Review Section
Braziliangirl125: There will be no Paula ass kicking. At least not for a while. I'll think about it.
Brittany: Yeah, Glen and Aiden made everybody go "huh?" But, that's okay.
Justlikeyou: We're back to Spencer and Ashley now, so you should be happy.
Sweetiepie1972: Thank you for the compliment.
MistyRiver17: No, no. I must be the strange one. Typing is really slow with only two hands. Yay, my story has potential, and it apparently rocks. I feel warm and fuzzy.
Author's Note
Back to the wonderful Spashley goodness. I won't stray too far from them. But, I will stray. You have been warned.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from South Of Nowhere. They all belong to the creator, Tom Lynch. But, it's fun to make them dance like puppets every once in a while.
Not Where We've Been
Chapter 5
By Persephone's Nautical Nun
Spencer didn't seem to care where we went. She just wanted toB get away from the situation. It's not like I could blame her. I mean, we knew that her mom was going to act badly, but I guess she just wasn't prepared to handle it.
I was driving blindly, in a sense. I didn't know where I was going, but I kept following a route that I somehow knew.
That's why I wasn't surprised when the old playground came into view. The same old playground, where I showed my weakness to Spencer for the first time. This seemed to be the perfect spot to draw strength from each other.
We sat in the car for a few minutes in silence. There was nothing to say. I couldn't fix this. I couldn't make this better. And it killed me to know that.
I felt her push the car door open and get out. I watched her walk, her arms wrapped around her body, towards the swing set. She stood next to the swing that I had sat on, holding onto the chain, and looking out towards the sun that was in its first stages of setting.
I got out and walked up silently behind her. I didn't want to interrupt whatever she was doing. Whether she was thinking, wishing, looking, loving, losing... I didn't want to interrupt her.
I saw her shoulders shake as she let out a sigh, and I realized she must have been crying. I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around her waist, resting my chin on her shoulder. I still didn't say anything. It just didn't feel right.
Silence wasn't upon us, though. "Ash..." Spencer whispered softly into the wind.
I simply held her closer to me in an attempt to show her that I was there, and listening.
But, she didn't seem to want to talk. She just shook her head and sighed again. Before I even realized that I was doing anything, I found myself nuzzling her neck and kissing her jawline. Just once. It's not like I went to go give her a hickey. I just gave her a peck on her jaw, because that was the easiest place I could get to.
I heard her blow air out of her nose in a sad laugh, snort kind of thing. And then she turned her face to me, and her lips found mine.
"Thank you," she said into my mouth before pulling away.
I tried to give her to best smile I could muster under these circumstances. "For what?"
She turned around in my arms and draped her arms around my shoulders. "I just confronted the person that I've been terrified of my entire life. And you stood up for me. You stood up for me against the person that I never dreamed any one would stand up against." A few tears fell from her eyes. "Do you know how much that means to me?"
I raised my hand to wipe the tears away from her flushed cheeks. I didn't like it when she cried, but the tears made her eyes bright, and I fell into the endless blue that stood just inches away from me. "I can guess." We stood there in each other's arms for a minute before I broke the silence again. "Look, it's not that big of a deal. I'd stand up to anyone who was hurting you."
Her tears started to come again, and I realized that the tears would keep coming today. No matter how many times I wiped them away. But, I would keep wiping, because when tears dry, you can't move your face, and the frown that's there, will be etched forever. And I desperately wanted to see Spencer smile again.
"I know, Ash..."
The sun had set, and still we didn't leave the playground. We did move to the wooden play set where we could sit down, but we weren't ready to leave our sanctuary yet.
I saw her profile in the moonlight, and marveled at the way the moon's rays played with her hair. I also couldn't help but notice the small rise on her lip where her scar was. That tiny scar seemed to be the cause of all of this shit. Maybe if we could find a way to make it disappear, all the rest of the crap would disappear, too.
It seemed that everything was going horribly lately, and I couldn't help but ask myself if there would be anything left.
Yet, a part of me had grown attached to that small scar. It was a reminder of what she went through for me. Okay, sure, it wasn't really for me, but the fact that what happened didn't stop her from wanting to be with me was heartening.
And so I thought that maybe everything wasn't as bad as it seemed.