, too. They always go all over the place, but I just sit there. In fact, most of the time I believe that I can't even move…"
"That you can't move?"
"I lose faith in my ability to move. Like I no longer have that power. Then I have to think, and because I spend so much time moving whenever I'm not on acid it's like, super-intense. I think and my brain hurts and in the morning I feel all enlightened and terrible."
Spencer tilted her head earnestly, watching the muscles in his face twitch as he seemed to recall something.
"What did you think about?" she prompted.
"That time, I thought about Ray."
Aiden had his arm around Spencer and his grip on her increased so that she noticed the proximity. She was uncomfortable suddenly, her mind flashing repeatedly to her most recent encounter with Ashley. He was facing her fully now, kissing the skin on her neck. She felt ashamed and she closed her eyes, pretending she was Aiden in the corner of the living room.
"Why did you think about him?" He unbuttoned her shorts, carefully slid them down her legs.
"At first I was thinking about my mom, before him, and how much better off she could be, and what a motherfucker he was, and then I started to love him. I thought about how hard it must have been for him that he could become such a person, so destructive to himself and the people who care about him—I thought that it perpetuates itself, that his redneck father probably hit him like he hits me and made him feel as shitty as I do. I loved him so much for knowing what it was like to be beaten like a bastard I felt like he was my brother," Aiden said, although his tone had elevated into something of disgust, and he immediately returned to kissing his girlfriend and slowly unzipping his pants.
"That's noble," Spencer tried.
"I don't believe it anymore."
"You've done a good job, Aiden."
They had sex again. The stars weren't out and the champagne was lukewarm for their after party. For the duration of their time together Spencer found that she was completely absorbed in contemplation, unable to register her own emotional response to the event as well as its meaning as a whole. She understood his grief and she was sad, and she saw her own fault and was further disturbed—she was not in love with him.
When she was back in the confines of her bedroom that night she did her homework and she started to write down places she wanted to go. Maybe when she had made some good money she could get a vacation home there, or if she went to a school with a study abroad program.
There was also, of course, the most immediate and obvious option, which was the Trip in February, but she chose to dismiss the idea as irrelevant. She did not want to think of Ashley or Aiden and she couldn't think of anyone else, anyways, so this exercise left her mind clear. Afterwards she rolled a joint in one last effort to numb her brain. She succeeded and her dreams were barren.
Spencer slept soundly, however. She slept half of Thursday then stared at her ceiling, then she slept again and it was Friday.
The gang had, on cue, officiated a gathering that Thursday in honor of a successful, vomit-free Thanksgiving. It was the decided goal to vomit that night, instead, before school began, and at their disposal they had an assortment of downers and dark liquor. Once the majority of these condiments had been used, Aiden, Ashley, Glen, and Madison were enjoying the calamity of intoxicated conversation in Kyla's bedroom.
Ashley sniffled. It was not the first time that night that she had sniffled.
"Quit sniffing, Ash. Why you gotta sniff so much? You got something pretty in your pocket? Why would a sweet girl like you be sniffing so much? Aiden, you better get this crazy bitch to stop sniffing," Glen asserted.
Ashley twitched and looked at Glen defensively, inching away from his presence. She grabbed a tissue and blew her nose.
"Mm, she's all fucked up. Look at her all over the place, weaseling about like she got something to hide. Everyone knows you got that blow up your nose, Ashley, and with you poppin' all them other pills, your dumb bitch ass is gonna OD or some shit and you know we ain't gonna know shit to do about it."
"No, your dumb bitch ass, Madison."
Aiden looked at her curiously.
"It's five in the morning."
When they were coherent enough they proceeded to exchange glances. Glen and Madison hastily retreated to the largest bed in the house and Ashley returned to her room, letting herself drown in her nightly routine of insomnia—bloodshot eyes and repetitive motions and watching the sun rise in Hell.
Aiden was alone for a few moments after the others departed, was even surprised when he observed that he had been sitting there for over ten minutes. He was pacing, then, his vision was distorted. He went to see Ashley, because he knew from experience that tonight she would not sleep.
"I don't want to entertain your company," she told him upon arrival. "The only thing I have to offer you is harsh criticism and bitter rejection."
"Ashley, I think I'm falling in love with Spencer."
"Who?"
"Spencer. The blonde girl I've been dating."
"Kendra?"
"Spencer."
"Oh. Kendra."
"God damnit, you bitch, Ashley!"
"What do you want me to do? This is clearly all your fault! I can't clean up your dirty laundry."
"What?"
"You can't blame me for you falling in love with Spencer. You screwed yourself over."
"Dirty laundry?"
"I'm trying to sleep here, you know."
"Wait, Ashley, Ashley," Aiden said. He sprinted to her bed and nudged her as she turned away from him. "Do you think Spencer's not in love with me?"
She clasped pillows over her head and attempted to smoothly roll away from him, but ended up on the floor. He crawled across the mattress and looked down at her, still covering her ears and squeezing her facial muscles together in a vain effort to ignore him.
"I mean, if she doesn't love me, I can't stay with her, Ashley. I want her to love me. Do you think she loves me? Can you tell?"
They were like that for about fifteen minutes, Ashley's countenance the same as Aiden gazed down at her pathetically. She said nothing and he left. She slept on the floor, woke up at noon and decided to go to school.
