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Author's Note: Thank you all you wonderful and beautiful people who left reviews. Thank you for being open to my dark angsty side. Please, leave more, heee!
Part 4
Clay said it was an accident pure and simple. Aiden said there may have been drugs involved. They both refused to talk about the events leading up to it.
They were both too nice to actually blame her, but she knew it was her fault. Ashley most definitely blamed herself.
And so Ashley found herself outside of Spencer's hospital room, terrified to actually enter. The nurse had told her repeatedly that Spencer was drugged to the point of unconsciousness. So really, Ashley theorized, now would be the optimal time to just go in. There would be no messy confrontations, no need to talk of the past. Ashley could just make sure that Spencer was still alive for herself. It was perfect.
But her heart disagreed. Ashley's heart argued that Ashley deserved to be yelled at, that in reality she wanted to be yelled at. In Ashley's world blame showed that at least someone cared enough to notice. It was indifference that was the enemy. A sleeping Spencer could neither blame or ignore Ashley, so she wouldn't know where she stood in the blonde's eyes. It would leave Ashley alone to hate herself all on her own.
It wasn't a new feeling though. The only time in her life that Ashley hadn't hated herself was her time spent with Spencer. To say it had been a fairytale would actually be belittling it in Ashley's mind. It had been far more beautiful than that. And besides, fairytales are supposed to have happy endings.
With a determined sigh Ashley finally pushed into the room and found herself immediately regretting it. The room was poorly lit and shadows seemed to be reaching from dark corners to the only light available which was illuminating from a small lamp near the bed. In that bed lay Spencer, looking as small as Ashley had ever seen her. And completely alone.
Ashley gasped out loud as she was struck by an image of the world without Spencer. It was a dark, cold, merciless place and in that split second Ashley wanted to die herself rather than have to experience that emptiness again.
But of course Spencer wasn't gone. She was definitely looking worse for the wear but she would live. Yet, despite the reassertions to herself, Ashley couldn't move away from the wall by the door. Her palms were pressed against its cold surface as if it were some sort of life raft. Moving closer to the bed might break the spell that was beginning to form. If she closed her eyes and just listened to the raspy sound of Spencer's breathing she could pretend none of this actually happened. They would still be together. Still wrapped up in only each other.
The two of them are sprawled on the floor of Ashley's bedroom, too lazy and hot to move. The heat is ridiculous and they are in only their bras and underwear. Spencer has spent the last five minutes kissing Ashley's stomach softly. Some kisses are so soft Ashley can only tell it happened because of Spencer's breath. Some kisses are given with a loud smack. Sometimes they're accompanied with a giggle and a wandering hand. But they keep coming.
Lying here together isn't about sex, even with the kisses. It's about comfort, love, simply being together. Ashley can't imagine a better day.
"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways," Ashley feels compelled to quote, her hand stroking Spencer's golden hair.
Spencer giggles into Ashley's stomach and in between kisses asks, "So, we're quoting poetry to each other now are we?"
Ashley sighs. "No, I can sing to you my love, but beyond that and probably a few random lines from other poems by poets I don't know, I'm lacking in the poetry department."
Ashley then has a moment of self hatred which had been coming less often because of Spencer's love but still found inopportune times to make an appearance, "I'm lacking in a lot of ways. I don't know why you would love me."
Spencer finally stops her kisses and moves up Ashley's body to take her head in her hands. She gives a brilliant smile and Ashley swears she's blinded by it for a second. "If questioning would make us wise no eyes would ever gaze in eyes," she begins staring deeply into Ashley's eyes. Ashley stares right back, drinking in the blue as if it were her life essence.
Spencer continues, "If all our tale were told in speech no mouths would wander each to each," this line she concludes with a soft kiss to Ashley's lips. Her lips are like velvet and Ashley is immediately hungry for more, but Spencer clearly isn't done.
"Were spirits free from mortal mesh and love not bound in hearts of flesh," her hand pauses a moment to feel Ashley's heartbeat, "No aching breast would yearn to meet and find their ecstasy complete." With that she gives a very wet lick to Ashley's covered breast. At Ashley's gasp she takes the nipple into her mouth and nips at it through the cloth.
"I don't think that's what they meant babe," Ashley manages to gasp out.
"For who is there that lives and knows the secret power by which he grows? Were knowledge all, what were our need to thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?" During this bit Spencer had begun to rub her hand in between Ashley's legs, the friction slowly building as the line went on.
Unfortunately it stops as soon as it began and Spencer moves back up to Ashley's face, gazing longingly into her eyes. She tilts her head slightly and gives the sweetest grin. "Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why" I love you now until I die. For I must love because I live and life in me is what you give."
Ashley pulls her down into a deep kiss enveloping the younger girl with her body because there are no words needed. There can be nothing to say to that. She hopes she can express through her actions that she feels the same way. Ashley has never been that good with words.
"Christopher Brennan, 'Because She Would Ask Me Why I Loved Her'" Spencer says when they finally break away. She kisses the top of Ashley's nose for good measure.
"We should do this poetry thing more often," Ashley responds while slipping off Spencer's bra.
There was a low moan coming from the hospital bed and it broke Ashley from her spell. For a moment her brain told her that this was the end, because of her foolishness Spencer was about to die. Ashley gagged and felt a burning sensation in her throat, feeling as if her own life were suddenly draining away. But then the girl in the bed simply rolled over, now facing her visitor, but still asleep. Ashley's name slipped from her lips so quietly that Ashley is shocked she heard it over her thundering heart.
She jumped at the voice, so hoarse and yet it still had the same effect on her body. Ashley felt the familiar tingle and her body jolted forward. Her hand came to her mouth as tears suddenly spill down her cheeks with unrelenting force. The wall that had been her anchor became a repelling magnet, shoving her away almost violently.
She approached the bed with jerky movement, her body rebelling against every action she had ever made that might have pushed this beauty away. She stood staring down at the girl reaching out to touch her before jerking back as if she had been on fire. Ashley realized she was feeling lightheaded because she was forgetting to breathe so she sucked in a noisy breath. The next breath came in through her nose and Ashley let out a sob when Spencer's familiar smell took control of her nostrils.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered, tears continuing to fall. Ashley can't stand the quiet and so she looks away, taking a deep breath. But she can't look away for long, the memories are too strong.
Ashley knows she how she left Spencer. Ashley had always been able to compartmentalize her feelings. She knew how to push the pain and loneliness to the side and she was an expert at keeping her mind on other things. She had to be to survive her years with her mother. When they broke up she had the ability to cope. Of course she hurt on a daily basis and was unable to move on, a person can't move on from losing their soul mate, but she was able to keep going, she had learned how to as a very young child.
But she had left Spencer without those devices. Spencer had grown up with the Brady's and minus the crap her mom put her through when the two of them first got together, Spencer had never been dropped by someone she had loved. Ashley had broken her, and now she knew it.
The guilt began to eat Ashley alive. The feelings for Spencer that she had shut away burst out of the dam keeping them in check. And Ashley broke with it.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she began to chant. The tears obscured her vision and she buried her head into the sleeping girl's shoulder. She began to sob but still tried to keep speaking her apology.
When a hand brushed against her head Ashley jumped up and met a pair of confused, cloudy blue eyes.
"For I must love because I live and life in me is what you give," Ashley said, then added, "I'm sorry. I just needed you to know I'm so sorry," and with those words Ashley ran from the room.