Ashley avoided Spencer as much as she could at school. All the paths she walked to her classes, strategically planned to walk by Spencer, she altered. With nothing else to focus all her frustration on, Ashley had begun to get deeper and deeper into her music. She spent the lunch period holed up in the library, writing pages of disgruntled love songs all meant for Spencer. It seemed like the days were getting longer and longer. Ashley spent more time in bed than anywhere else. She'd lay and stare at her ceiling, loud angst-ridden indie music playing over her stereo, drowning out her thoughts. Even her mother, who rarely took any interest in Ashley, noticed something was wrong.

"Honey, you haven't gotten out of bed all day." Her mother commented one Saturday. Ashley lay with her back to her mother, trying to pretend that she was ok.

"I'm just tired. Can I be left alone?" Ashley asked. Her mother sighed.

"You've been alone in here all week. What happened to Spencer?" She asked. Ashley was surprised her mother remembered her friend's name…usually she was too busy with her own life to take an interest in Ashley's friends.

"We're…we're in a fight. Or something like that." Ashley murmured. She really didn't want to get into things with her mom. She and her mother were on a "don't ask, don't tell" basis: if Ashley didn't ask about what number boyfriend her mother was on, her mother didn't question any of Ashley's relationships. Ashley's mom sat down on the bed next to Ashley.

"Honey, I know it's hard taking advice from me, obviously I don't know how to keep anything in tact…" she hesitated for a moment. "But don't be too hard on yourself, or Spencer. You have too good a friendship to let it go over a trivial argument." Ashley wanted to laugh and tell her mother that this "trivial argument" was that Spencer would never be with Ashley and that Ashley was depressed as hell about it. She wanted to tell her mother how dare she tell her to not let things go to waste…her mother had wasted her marriage, her boyfriends, and especially her relationship with Ashley. But instead she remained silent before mumbling "thanks mom."

"What's wrong with Ash?" Aiden asked, sitting down next to Spencer at the lunch table the following week. He kissed her cheek before opening up his brown bag lunch. Spencer was hunched over her history book. Like Ashley, she'd been focusing hard on other things to keep her mind off of what had happened. Where Ashley had become engrossed in her music, Spencer had become increasingly intent on her studies. She looked up when Aiden mentioned Ashley.

"What are you talking about?" Spencer asked him. He offered her a bite of his sandwich and she declined. He finished chewing before answering.

"I haven't seen her all week. She's been in the library every lunch period for the last two weeks instead of sitting here and gossiping about everyone and everything with you." Aiden commented. Spencer had noticed that Ashley had become scarce in the hallway and that she hadn't been at lunch, but she didn't know that Ashley had been hiding out in a library. "Are you guys ok?" Aiden asked.

"Uh…" Spencer didn't have an answer. "We kinda got into a fight."

"Over what?" Aiden wanted to know.

"You know…girl stuff." Spencer answered him, hoping that her vague answer would suffice. "I'm going to go talk to her now actually. See you after school." She bent over to kiss him on the cheek when Aiden turned and caught her in a kiss. She went along with it until he pulled back; she put on a happy smile. Turning away from him and walking to the library, Spencer wiped tuna fish off of her lip before entering the building.

Spencer found Ashley in the back of the third floor fiction section. She was curled up on a couch, looking out an open window with her song notebook opened on her lap. She was tapping out a melody on her cheek with her pen while daydreaming. For a split second Spencer wondered if Ashley was thinking about her, but she pushed that thought from her head. She approached Ashley and cleared her throat. Ashley turned and looked up at Spencer, obviously surprised by her suddenly being there.

"I was just leaving." Ashley murmured, gathering up her books and quickly slamming her notebook shut. She grabbed her backpack and stood up, but Spencer stopped her from leaving.

"Hold on, Ashley." She told her. "What are you doing in here?"

"Why do you care?" Ashley retorted, attempting to maneuver her way around Spencer. Spencer dodged in front of Ashley to keep her from getting away.

"What have you been up to?" Spencer asked. Immediately she regretted trying to pretend nothing had happened between them.

"What have I been up to?" Ashley exclaimed. "I've been letting you have your perfect lie, the quirky gay girl who wrongly influences you out of the picture."

"I don't want you out of the picture." Spencer tried to convince her.

"Oh really? Your mother would love that." Ashley scoffed. Spencer was offended by that comment.

"Can we leave her out of this?" Spencer asked.

"Leave her out? She's part of the problem here! If she wasn't such a homophobe, making being who you are a 'sin' then…" Ashley trailed off. "Things might be different." Ashley finally pushed past Spencer and headed out of the library. Spencer walked quickly after her out into the hallway. Lunch was over and all the kids were moving about in the hallway.

"Ashley, talk to me. Just because…we can't be…whatever…doesn't mean that we can't be friends!" Spencer tried to call over the crowd of people, catching up with Ashley. Ashley spun around looking furious.

"YES IT DOES, SPENCER." Ashley shouted. People in the hallway all turned to look at her. "I CAN'T JUST BE FRIENDS WITH YOU." Spencer was embarrassed by everyone watching, but she couldn't let Ashley get away right then.

"Why? Why not?" Spencer demanded.

"BECAUSE I'M IN LOVE WITH YOU, SPENCER." Ashley was breathing hard, but her words were out. Everyone knew now. "So, now you know." Ashley whispered. She turned, only half believing that she actually just proclaimed her love for Spencer in front of the entire school. She went to her locker and threw her books into in. She placed her head up against the locker next to hers. Her forehead rested against the cool metal of the locker; she took several deep breaths. She replayed that moment over and over in her head, trying to figure out if it was as bad as she thought it was. Coming to the conclusion that things couldn't have gone any worse, Ashley turned and slammed her locker shut and headed for her car. Screw school, she thought.