Removed the last chapter. Why? Because it just did not fit with what I have in my head and that was driving me up the wall. This is much better. Now I can move forward again.
Yay.
/ /
Being the leader has it drawbacks, you know?
You can toss out the lines, you can barrel through the doors and climb out the windows, you can flip off the people and sneer at everyone.
You can do so much, because you expect it of yourself and the rest of the world expects it of you as well.
There are those moments, though, where you don't know what to do.
Do you smile or do you stay as stiff as a board? Do you laugh or do you grimace?
Do you tell the truth when it scares you... or do you play along with the lies instead?
And you would have kept it all in if you could have, this is a fact.
You'd have kept it all locked away, trying to save yourself the aggravation of admittance and the awkwardness of emotions.
You've been doing that for so long - it is second nature for you to not talk about it.
'It' being the caring in your heart, for a friend who has had nothing but shit thrown at him.
'It' being the sadness in your body, for parents that might as well be figments of your imagination.
'It' being the need in your soul, for a blonde-haired girl you barely know and, yet, know better than anyone.
There are moments, though, where you want to let the words fall out and you cannot stop that stream of chatter and it tumbles out of you.
And it is not the past, where you made yourself so big and so tough.
And it is not the future, because you can't see it clearly and you are staring to think that that is the point of the future anyway.
It is you, on his doorstep, being honest.
It is you, a child asleep on drawings of dinosaurs.
It is you and promises kept and shoulders there to lean on.
It is you, realizing that - despite all the disconnect, willing and otherwise - no one has to be alone.
Not Aiden. Not Spencer.
Not even you, Ashley, not even you.
/ /
Ashley stares at the phone, like it might ring.
Or like she might actually make the call.
Because she wants to. She wanted to make the call even as she was running out of Spencer's house, wanted to turn around and take the girl with her, wanted to hold the two of them together like lost pieces to a puzzle.
And these thoughts scare her, the way they beat in time with her heart, the way they heat up her veins with unfamiliar longings.
She longs for Spencer. She aches to reach out, muscles used to atrophy and sore with new movement. All her actions up to this point have been controlled, only slipping up and flailing about once or twice in sorrow... But then Ashley would jerk it all back inward, hold back that tide, stay that storm.
But the trees are blowing back and forth now.
And the skies are growing cloudy and gray.
Love is here and it won't be denied.
And she is used to being the one leading the charge, full steam ahead, no regard for consequences, no thought of the fall-out.
She had things to forget. She had wounds to ignore. She had a life to reinvent in sex and in distance and in faking nonchalance.
Spencer has stripped away the pretense.
And Ashley is left here, sitting in her car in some empty parking lot, staring at her cell phone.
Wanting to call. Wanting to know. Wanting to hear Spencer's voice. Wanting to say the right things and give the kind of comfort that she has never really tried giving before - one without kisses, one without expectations, one without a shred of selfishness.
She's not sure if she can manage it.
But she wants to. And that's a start.
That's something.
/ /
You've always been the leader.
But you are faltering now and he is driving around this town, driving around in circles.
Or that's how it feels. That's how your head feels.
You go from one possible action to the next and never take a single step.
You've always been the leader, but now you are just standing still.
And you want to tell him to drive to Spencer's house. But you aren't sure that is wise.
And you want to just fucking call the girl up. But you don't know if she wants to hear from you.
After all, Spencer has not called you. Three days and the girl has not called you.
And you can think of thousands of reasons to take that leap.
And you can think of a million more to stay silent.
And Aiden's eyes shift your way several times, gauging you and figuring you out, weighing the confessions you hushed out with your present inability to make good on them.
"You won't know, Ash, if you don't even try."
You've always been the leader.
But right now, right now you give up that post, and he takes it up for you.
Because he can, because he gives a damn and you know it to be true.
Because he is Aiden, your best friend.
And shaking hands dial the numbers as the roads fly by you.
/ /
Spencer doesn't answer, though.
/ /
TBC