Review Section
EmmaShalforever: Can I just say that I love your name? Mmm, Lauren Lee Smith.
Torak the Slash Lover: Yay, I'm brilliant.
SpeedReader9: I am spreading the Joseph Arthur love. I'm glad you like the song.
Allie: Yeah, grammatical errors tend to make me sad.
Annonymous: Alright, I'm updating.
Blaze: I'm glad we see eye to eye on WebCT.
Alright, I'm posting, already.
Boberry: This one must have felt like an eternity for you. Sorry about that.
Ravchick452: I love you, too...?
justlikeyou: Yes, slutty Kelly...
Andi: Well, here's the next chapter.
The sick little suicide: I do believe I will continue.
Whisperedrainbow: Music libraries rock my socks.
MistyRiver17: I tried to incorporate slightly different aspects during Ashley's narrative.
Hackensack nights: Yay for good dialogue!
Author's Notes
I know I've been neglectful, but there's been a lot of stuff going on, lately. Anyway, the rating comes into play here. You have been warned. Also, are there hills in California? If not, there are now. It makes my life easier. And apparently, I'm more into Ashley in this fic. Last time it was all about Spencer. Oh, well.
Disclaimer: I do not own the South Of Nowhere characters. They belong to Tom Lynch.
In The Sun
Chapter 4
By Persephone's Nautical Nun
- Spencer -
I was late. I hated being late. I knew it wasn't my fault. Red Hawke could talk forever, but I still hated it. Trying to dodge the people overcrowding the narrow hallways in the music building, I managed to make it to the stairway. I started to run up them, thinking I was in the clear, trying to get to my class.
Unfortunately, I wasn't in the clear. I ran hard into some one coming down the stairs, almost knocking us both down. I didn't notice who it was until she spoke. "Spencer?"
I looked up and came face to face with Ashley. I was relieved to see a friendly face. Everyone else in the building always looked at me like I didn't belong there, just because I wasn't a music major. "Hey, Ash."
"What are you doing here?" she asked, obviously as confused as everyone else at my presence in the musician's sanctum.
"Music Appreciation," I replied. Why didn't music majors ever think of that?
"You're appreciating a lot of things this semester, aren't you?" she mused, while moving past me on the staircase so I had to turn around to look at her. "You have Trana, right? Talk about cruel and unusual punishment."
"You know him?" I asked, taking a few steps up the stairs.
"He's my advisor, and I have him for practically every class. I just got out of Ear Training."
I didn't bother responding. She was already on the first floor, and I was on the second.
"Spencer!" she yelled.
I leaned over the low railing to look at her. "Yeah?"
"Do you want to get together tonight, work on that paper for Lykens?"
I seemed strangely excited at the idea. "Sure," I called out.
"Meet me outside the apartments at eight."
"Okay." I watched her leave. Shit, now I was even later.
- Ashley -
---South-Of-Nowhere---
Upon walking into my apartment, I was relieved to find that Kelly wasn't home. I didn't know where she was, nor did I care at that point in time. I checked the clock. 7:30, just enough time for me to hide the paraphernalia. I grabbed the junk from the coffee table and put it all on Kelly's desk in her room, shutting the door afterwards. There was no reason to be in there, tonight. I just hoped Kelly wouldn't decide to come home.
A few minutes before eight, I walked down the concrete stairs of the university apartments. I settled onto one of the green benches outside and sighed into the wind. What was I thinking? I should have asked to go to her place.
"Hey," I heard Spencer's voice off to my right. My head snapped to her direction and I was taken aback by the sight in front of me. There she stood, in jeans and a navy blue tank underneath a white sweater that was only zipped halfway. Her hair was down and the gentle breeze was playing with her blond strands. The navy blue served to bring out the sharpness of her eyes. It amazed me how something so simple could be so extraordinary. I used to believe that I would be perfectly content if I ever went blind, as long as I still had my hearing and music. After seeing Spencer standing there, that philosophy changed.
If some one were to ask me the precise time that I fell in love with Spencer Carlin, I would answer, without hesitation, this moment, right here. She was beautiful, yes, but that wasn't all there ws to it. It was the act of looking. I took in everything I could about her. And I felt myself weaken under her gaze.
"Hey," I manged to reply after remembering how to speak. "Where are your books?" I asked when I realized that her hands were in her pockets.
She approached the bench and stood in front of me, never taking her hands out of her pockets. "You didn't seem like the studying type, Ashley. But, I did want to hang out with you. So, I figured I'd just bring myself and we'd hang out." She shrugged to emphasize her point of playing it by ear.
