A/N: I know I promised a meeting with Luke this chapter, but I'm a liar. That's next chapter. Sorry if anyone was superly anticipating that. Also, I noticed that I didn't give Elle a last name, so I've decided that it's going to be Doherty. That'll help to avoid confusion in this chapter. Also, there's a speech at the end of this chapter that will probably offend some people. But that's what it's supposed to do. It in no way reflects any of my views to LGBT people, seeing as I am a lesbian myself. I figure that it's time to mention once again that this story in no way reflects the views of the people in Harbor Hills at all. I just picked the town because it has a cool.

Continuity Error: I seem to have too many of these. But two reviewers (me and 1treehillcharmed) pointed out to me that I'd said earlier that there was only one bed. They're right. That's what I said, but I'm changing it now. It works with the direction I'm headed. I just don't really think out the little details... or remember them. Sorry for the confusion.

I'm not happy when I wake up that morning. For one thing, I'm alone in my bed, freezing from the lack of body heat that's been accompanying me for the last few nights. I know it's summer. But I'm still freezing.

For another thing, I have to have a heart-to-heart talk with my brother. During this talk, he'll probably ask me about my life. I'll probably tell him about my progress in college, and then he'll ask if I've been seeing anyone, and then I'll probably let it slip out that I've been dating guys. He'll look at me with a confused look, and I'll feel terrible and guilty and many other bad things. It won't end well.

Ashley still sleeps peacefully in the other bed, on her stomach with her face smushed into the pillow, hair spilling out everywhere. I can't help but notice that the right half of the bed is still bare and empty, like she's been waiting for me to slip under there all night. And it absolutely breaks my heart that I can't let myself do that. Damn Ohio.

I walk over to the closet, which is right next to Ashley's bed. I can't help but sneak a peek at her sleeping form with an adorable little smirk on her face. She looks perfect. She looks like an angel. I want to reach down and wake her up with a-

No. I can't even think anything like that. Why?

Because I can't.

But I almost can't help it.

Almost.

I allow my mind a bit of leeway in its wanderings, but all these thoughts about Ashley just lead me back to my greatest fear, my greatest anxiety, my greatest joy from this place: Elle.

Elle and I had been dating in secret for three months now. So far, only Luke and James knew about it. We told ourselves that we didn't care about the fact that our families would absolutely hate us if they found out. But we did. We did care. For now, though, we were content with just being us.

One afternoon in February, Elle and I were walking home from school. We decided to cut through the cemetery, like we always did. No one in Harbor Hills really accepted any type of LBGT people, and the cemetery was always deserted in the winter, except on Sundays when little Mrs. Perkins came to visit her husband's grave. We were resigned to sitting under the trees in the graveyard to hide from everybody.

On that particular day, the temperature had dropped to about 25 degrees, so we had both bundled up in big bulky coats to go out in the snow left over from Monday. We made our way over to our favorite tree, a tiny pine which we called the Thinking Tree. At Christmas, we decorated it with a couple of baubles and ornaments. Nobody seemed to mind.

Elle took my backpack and hung it up on one of the tree's lower branches and did the same with hers before sitting down next to me.

"What do you wanna do today?" she asked, smiling as I put my head on her shoulder.

"I dunno. Whatever."

She decided to humor me. "Well, we could go to your house and be educated on how much we're hated, we could go to my house and educated on how much we're hated, we could go over to Luke's and watch him and James make-out, or we could sit here and make-out."

"I like option D," I replied.

She smirked. "Good. I was hoping you'd pick that one."

"Ah, so it was a plant?"

"Are you forgetting what option D was?"

I leaned in and shared a kiss with her; we'd been exploring each other's mouths for a while now, and knew exactly what to do to the other one to, well, you know.

Unfortunately, right as she was in the process of playing around with my earlobe (which, if you must know, is my "spot"), her phone rang.

"Damn," she swore, searching her bag for it. "Just as it was getting good."

I didn't have anything to say to that, so I just gave her a kiss on the cheek as she pulled out her phone.

"Hey."

"No. Me and Spencer are just hanging out."

"Fine. I'll be there in a sec."

I looked at her curiously. Hearing only half of a phone conversation can be exceptionally annoying. "What's up?"

"Mom wants me home," she grumbled. "She's got some sort of church thing I gotta go to."

"Will this church thing involve you in a hot dress?" I asked hopefully.

Elle just laughed.

I finish with my clothes and go down the steps to the kitchen, where Clay sits in a T-shirt and cargo pants reading a newspaper. He's eating a bowl of Cheerio's by himself with an empty bowl and a spoon in the seat next to him. I can only assume that those are for me.

