Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with SoN.
Author's Note: Just a fair warning, it's going to get worse before it gets better. I don't want to depress anyone but it's about feeling loss. Slowly things will turn around, but like real life, it's not going to happen right away.
Thanks to:
Jimmiateearth - There are a few more chapters. But thank you for your kind words, I was afraid to post this since it's sad, but you made me feel welcome.
Kori - You're going to make me blush. Thanks. I hope I can keep describing what Spencer feels in a way that draws you in.
karmakaze - Thanks for the review. It's going to get worse before it gets better. But if you hold on, I promise you it ends on at least a promising note. I throw in a lot of sweet/sappy Spashley memories for at least one "aww" moment in the sadness.
rock0rules - Thanks. I don't want to make anyone cry, but it is supposed to be sad. Sometimes people really do have to hit rock bottom to climb back up.
Part 2
It's clichéd but true, the nights are the hardest.
During the day Spencer keeps herself busy. She goes to school, does all her work, got a job, and even joined a few clubs. She keeps up on what's expected of her, smiling when she's supposed to smile, chuckling when something is supposed to be funny, holding her head up because it's all she can do. The only thing that is noticeably different is that she doesn't make eye contact anymore. Because when she looks in the mirror she's terrified by the emptiness that looks back.
Of course it helps that she lives in L.A. In Ohio you're noticed, you are a person. In L.A. she is a number, just another blonde girl with a broken heart. Nothing special. It also helps that everyone who really knew her has moved on. They all graduated and began new chapters in their lives, leaving her behind. She really does miss all of them, but it's Ashley that she always seems to see turning corners. It's always Ashley's name she hopes to see when her phone rings, no matter how hard she fights to forget that very girl.
Spencer likes the days, even beyond the busy almost chaotic schedule she keeps herself on. She enjoys the light, the sun. It's a contrast to the darkness she feels inside, and it almost makes her feel alive. She often catches herself staring at that sun willing that light to fill her up again. When she finally has to look away, tears rolling down her face, she likes to pretend it's only because the light is just so damn bright. But at least for that time she was feeling something. She has stopped differentiating between good feeling and bad feeling. Feeling has become feeling.
Of course, even the most naïve of children realizes that with each day comes a night. Spencer used to equate the nighttime to Ashley. They both held promise. The night could bring a wild time or a calmness. Undeniably, so could Ashley. No one to judge them, no one to interrupt their exploration of each other. When they were together it was their time.
In L.A. you could rarely see the stars, it was always the lights of the city that peered back at them from the darkness. Ashley had once told Spencer that she had an agreement with God (surprising Spencer by the very mention) and that the lights of the city were always on to guarantee Ashley would always be able to see exactly what it was she had. As she said it she looked at Spencer with such love that Spencer decided she would start going to church again. Because clearly God did some things right.
Now Spencer equates the night with her pain. There's no one to keep her from her own thoughts unless she's at a party. And she has gone to far less parties since running into Ashley at one once. The lights of the city tease her, letting her know that somewhere Ashley is using those very lights to look at someone else. Spencer really doesn't care if that someone else is a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a friend, or a damn taxi driver. The point is that it is no longer her. And it never will be again. Now the night only brings darkness, and Spencer feels she has enough darkness in her now to last a lifetime.
At night she simply lies in bed, staring at the ceiling, and feels herself disappear into the darkness, becoming one with it. She always lights the room with candles, finding a strange solace in the fire. She likes to light a match and watch it burn until she can no longer hold it, doing it so often per night her room always begins to smell of sulfur. She watches the flames flicker, the areas they touch the only place she won't end up losing herself. She runs her hands through the flames feeling the heat. She likes to feel that split second of a burning sensation, because again feeling is feeling.
Closing her eyes causes her to fall into memories and ever since seeing the brunette again, sleeping always causes her to slip into erotic dreams. The dreams are always so intensely real she wakes up sticky, sweaty, and completely satisfied. Her sheets always end up on the floor and at some point Spencer's body would have unconsciously made room for Ashley during the night. Spencer's terrified the day will come that simply saying the name "Ashley" will cause her to reach some climax.
After the first dream Spencer had decided it was past time to move on, at least physically. And she really had tried. But every girl that ever touched her felt like a betrayal to Ashley due to the mere fact that it wasn't Ashley. The hands that's that ran across her skin weren't the callused yet incredibly soft hands of her guitar player. The voice that whispered in her ear never held that mixture of lust and love that used to cause Spencer to tremble in delight. The eyes that stared back at her could never be the soulful, brooding, dark eyes she had learned to read so well.
Once she even tried turning back to a guy for pleasure. The result was hilariously pathetic. She thinks she laughed for real for the first time in a long time, so she has him to thank for that at the very least.
She gave up on being satisfied by anything but dream Ashley. She gave up on love too. But that happened the minute they walked out of each other's lives.
And so the nights went. She would remember conversations
"Do you believe in destiny?"
"I don't know, Ash. You?"
"I walked into a basketball practice to apologize to a girl. Me. Yeah. I believe in destiny."
She would remember touches
Ashley caressing her intimately, drinking in Spencer's moans with her mouth
She would remember smells
Ashley pulling Spencer into the shower with her. Spencer shampooing her hair sensually, praying the smell of lavender never leaves her hands.
She would then be too drained to even cry herself to sleep anymore. Until she falls asleep she always has a fear deep inside her that maybe this will be the one time the night never ends. It has become the only thing she's afraid of, an endless night. But eventually she always falls asleep, gradually fading into nothingness until the dreams start, as the candles burn on all night.
Spencer couldn't help but realize her love for Ashley, the one that used to warm her on the cold nights, the very love that had helped Spencer realize her true self, had become a ghost that now haunted those same nights.
She was pathetic, and she knew it. She was broken, and she knew it. She needed Ashley, if only Ashley knew it.