I've noticed a lack of interest in this story and despite that, I've gone and written a chapter that will probably only make things worse! lol

I'm not fond of writing some of the stuff I've had to in this chapter and you'll probably pick up on that, but it needed to be done. So yeah, here be a bit of sex and not of the Spashley variety, so you're forewarned.

As always I'm really grateful to those that read and left a review, you guys make me smile and the encouragement is always nice;) Hopefully you're still with me after this chapter!

Senior Year: The Reunion.

Chapter 10: Time to Pretend.

Ashley's Point of View.

The lights sting my eyes, they're so bright.

Long ago, when I was young and stupid, I used to look into Spencer's eyes and get that same stinging sensation, like I was looking at something so bright, and so beautiful, that it wasn't meant to be looked at by the likes of me. Yet I couldn't stop myself back then, couldn't blink away the sight in front of me like I do now.

I can shut the club's lights from my sight, can look down into my drink and forget about the sting, but I can't seem to stop seeing the phantom image of blue eyes I've managed to forget for eight years. Spencer is here with me, no matter how many times I blink or how many drinks I have.

Tonight I can't seem to get rid of her.

She's everywhere, she's in everything, she's every taste that's touched my tongue tonight and every breath I've dragged into my lungs. She's inescapable, because she's burned into my brain. I thought the Vodka would help, then I thought maybe the Jack would do it, but all it's done is mellowed my defenses. All it's done is helped images flood my mind, things I've buried long ago and very deeply away are now seeping into my thoughts. It's too much and I don't know how to stop it all.

I keep seeing Spencer lying curled up on my bed, more than nine years ago, her smile wide as she lazily stretched out and presented her nude body to me like a present. It was a present really, my Valentines gift. She had always been shy up until that point, but that day she'd blossomed in front of my very eyes. She'd given me a taste of the woman she would probably become, someone that was brave and bold and so giving, whether I deserved her generosity or not.

She'd touched me like it was forever, like that was it for us. I don't know how to explain it better than that really. There was no fumbling or blushing, just her quiet eyes looking at me the whole time she touched me, the whole time I shook and trembled under her fingertips. That day I cried a little afterwards, feeling so overwhelmed and loved and wanted that everything inside me broke wide open, spilling my heart and my love and my tears all over her flushed chest when she held me.

Now I'm just plain broken.

Now I'm just a woman in a bar with half a bottle of everything in her stomach and I'm incapable of thinking about anything else than the person that made me this way. I'm recalling her taste and her smell, her warmth, just remembering everything she finally took away from me.

She made me believe, all those years ago, that I'd been the one in the wrong. That it was my fault she was unhappy, that I killed whatever it was between us. She put all of that on me, knowing I was never the strong one, knowing what it would do to me. She had to have known, so why did she do it?

Because she picked up some weight? Because she was doing badly in school? Because I was finally finding my place in the world and she was jealous of that?

I never even fucking cared about the weight, because I loved who she was, not how she looked! And so what if she was doing badly in school, I knew how smart she was so she didn't need any degree to prove it to me. The thing that gets me is that all the things she seemed to have been jealous about, my happiness in school and the friends?

It was because of her that I had those things. She gave me my happiness, she helped me find my focus. I was happy because I finally found someone that made me believe in forever.

I just wish I knew why I didn't make her feel the same way...

"You're drinking more than usual tonight."

Patrice's voice in my ear startles me so badly that I spill most of my drink on my dress. She's been giving me looks all night, her eyes full of speculation that I didn't want to see.

"I've had a long day, I deserve it."

The nice thing about being somewhat famous is the VIP pass it gives me. So when I raise my hand a waitress comes running to our booth. It's in the darkest corner of the VIP lounge, but she's been keeping an eye on the table ever since I slapped a hundred dollars or so into her palm after she brought me my first drink.

"The talk at your old school tired you out?"

I simply nod, not in the mood to bare my soul to anyone tonight. I just want to forget everything tonight, I want to drown in music and drink and the woman by my side, because maybe it isn't much, but it's what I have. It's safe and easy and everything I've known since Spencer fucking Carlin broke my heart. It's all I can handle in the end.