I slide into the chair and quietly pour myself some Cheerio's. There's a glass of milk next to the bowl, but no milk jug. Because Clay knows I only have my cereal dry. He knows so much about me, and it just makes me feel more scared about talking to him.

"Spencer," he begins. "What happened to you?"

I look down. "What do you mean?"

"When I talk to you on the phone, you're so full of life, always happy and bubbly. When you were little, you were the same way. And even after Elle, you were always happy with me at the apartment when it was just us. Now you're back, and you're so drained. Drained of everything. What happened?"

I fiddle with my spoon before answering. "Life happened." I know it's a terrible answer, but I can't give him the real answer. I just can't. Besides, he'll probably figure it out anyway.

"Ashley happened," he corrects. Like I said, he figured it out. "What's so bad about falling in love again?"

"Because she's still a girl," I tell him lamely.

"Seeing as you're gay, I'd expect the person you love to be a girl."

I sigh. "But no one likes me as gay. They all liked me better as straight," I mutter. I'm sick of trying to prove to people that I'm more than my sexuality, that it doesn't affect who I am. I've always been Spencer, and I wish that everyone could see me as that, not as the lesbian.

Clay looks at me contemplatively. "Have you ever heard the quote 'Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind?'"

I shake my head, but I have a feeling I know where this is going.

"Dr. Seuss said it. And it's true, Spencer," he says. "You just have to see who really matters in your life. The people who really matter are the ones who don't care."

"So you're saying that Mom and Dad and Glen and Elle don't matter?" He's spinning my head in all different directions.

"They do matter, to some level, but they don't really matter," he explains. "They hardly matter as much to me as they used to, because of how they treated you. Spence, there are people out there who really care about you." He smiles wickedly. "You don't have to look farther than that upstairs bedroom."

I know he means Ashley. I know I mean a lot to her, and she means so much to me. But I just can't care about her the way I know she wants me to... the way I want to, but can only admit to myself in the darkness of night, when I'm alone. That way, when I wake up, I can pretend it was just a dream.

"It's complicated," I tell him, even though it's not.

"Spencer, the only thing complicated here is your past," he tells me, his voice becoming slightly uneven. "So I suggest you get up off your ass and do something about fixing it. I suggest you do this before everyone who matters to you, who cares about you, gets so pissed at you that they just give up on you." He's really frustrated with me now. He gets up from the table, leaving me with my stupid half-eaten bowl of Cheerio's. I know he's right. I can't just keep living life this way. But how do I get out of this hole?

Almost like an answer to that question, Ashley shuffles down the stairs, rubbing her eyes and playing with her hair that she hasn't brushed yet. I don't look at her, but I still can't stop the tears from forming in my eyes. Why? Why the hell can't I just get over it?

She notices, of course. She notices my tears and my current state of hurt. She pulls out the chair next to me and sits down. "What's up?"

"I can't figure it out," I spit out. "I can't figure out how to leave it all behind."

"Don't force yourself," she advises, reaching out for my hand. I pull away. Because I'm not ready for that. Not yet. Not here. She takes it in stride and continues. "It'll happen when it happens, but it won't happen if don't go out looking for it."

I don't say anything.

"That's why today, you are taking me out on this little town," she informs me. "We are going to all the places you used, and you are going to remember everything you've tried to forget. And then you're going to get over it, got it?" Her voice is so unlike Clay's when she talks to me; it's so gentle, and yet forceful at the same time. She knows exactly how to make me do whatever needs to be done.

And as I get ready to face Harbor Hills for the first time in four years, I think of Elle again. I think of the moments we spent together, and the one moment that forever changed our relationship and our lives.

It was late in June after junior year when the moving van pulled up to the house on Brayden Way. It had been empty for about three months, and everyone was eager to meet the new people who were moving in. All that was known was that they were a young couple from Michigan and didn't have any children.

Since our moms were busy with their sewing the night the couple got settled in, they sent me and Elle over with the cookies they'd baked for them earlier that day.

Elle and I grumbled about it, but in reality, we were happy to get away from our moms. Watching them knit and talk about the latest episode of Oprah was not exactly the most thrilling activity. Unfortunately for us, they seemed to think it was.

Our relationship was still going strong- in secret. We spent days counting how long it would be until we left for college, where we could be open about it. Even then if our parents found out about us, we would have college as a safe haven to go back to where we could be us.

"Do you know anything about these new people?" I asked Elle. Her mom generally got the best gossip in the town- don't ask me why, because I don't know.

She shrugged. "Not more than the same old, same old. But I guess we'll find out soon enough."

Mrs. Tucker, another one of our moms' friends, called out to us from down the street. "Oh, girls, how are you?"

We turned around with forced smiles. "We're fine, Mrs. Tucker. And how are you?" Elle said politely. I made a face behind her back. We didn't really like Mrs. Tucker.