Spencer was talking to Patrick in the courtyard when Ashley showed up, having remembered that on Fridays Spencer was free for every lunch period. They were catching up for the first time in a while and he was exactly as awkward as she had expected him to be.
"What did you do for Thanksgiving?"
"Oh, uh, you know, family, dinner, turkey, relatives, family. That kind of thing. I mean, did you eat with your family? Or Aiden—Ashley—Aiden?—maybe, your family. I don't know."
"I ate at Aiden's house. It was delicious. The next day we walked all over town and then we went to the beach."
"I go to the beach sometimes. I mean, I like to, I haven't gone to the beach in a long time because my friends don't do that as much and I used to go with my sisters, and they're gone now. And the beach is pretty nice."
"We can go to the beach sometime, Patrick. We can go with the basketball team, after a game, perhaps."
She made him feel comfortable. They were friends again.
Ashley had stopped to watch from the doorway into the courtyard, perched herself against it casually. The bell rang and she stepped back behind the door as the two walked out. She grabbed Spencer's hand as she began to walk away; she had just stood there and they hadn't seen her.
"Come here," Ashley said. Her voice was raw. She'd smoked too many cigarettes.
The two gravitated back to the tree and Ashley pulled Spencer onto the bench, making erratic motions with their entwined hands as she spoke.
"We have joints to roll, lots of them, and I drew these pictures and I want to show you them, and we'll need to finish the rest of my Southern Comfort," she mumbled, creating multiple tangents as she continued. "So we'll have to stop by the library, is the gist of it."
"I have class the rest of the day. How about tomorrow, around three?"
"You're horrible! You horrible creature! It's from talking to that scientologist, right? He mixes up your priorities."
"Tsk. He's Catholic, like me, Ashley."
"I want to take you home with me and make you laugh and sweat and scream."
"Sorry? What's wrong with you, now?"
"Nothing. I'm completely sober minus two Vicodin, one line of codeine and three good morning bowls."
"What are you talking about, laughter and sweat and screaming? I've never heard this before."
Ashley leaned in towards Spencer's ear, speaking in a low tone with careful enunciation.
"I'm going to make you my love-bitch," she said. She moved her lips so that they were grazing Spencer's nose, began to kiss her beneath the overhang of the branches.
"Jesus, can't you be a little more subtle? I don't know what's come over you."
"Come to my house with me."
In the car, Spencer asked her again:
"What's wrong with you? Why are you treating me like this?"
"I've decided it is about time I make you my love-bitch. You've always been my bitch, now we're just going to make love all the time. And you're allowed to speak to me now, but only when spoken to. And you cannot break any of the Commandments, which I will improvise right now."
"Don't do that. What if I don't want to make love to you because you're so arrogant and reckless and you act as if you're using me? I don't think I've ever implied that I'm attracted to that."
"All the time."
"I'm not. I want you to be honest with me. Why do you want to do this with me now, after all those objections you had, after being all over the place with me—tease me, talk to me, ignore me, embrace me. What is this, now?"
They pulled up to the Davies mansion. The gates had been fixed.
"Are you in love with Aiden?"
"What business is that of yours?"
Ashley pushed Spencer into the wall of the archway leading into the living room. She ran her eyes and hands down her thoroughly, as if it was the first time she was looking at her or feeling her.
"It's my business," Ashley began, grinding against her and gripping her hips. "Because I think you're in love with me."
They migrated upstairs and Ashley made them drinks, Pineapple Bombs to go with the thick smoke of burning herb and paper.
Spencer was familiar with this daze but the short week away from it had somehow left her feeling overwhelmingly sober. She eased right into the alcohol's fumes and was drunk again, as if she'd never been drunk before. She kept on drinking and she was drunker, she smoked and her eyes were heavy.
The two lost conversational tactics and smothered each other, passionate and clumsy as they bounced between the walls of the empty house. Spencer was drunk enough that she saw two of Ashley until her face was close enough, the only time her features were defined and she could comprehend exactly what was occurring. She didn't think about it; early on in the process she just stopped thinking about everything. She became, rather, a part of a dance, her mind trapped among instinct, her state returned to that of the beastly human being she had previously pondered.
They lay in each other's arms at night, heard the slam of the door downstairs and voices, their friends, filling the space around them.
"I'm going to get changed, and you should smoke a joint so they think we were doing that. Come on, come on. Go put on some clothes," Spencer said. Her words were dry and raspy, the result of a medium-sized hangover, and it was only with considerable difficulty that she was able to compel herself to leave the bed.
"I'm sleeping. Do you love him?"
"No. Get dressed, Ashley."
"He deserves better than you."
"Fuck you!" Spencer threw her jeans in her face. "I stayed with him because you wanted me to."
"I just think he deserves someone who loves him."
"Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. I hate you."
She stormed out of the room. Ashley sat up a little and realized that she had not dealt with that discussion correctly.
"I mean, if I have you and we love each other, he should find someone who loves him like that," she said, to herself and the light creeping through the half-open door. "And he said it, too, so maybe I could have both of you."
She lit up a cigarette, alone with her vices. Downstairs they yelped and played and she could imagine herself with them, together wreaking havoc on their own minds and sanity. She finished the remainder of her current liquor ensemble in the company of Bob Dylan and her mirror and blades.