When my drink is placed in front of me I swallow it down quickly, my mind finally feeling that numbing sensation I've been searching for all evening. With my mind finally gone, my body wakes up.

I'm angry, my body undulating with the feeling, with the energy it causes. I'm edgy and twitchy and I need to work it out, so I drop my empty glass down onto the table and turn toward Patrice.

"I wanna go."

She raises a singly eyebrow at me and I lean in closer, my tongue tracing her ear before I speak.

"I wanna fuck you, I wanna do it hard and for a very long time and it needs to happen soon."

I bite down harder on her earlobe than necessary, but it only elicits a hungry moan from her. She presses close to me, her hand suddenly up my dress and against my center.

"Then fuck me right now, right here. You weren't shy about doing it against a wall in a packed club a few weeks ago, so why not tonight?"

Because tonight I want to make her scream, I want to make her beg and buck and arch for me. I want to sink my teeth into her and fuck her till she's raw. I want dirty and hard and I can't have that in a club full of people, no matter how dark my corner booth is.

So I don't say anything, I just pull her up and out of that booth. Her eyes are on me as I force a path through the throng of people and I can still feel the speculation in that gaze, but I can also sense her body's excitement. Her nipples are straining against her dress, her thighs are already twitching when she collapses onto the passenger seat.

By the time we're in her apartment, she's so wet with anticipation I can thrust three fingers into her easily. So I do, and I love the hiss that comes from her mouth, the surprise in her eyes. I love how she rides my hand as I bite down on the straining tendons of her sleek neck. I love the pain mixed with pure want in her eyes and for a second or two I imagine blue eyes looking at me like that.

I shove Patrice away from me so hard she stumbles and falls, her face filled with anger and surprise when her ass hits the floor. When I blink away the color blue, I finally find myself in the moment again.

"Take off your clothes."

My dress is already pooling by my feet, my own hands making quick work of discarding every article of clothing sticking to my skin. Patrice watches my movements and when she smiles, I know it's the same smile that's lounging on my mouth. She's so much like me sometimes it scares me. It's like looking in a mirror, a somewhat warped mirror, but a mirror that nonetheless shows you the same coldness, the same darkness that lives in you.

She meets my hunger, my urgency, and we end up a tangled mess on her floor, her body urging my hands to touch, to brand and bruise if that's what I want. I'm not tender or slow when I enter her again, but she takes it with a growl and a scratch of nails against my back.

Minutes later, or maybe it's hours, I just don't know anymore, she gives me what I want. She bucks and screams and comes with a gush of warmth into my mouth, her body an undulating mess against my tongue. Her thighs are quivering against me and her heel has dug into my back so hard it almost brings tears to my eyes.

"Bedroom."

It's all I can manage, my voice a raw husk as I stand up and drag her shaky form off the floor. I want more, I want the silence that ravaging her body grants me, so I reach for the drawer by her bed and lift out the harness. It fits snugly against me and the way her tired eyes light up as they wander down my body and rests on the strapped on appendage, fuels my fire.

I don't bother with lubrication, knowing her body is still wet from her previous orgasm, so within seconds I'm thrusting into her. She keeps her eyes on me though, the whole time I move inside her her eyes are glued to my face and I can't take it. It reminds me too much of someone else's eyes looking at me with such concentration...

I flip her over and bury my nails into her back this time, dragging them down the length of her spine. She's on her knees, her hands firmly clinging to the headboard and I don't care that at that moment she's just a faceless, nameless body. I just care that with every thrust, with every slamming push of my hips, my anger subsides just a little bit. I just care that my mind is dull and numb and quiet.

When she comes this time she howls, it's primal and loud and I can't help but keen out my own release. Sweat runs down my back as I arch into her one last time and it burns when it comes into contact with the raw skin Patrice's nails left in their wake from before.

When I finally breathe again, when my senses and mind come back to me, Patrice is passed out face first into the pillow and the room smells of sex and sweat and something that makes me gag.