"I'm deeply troubled, girls," she told us, coming nearer. Elle and I exchanged glances. Usually when Mrs. Tucker was "deeply troubled," it meant that she'd misplaced her glasses or something equally mundane.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

She got distracted by the tray of cookies in my hand. "Oh, I hope those cookies are not for the new couple."

"Why not?" Elle wondered.

"They are..." She paused dramatically, trying to find the right word. "Unseemly."

"Like unseemly how?" Elle asked curiously.

"Are they drunks or something?" I added.

"Worse," she said with a seriousness so deep, it was almost comical. She leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, "They're lesbians."

My heart just about stopped at that moment, and I'd be willing to bet that Elle's did, too.

The next day, Mom was parading around the house, up in arms about the new couple, whose names were Dani and Kim. She was amazingly angry about it and wondered how exactly they thought that they could invade the "perfect utopia" that was Harbor Hills. I said nothing. Glen and my dad both agreed with her, while Clay also said nothing.

"But don't worry, we'll make them want to leave soon enough," Mom assured us.

"How's that?" Glen asked as he swallowed as monstrous helping of pancakes.

"Mrs. Doherty and Father Samuels have organized a protest in the park in a few days," Mom said gleefully.

"Sweet!" Glen exclaimed.

"That's good," Dad commented. "We can get them out of here for good." I was really dreading that day.

When it came time for the protest, which really consisted of a group of people gathering in the park to hear a speech and sign a petition about getting Dani and Kim kicked out, I was absolutely trembling. Elle and I sat together in the very back, our hands constantly brushing up against each other in the most innocent way possible. To a casual observer, it would look like we were just swinging our hands around and they occasionally ended up hitting each other.

Mrs. Doherty took the stand. That was odd, because Father Samuels was supposed to be delivering the speech. "Father Samuels is not feeling well today, so I will be speaking on the evils of homosexuality." A cheer erupted for the audience. Elle and I were near tears. Neither of us had anticipated her mother to be the one to tell the entire town that what we felt was evil and an abomination to God.

"It has come to my attention that the new neighbors on Brayden Way are a lesbian couple. This is absolutely outrageous. The Hawkins live next door to them, and they have two young children. Think what these lesbians can do to the children. They can corrupt them and turn them to side of Satan. Do we really want them and other neighborhood kids exposed to this?"

A rousing "NO!" rang out from the crowd. Elle and I slumped further into our seats. My heart felt like it was being ripped in two as Mrs. Doherty spoke; I couldn't imagine that this level of hate could pour from anyone. And this was just the beginning of the speech.

"And that's not all. This couple is just the final action that sets us off. We now have seven openly gay or lesbian students at Harbor Hills High School. There have been multiple requests for the creation of a Gay-Straight Alliance there. Thankfully, the principal has refused these offers."

More cheering.

"Satan is corrupting our youth. We need to stamp out homosexuality NOW! The Bible condemns it as a sin. Do you want your children to go to Hell for something that can so easily be controlled?"

As the entire audience once again shouted "NO," Elle and I were having the same thoughts: it's NOT something that can easily be controlled.

"Homosexuality is wrong. It is unnatural. God created Adam and Eve as a testament to the sacrament of love between a man and a woman. The Bible does not teach the story of Adam and Steve or Anna and Eve. It is Adam and Eve, a man and a woman. Anyone who chooses to go against this, to act on that lifestyle, shall rot in Hell.

"In Leviticus 20:13, it states that, If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.' We know that if one promises himself to God, then death is out of the question. Heaven is the only option. This passage clearly states that homosexuals will die, and therefore never reach Heaven. They will lay in Hell for eternity, because what they are doing is wrong.

"Anyone who chooses to engage is this behavior is giving into temptation. God offers us with temptation every day. Many of us face the average temptations: alcohol, drugs, sex, etc. But homosexuals have been given an extra task from God to rise above. Successfully converted homosexuals are the pride of this church, for they have overcome the temptation that God has thrown to them. Those choose to engage in it are weak. They have not fulfilled God's plan for them. They are condemned to a life of suffering, and this suffering will continue after death.

"Let us all rise above homosexuality. Let us take into heart these seven children and the new lesbian couple who have been misled by Satan. Let us turn them to the light of the Lord and forgive them of their sins. Let us make them whole again, because it is never to late to forgive someone for their sins."

The end of the speech was met with rousing applause and standing ovations. Elle and I bolted out as quickly as possible to hide under the Thinking Tree.

We didn't say any words as we buried ourselves into each other's arms and cried ourselves dry, trying to reassure the other with soft kisses.

And we knew that things would only get harder, and we told ourselves that it wouldn't matter. But from that moment on, our relationship was never the same.