When they first met, not the bleachers with King High's finest running around in circles, but in front of a locker door and with spilled coffee at their feet… when they first laughed together, television playing low in her air-conditioned room and the topic of disingenuous boys in their ears… when they first touched, confessions slipping out and yet it was planned… Ashley planned it from the moment Spencer came into view, blue eyes giving the sky a run for its money and cheeks tinted with shyness…

Ashley planned it as well as one plans a tidal wave – you see it coming and you know you don't have time to run. No tree is tall enough to keep a force of nature at bay.

And when they first touched, hand upon hand… when they first shared everything, from sunburns to sexuality… when they first flirted with one another, bathroom stalls and lip gloss and the fresh bloom of longing… when they fought for the first time, because they wanted each other and they wanted it to be easy and they didn't want to lose a friendship in order to save a love… and yet, they wanted it all, didn't they? Ashley wanted it all with Spencer.

She watches Spencer leave the club and everything twists into a knot in her body. Aiden is watching her, hawk precision in doe-eyes, but he holds back from giving advice.
'Coz this is what Ashley Davies does. She breaks others in order to not be broken.
She'll break Spencer eventually, no matter how much she doesn't want to.
Bass and beat along her skin, with not a trace of alcohol in her system, Ashley feels like a bomb about to go off and Aiden turns away, back to the bar and there isn't a girl from Ohio to be seen.

When they first kissed, not an almost-clench in some fake threesome, but the real deal – with real sighs and with real moans and with everything so damn real between them, skin and muscle in constant movement and fabric not torn, but tugged… when they first made love, inexperience and devotion married that time, no drugs and no hiding in order not to feel, because they wanted to feel it all… Ashley wanted to feel it all, tip of the tongue to the beating of the heart.

Ashley always wanted to feel it all, head to toe, in love with someone and that it might last.
She wanted it to be Spencer, that's what she wanted, that's what she craved.

It doesn't take much for her lips to form the words and for the words to come out. Aiden sits beside her, spinning a phone and looks desperate for a kiss. But she can't see that and she won't see that until it is too late. All she knows is that Spencer is being kept away. All she knows is that she can't lose this girl from Ohio. All Ashley knows is that she is in love and she has to hold onto it for dear life and she will shatter any rule to get Spencer back.
He says it as a joke, but it becomes a plan. And a ladder to her Juliet, stars to guide the way, they run away… together.

She doesn't want to keep doing this, forever replaying the timeline of her life, whether in a hotel room in Tokyo or racing down the avenue in New York.
Ashley doesn't want to be the first one awake, again, as Kyla blissfully sleeps away the day.
She doesn't want to believe that losing Spencer can do this to her soul, can tear it up and can consume it… even now, years later and not a single word spoken between them…

Ashley doesn't want to feel this way anymore, wrapped up in a vivid memory like it is reality.
But no tree is high enough, is it?
She can't fix and she can't forget – she can't go back in time – she can't take back what was said or done… she can't make Spencer Carlin come back and she can't let Spencer Carlin go.

"How is she?"
"Ashley…"
"What? You talk about Aiden all the time and tell me that we are all 'friends' again and I can't ask about her?"
"I don't know. There."
"Don't be a bitch, Kyla."
"You know what, Ashley?"
"God, what?"
"…You haven't changed. You just haven't changed at all."
"Whatever."
"No, not 'whatever', you need to listen to me, okay? You've got to move on—"
"I have! I'm just asking a damn question, just being curious!"
"No you're not! That's just it, Ashley, you are not 'just being curious' at all… you are still so meshed with this fantasy of Spencer and not moving on with your life. She's not some girl anymore, you know? She's grown up and has a job and a life. A life without you… and you need to do the same, you need to let her go."

Ashley Davies gave up cigarettes four months ago, citing the nasty habit for causing her colds around wintertime and making her voice more gravelly than normal.
But she'd kill for one now, stepping out of the room and walking down the hall and getting in the elevator with some over-eager teenager and a pompous bellhop.
She'd kill for something to take the edge off, but ambulance chasers still linger in the lobby and Ashley Davies can't afford to make a mistake now.

She darts off to the side and sprints down a workers corridor, shoving the exit door and grinning – just a bit – as the alarms go off. But her sunglasses are on and she looks like any fashionista in L.A. and a hotel going crazy means nothing to her.
She's wrecked so many rooms. She's been given free rein to drink and cavort and be bad-tempered for most of her life.
Now, it is a living. Now, it is her life.

Her fingers fish over a tattered phone book in a beat-up phone booth, the rush of cars flying past in the background and she can't stop her breath from becoming ragged, from catching in her throat painfully, as Spencer's number presents itself – black type on thin paper.

"What the fuck, Kyla? Maybe I am trying to make amends, maybe I am trying to be a good person and just be a friend! What the fuck do you know, sitting here and telling me who I am, telling me what I am really doing when I ask about her—"
"I just don't want anyone to get hurt. Not again, not this time."
"Just… just fucking tell me how she is…"
"I… look, Ashley, I don't know, not really. We kind of stopped talking about two or three months ago."
"Why?"
"I don't know, life got in the way or something like that…"
"Don't bullshit me. Is she okay?"
"It's not bullshit, I am just saying—"
"I know your face when you lie to me, Kyla. Took me a while, but I know it. So, why did you two stop talking?"
"She's not talking to Aiden either."
"…Is she okay? I mean, health wise and everything…?"
"I think so."
"Kyla, I mean it…"
"Okay, it's like this… just not in so many words, but I think it is hard for her. To talk to me or Aiden, because of—"
"Because of me?"

Kyla sighs out loud and Ashley reads it in her sister's face, a chapter on display, the most cherished paragraph that Ashley could ever savor and the most painful as well.

"Yes. Because of you. Because of the both of you. Which is why I think you should just stay away, stop asking questions and…"

But Kyla sighs out loud and Ashley is no longer listening, rational voices obscured by a familiar and missed tone, the sound of being in love and never stopping… it echoes in Ashley's head, a million drums strong.

And it hits Ashley like a punch to the face, Kyla's words slamming home and threatening to break skin, to cause blood to hit the floor.

Ashley Davies hasn't changed at all.
As she dials the number with shaking hands, nothing has changed.

**** **** ****

TBC