I fumble free of Patrice and the leather harness around my hips and stumble into the bathroom, spilling the contents of my stomach quickly into the toilet. I'm shivering and naked, tiles cold against my ass as I collapse onto the ground. A flash of Patrice lying sprawled on the bed, her legs lewdly splayed wide and her back a red, scratched mess, floods my mind and I heave again.

I don't know who I am in that second, in that minute I'm sitting on cold tile with sickness and hate and anger pouring out of me. I don't know who I was when I fucked Patrice like neither she nor I was anything other than a mindless animal. I just know that it's not who I was meant to be, not when I know the warmth and contentedness that's supposed to follow after sex.

Not when I know that what I just did with Patrice was still not better than fumbling in the dark with Spencer Carlin when we were both eighteen and stupid.

I think I sit there for hours, just looking at my own faint reflection in the shower door before me. I sit until I can't take the smell of Patrice on my skin any longer, then I'm in her shower, ice cold water burning the scratches on my back as I let the water run over my dirty skin. I don't use her body wash, I don't use her shampoo, I just rinse her off me and get out. I dry off quickly, finding mouth wash and using it, hating that I can feel myself sobering up after the shower.

So I slip out quietly and find my clothes, dressing quickly and quietly and then I'm out the door. It's still dark, my watch telling me it's only four and I hurriedly get a taxi. I'm at a club in no time at all, a drink in my hand as I settle into another dark corner, another anonymous booth.

Is this what my life has come too? Am I that person? The one who only ever fucks and never loves? The one who doesn't have anything but a job to bring her true joy? The one who had to hurt someone else, though it was the good kind of hurt, just to make herself feel something other than shit?

Is this who Spencer made me, or is this who Spencer stopped me from being for a short while?

The answer is too scary to really contemplate, so I don't. I just drink steadily and for a very long time. When the club finally closes I can barely stand on my own two feet and the rising sun is practically blinding me. It's that indefinite time of the morning where it's miraculously quiet in L.A and the desolate feeling that creeps over me is strange.

I'm disconnected from reality as I walk the streets, as I spot a bum or two asleep and sidestep what is hopefully just dog pee on the pavement. I walk until the scenery changes and I find myself in a park, in front of a bench. I sit and watch as an early runner or two jogs past, as birds rustle feathers and fly into the morning air.

Then a couple walks past, both looking like they've done what I have, spent the night in a club. They're eating ice cream, God knows where they got that this time of the morning, and holding hands. It's sweet really, the way the guy is steeling quick glances and the girl keeps on blushing. It's obviously tentative and new, their little romance. It reminds me of holding Spencer's hand beneath the table at lunch, of secret smiles and staring and blushing quietly. It reminds me of young love at it's best, as the song goes...

That's when I finally let myself cry. I don't sob and I don't blubber like a fool, I just sit there and let tears fall, because what else can I do at this point?

I'm sad and angry and scared and I really want to see Spencer. Well, maybe not want so much as need to see her. It's a refrain in my head, her face and voice and the need to experience the sight and sound of both. I don't know why and I don't know if it's going to help me or hurt me, but my mind is made up.

Spencer said she hadn't stopped loving me back then and that's something. Don't ask me if it's a good thing or a bad thing, though. I mean would it not have been better if she'd stopped loving me? Doesn't that make it worse, what she did to me?

In those questions lie the reasons that I need to see her I guess...

- - -

It was easy enough to get the address off Kyla, but actually standing on the doorstep and knocking? Not so easy really.

It's a nice looking house in an okay neighborhood, with slightly neglected flowers in the flowerbeds and an action figure toy half buried in the sand. It's so normal and plain that I wonder if I really have the right to be standing here, to be tainting this place with my presence. This is Spencer's home, one she shares with Carmen and her family, and it looks like it's well lived in, like there's love and joy in it's foundation.

Still, I need my answers and standing here debating whether this is a good idea or not isn't helping. So I knock. Somewhere in the house a voice is shouting that someone's at the door and I'm sure it's Carmen that gives a muffled reply. That's confirmed when the woman herself opens the door.

"Ashley? What the hell are you doing here?"

Not the warmest of receptions, but I've gotten worse. Paula used to wait until I was halfway over the threshold before slamming the door shut in my face. Bitch almost broke my big toe once...