I smiled. I couldn't help it. When I met her in the library, she seemed to be a geek of sorts, but a good one. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that she had no intention of working on the paper, that she just wanted to spend time with me. To be honest, I didn't really want to work on our paper, either. I had a week until it was due, anyway.
We got up to the top floor where my room was, and I unlocked the door, opening it for Spencer. But, she had her back to me, her arms on the railing, looking out towards the hills to the east. "Daffodils are stupid," I heard her say.
Forgetting that my door was open, I went and stood next to her, leaning my arms against the railing as she was, trying to figure out what she was looking at. "What?" I asked.
"Daffodils are stupid. Look at them." She pointed to the hills in the distance, dotted with yellow flowers.
I looked between her hand and the hills, trying to understand her comment. "Okay, I see the daffodils. What makes them stupid?"
She looked at me like I was stupid, but not in a condescending way, just in a way that made me feel like Spencer just lived in a different reality than everyone else. "It's cold and rainy," she explained. "Yet, the daffodils don't seem to know that. All they know is that the earth has moved into a position that wakes them up."
I stood in awe of the girl beside me. When I thought about it, it really made sense. Who would want to come out in this weather? Daffodils must be stupid. I stood staring at those far away daffodils for several minutes before I realized that Spencer was no longer beside me. Looking around me, I saw her standing in the doorway of my apartment. "Are you coming in, or are you going to stand there looking at the daffodils all day?"
I shook my head and smiled at her, making my way into my apartment. I had always heard that first impressions could be misleading. Don't get me wrong, I loved the first impression I had gotten from Spencer, but this was just blowing my mind. I was catching a glimpse into the way she saw things, and I realized that she saw things a little differently than most people. I was sucked in.
Not a lot was going on that night. We just sat around for several hours, listening to music and talking about random things. I learned a little bit about her family, and how she had an adopted brother, Clay, who was African American. We talked about him for a little while. We talked about how she had a nagging feeling that he never really felt like he belonged anymore, but that she understood that. She said she never really felt like she belonged anywhere, either, but she didn't know why.
Around eleven, the door flew open and Kelly staggered inside, making out with a blond that I recognized as Josie, while trying to get the door closed. Josie had been a one night stand for me not long after I had called things off with Kelly. Josie stole half of my shit that night. "Way to go, Kel. You picked up a thief."
They pulled away from each other and Josie looked at me like she didn't recognize me. I couldn't see the color of her eyes, her pupils were too big. "What are you talking about, Ash?" Kelly asked me as she plopped down on the couch next to me, resting her head on my shoulder. I looked over at Spencer to make sure she wasn't freaked out by the sudden reaction, but she was just sprawled across the other couch, watching the scene unfold. She didn't seem phased at all.
Kelly looked at Kelly and I. I had instinctively wrapped my arm around her shoulder. I was in a good mood tonight, so I wasn't really planning on fighting with Kelly. "You guys look so gay," Josie commented.
I had to chuckle at her. She was so stupid right now. She definitely wasn't the Josie I remember. I didn't know what she had been doing, but it was obviously something good. "Yeah, Josie... we do."
"How do you know my name?" she asked, wide eyed.
Everyone in the room pretty much decided to ignore that question. It just didn't need to be talked about. Kelly noticed Spencer for the first time. "Who are you?" she asked, in her normal, blunt, Kelly way.
Spencer sat up, suddenly appearing uncomfortable. "Oh, I'm Spencer. Nice to meet you."
I watched Kelly's eyes travel up and down her body. "Cute," she mumbled, mostly to herself, but she knew that I had heard her. "Hey, Ash," she started talking again. "I need some weed."
I shot a look over at Spencer. This wasn't the world I wanted her to see me in. I was hoping she wouldn't be too freaked out. But, when I looked over, she didn't seem freaked out at all. She had just laid back down on the couch, getting herself comfortable. I looked back at Kelly, addressing her. "All the stuff is in your room."
"Awesome," she said, as she hopped up and disappeared in her room for a few minutes. She came back out with glass pipe in hand and proceeded to pack a bowl. She sat down on the side of me closest to Spencer as she did so. After taking the first hit, she passed it on to Spencer.
I was somehow disappointed when Spencer reached for the pipe and the lighter without hesitation. And I was even more disappointed when she took her own hit. I don't know how I knew, but I knew that she had never smoked pot before. It's something I could just tell. I couldn't figure out why she'd go ahead and smoke without any hesitation.
As I watched the smoke leave her lips, I saw her innocence begin to slip away, and I wanted to break down in tears right there. I didn't want to do this to Spencer. I didn't want her to become one of us.
Damn you, Kelly.
Damn you.