"I'm here to see Spencer."

Carmen cocks her head to the side and gives me a smile that would only fit more comfortably on a shark's face.

"Right, because the two of you parted on such good terms that you're what? Dropping by for a breakfast coffee? She told me what happened at the hospital and honestly, if you're here to make her feel any worse than she already does you can just fuck the hell off."

I'm surprised by the venom in her voice, by the cool gaze set on my face and the somehow threatening set of her shoulders. It looks like she's secretly wishing for me to do or say something stupid so she can punch me!

"Look, I just want to talk to her okay? There's things that I need to get off my chest, questions that I want answers for. So could you just go get her for me? This really doesn't have anything to do with you anyway."

And that was apparently the wrong thing to say...

Carmen's almost blood red in the face and her nostrils flare as she steps closer to me, pulls the door closed behind her. I want to step back, want to put some distance between me and the puzzling accusation in Carmen's angry eyes, but I don't. I need to do this and if getting past Carmen is my only hurdle then that's okay.

"It's got everything to do with me, because once you've had your say and leave her in pieces, I'm the one that's going to have to deal with that. You and your blindness hurt her enough in the past and, God knows it's my fault you're back in her life, but I'm not going to let history repeat itself here."

And just like that my anger is back in full swing. I hurt her in the past? No, Spencer did all the hurting back then if I recall and Carmen Garcia doesn't get to stand there and play watch dog for Spencer. I deserve to have my say, I deserve to either move on from Spencer or...or...do whatever it is I end up doing.

"I'm the one that hurt her? You do know who did the dumping back then, right? You know who..."

I'm cut off when Carmen snorts and rolls her eyes, when she cocks her hip out and leans against the veranda.

"Oh God, this is really pathetic. Do you really not see that that was as much your fault as it was hers? Did you even pick up on the fact that Spencer was unhappy back then? Did you miss the depression she sunk into, did you miss how utterly fucked up she got back then? You know what, don't answer that, because I know the answer. You were too busy, or too self involved or too scared to notice. You were living the good life and that was all that mattered to you."

This time I do take a step back and almost stumble, the alcohol and rage making for a potent cocktail robbing me of my balance and calm.

"She never told me, Carmen! She was always okay when I phoned and when I visited we had a great time together. You can't blame this on me, because how the hell was I supposed to know if she hid it from me?!"

It's true, she can't blame this on me! I was in, a hundred percent in, when it came to Spencer. If she had told me she was having problems there was nothing I wouldn't have done back then to make things better for her.

"Did she hide it, Ashley? Did her picking up so much weight seem normal, or when you visited, did she introduce you to any friends or take you out to a favorite hangout spot? Did you ever talk to her when you saw her, or was there just sex? I think you didn't see it, Ashley, because you put Spencer on a pedestal and refused to believe she was anything but perfect. Your perfect version of her wouldn't get lonely, wouldn't get depressed or have trouble in school, so you never felt the need to worry about her or make sure she was okay. She killed herself everyday to live up to all those expectations and no one noticed. Then when she failed you for the first and only time, you didn't even fight for her. You gave up on her, Ashley, because she didn't live up to some screwed up image you had of her. So don't come to my house and demand your pound of flesh from Spencer, because you cut it out of her years ago when she went looking for you and found some strung out whore opening your door!"

Something in my chest tightens, like a hand gripping my aching lungs and squeezing. Did I really not see it? Was I really that oblivious of Spencer's pain? Can you love someone that much, know them that well, and still fail to see it? Or did I see it and ignore it, because I was scared of what it meant for myself. Maybe it wasn't fair of me to expect Spencer to be faultless, and if I'm honest I can say that yes, I had always believed her to be so, but did that really blind me to how unhappy she was?

I don't know, and I don't know if I came for my pound of flesh as Carmen put it, but now more than ever I need to talk to Spencer. Though first I need an answer to an equally pressing question.

"What do you mean she went looking for me and found a strung out whore?"

Honestly, what the hell is that about? Yeah, I'm probably a raging alcoholic by now, but I haven't touched drugs in years. Not since back in high school before Spencer and I started dating.

When I look back up at Carmen her face is dark, closed off and for a second or two I get the feeling she's a little lost in a memory. And by the way she so obviously suppresses a shudder, it's clearly not a good memory.

"Three months after she broke up with you, she was back home. She'd flunked out of University at that point and she was just...she was so not the girl I knew, you know? She was an utter mess, she was lost and so heartbroken it hurt me to look at her most days. Most off all she missed you, I think, and of all the things she had regrets about, leaving you was her biggest one. So she went looking for you."

She pauses and sits down on the front step, motions me to do the same and once I'm settles she resumes her story.

"She got to your apartment and she'd had everything planned, she had flowers and a speech and she would beg if she needed to. I know, because she practiced her speech on me the day before. It was almost pathetic, the way she had every word on that crumpled piece of paper memorized like her life depended on it." I can clearly see the picture she's painting, can see Spencer with that frown on her face as she probably twisted that speech she wrote in her hands, repeating it word for word anxiously to Carmen. "Anyway, she got to your place and when she knocked, some half naked chick answered your door. You were yelling in the background, something about how you wanted the girl in your bed and naked."

She looks at me then, her blue eyes that I never noticed were that bright or that intense, seemingly trying to convey something to me that I'm incapable of grasping.

"It devastated her. It just...it fucked her up beyond belief that she'd really lost you. It was what broke the camel's back if you will. That night she dragged me out and we hit a party or three. That night Clay had to come pick us up when she got so drunk she couldn't stand up straight. That night I got raped and her brother got killed, and she's never forgiven herself for that. So yeah, Spencer wasn't perfect back then, but she's payed a bigger price for it than she deserved."

Then she gets up, her face a little pale and her mouth trembling, like telling me all this has somehow drained her of all energy and left her...hurting. I don't know what to say to wipe that look off her face, to convey how sorry I am that all of that happened, not just to Spencer, but to her too.

She was my friend a long time ago and I never wanted her to get hurt the way she did. She was a good person underneath all her glowering and barking, you just had to scrape her surface to know that. And I did, I knew that and I still let her slip from my life, just like I apparently let Spencer slip from it.

"She went for a run, but she'll be back in a little while. I would invite you in to wait, but I honestly don't want your drunk ass around my family, so the steps will have to do." She turns back then, her shoulders tensing as she just stands facing the door, her hand on the knob. "Don't hurt her. If you do, you'll answer to me."

The threat isn't subtle and I know it's not hollow. She doesn't wait for my answer though, just leaves me on her front steps to think about everything she's said.

And think I do, I'm not capable of doing anything else really. I think about Spencer alone at University, about what her life must have been like. I think about the smiles she gave me that seemed now to hide the shadows in her eyes, how she clung to me when I left on the occasions that I visited her. I think about the sound of her voice when she called me in the middle of the night, when she let me ramble on about my friends and my professors and all the new things I learned, I just remember how quietly she always responded. She never once shared those kinds of things with me and now I know why.

Spencer didn't feel like she could talk to anyone, because in some way she'd be disappointing them. Everyone always expected something from her and what they expected was always hard. Her mother wanted her to be a doctor, her father wanted her to stay the sweet and easy child he always knew, and I wanted her to simply be perfect, to be the light to my darkness. It wasn't fair to expect all that from her and I can't imagine how scared she must have felt, how very alone.

And in the end I wasn't there for her when she probably needed me the most, because as always I was more concerned with my own pain than anyone else's.

I hang my head and sit there, letting all those thoughts wash over me. There's guilt and fear, there's more anger and doubt. Everything is muddled right now, muddled between what I remember and what I now know was the truth. I remember Spencer being a heartless bitch that dumped me and broke my heart, but I know she was just a girl with problems that lashed out.

When I look up it's to the sight of Spencer Carlin, bent over and stretching her twitching leg muscles out. It's the scared girl that grew into a woman with more guilt and pain then I may ever possibly know. It's the woman I was supposed to know for the rest of my live, because she made me believe in forever once...

Then she's walking towards me and I can see her face in the split second before she spots me. She's tired and sad and hurting, it's all written across her face so clearly, and it makes me angrier than I've ever been in my life before.

We missed out on so much and now? Now it's probably too late for us anyway, because there's years of hurt between us and we both bare the scars of it. We might be unable to ever get back to the place we once were, because our history robbed us of who we used to be.

Spencer will never be sweet and innocent and adorably shy ever again, because hasn't she seen too much death for that? And can I ever really believe in something like forever again, when the last eight years of my life has proven to me that I might simply not be built for it, or worthy of it for that matter?

So when Spencer looks into my eyes and I feel my heart break again like it did the first time around, I feel almost nothing but anger. She should have opened her God damned mouth back then and talked to me, or I should have opened my eyes and seen what the hell was happening!

I didn't realize I was reaching for her until her hand slips into my own, until I fling myself into her so hard it steels my breath a little. I just know that I have in my arms what was always supposed to belong to me, but never may again.

So I kiss her, because isn't this our final goodbye? Isn't this us letting go of the past and moving on as best we can, because how can there a tomorrow for us? How can this ever turn into a happy ending now?

"I hate you, Spencer, I hate you so fucking much."

And I do, I hate her in that moment just like I hate myself, because we both kinda threw this away, we both failed in our own ways. Carmen was right, as much as it was Spencer's fault, it was mine too. We both did this and we're both paying the price.

"I know, Ash, I know."

Maybe she does know, maybe she feels exactly the same way, because when she kisses me again it tastes like regret. It tastes like an apology and a plea, all wrapped up in one startlingly desperate kiss. Her body wraps around me with soft remorse and I hold her just as tightly in return, my lips giving her everything I didn't back then.

I pull away and look her in the eyes, needing to see what my words do for her, needing to see at least some of the guilt I so wrongly dumped on her, lift.

"Mostly I hate myself though, because you deserved more than I gave you back then. I should have fought for you, should have got on a plane that night and sorted this out, but I didn't. I didn't and I let you down, I let you get lost with no one to really save you. I'm so sorry I did that to you, Spencer, I'm sorry I let us slip away."

I mean every word I say and maybe Spencer sees that, because she buries her face in my neck and cries brokenly. Cries like someone whose carried too much for too long and doesn't know how to do it anymore. I just hold her, just kiss her hair and gently circle her lower back with my palm, hoping a little of it comforts her in this moment. It's maybe eight years too late, but it's all I can do now.

I don't hear the front door open, but somehow I'm not surprised when Carmen lands a hand on my shoulder and steers me inside. It snaps Spencer out of her funk and she nods at Carmen before leading me up some stairs. I guess it's her room we end up in, but I don't care to look around. I just care that Spencer is pulling me down onto her bed and wrapping herself around me.

I just care that for a while longer we can pretend that me saying I was sorry is enough to right every wrong we both made.

"You're not going to be here when I wake up, are you?"

Her voice is soft and sad and I close my eyes, not sure I can bare looking into her eyes and seeing the hurt in them.

"I might be here, but I think we both know that...that I couldn't...that it's not going to really change things between us. I don't know how to fix this and neither do you, I don't think it can be fixed really. I just...let's just stay here for a little while, okay? Can we just do that, just pretend for a little while and sleep?"

Spencer nods and kisses me again, not long and not hard, but there's a solemn quality to it that makes me shudder.

"Can't we just pretend forever, Ash, please?"

No, no I don't think we can, but I don't say that, I just kiss her back. I just lay my lips against her own and silently apologize for not being whole enough to make this work somehow. I don't know how to be anything other than what I am today, and I know that would never be enough to keep Spencer.

She deserves more, deserves something other than an angry, confused drunk like me who doesn't know who she is anymore, or if she's even capable of liking herself, much less letting someone like Spencer love her...

- - -

So, this was a little different to write for me, but I think it's the last of the truly depressing stuff. I hope I got across what I wanted with this chapter, but I'm not so sure I did. I should probably have showed Ashley's progression over more than one chapter, but it's the way it ended up, so...

Anyway, I hope you found something redeeming in this chapter and if you did, I'd like to hear from you. I'm kind of nervous about this chapter, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

(Oh and holy hell, this chapter totals 6000 words! That's kinda nuts.)