She stares at the trees like they are a brand new invention, dewy green leaves breaking the sunlight into a million rays. And she wonders why she never climbed a tree, opting instead to spend her formative years skipping school and stealing sips of alcohol.
But she is a city girl, through and through, raised on concrete and pavement.
Or just like the Joni Mitchell song says, I was raised on robbery…
She wonders if this is what it looks like in Ohio, grass and flowers and tall trees reaching up into the sky.
She wonders if this is what Spencer looked at every day, before the girl got snatched away in the night and dragged to a different kind of wilderness, into L.A.

The three of them sit on his porch, Aiden's porch attached to a small house in the woods, and Kyla talks about making coffee and Aiden agrees and Ashley finds herself drifting away from their little conversation.
They sound like lovers, that's what Ashley keeps hearing in every sentence they speak, her sister and her ex-boyfriend talking between the lines and having a secret conversation.

And it is nice to silently acknowledge that she no longer cares, finding inside her heart just the remorse at not seeing any of this sooner – the leash she attached to Aiden's neck, due to a child lost and a heart unwilling to open, that she pulled on whenever she wanted.
And she gave no thought, not back then, to if he was happy or if he was sad or if he was just seconds away from breaking down. She just needed to have him so Kyla couldn't have him.
Plain and simple jealously, a favorite toy she was being forced to share and Ashley could not let that happen – not with her dead father and not with her huge home and not with a guy who got caught in the middle of their war.

War. Right. The one I was fighting and she was trying to end, that's what Ashley realized years later, sitting at some bar after a show and with the slow burn of whiskey all along her throat.
And they made amends, so many times, over and over – Kyla, with her words and her encouragement… Ashley, with getting down to the business of asking for forgiveness and accepting that all these mistakes were her own.

A mug is in her face, breaking off the staring match she was having with a bird – bright blue and sitting on a limb like it owned the world – and Ashley looks up into his eyes, Aiden's eyes, and he smiles.

"How's it feel to be famous?"
"When haven't I been?"
"True. But this is on your own terms, not your dad's."
"I have good and bad days with fame."
"What are the good ones like?"
"Being on stage, sweaty and singing, knowing that there is at least one person in the crowd singing right along with me… just connecting with one fan like that… that's a good day."
"That sounds almost spiritual, Ashley." Kyla says with a grin, sitting opposite the two of us and creating the point to this once-upon-a-time terror of a triangle. Now, it is just calm.
No ships lost and no airplanes disappearing – we are a tranquil ocean.
"Did I mention the money I make?" Ashley retorts.

They all three smile and Kyla lets out a peaceful sigh and Aiden takes a large sip of his coffee and Ashley looks back at the bird, challenging it with her playful glare.
The feathers ruffle and a song carries from its beak, could be a warning or it could be submission.
Ashley Davies likes to think of it as a tie, both of them too good to lose, and she finally releases the air stored up in her lungs – deep and cleansing, pushing out of her body and through her lips.

"What about the bad days?"

And Ashley doesn't pay attention to who asked the question, whether Aiden in his attempts to conjure up a friendship again or Kyla in an attempt to pull her stubborn sister out of hiding.
And Ashley doesn't pay attention to that frightened voice in her head; the one that would keep her removed from all people and keep her in solitude with nothing but her fears to keep her company.
She just breathes, in and out, finding more of her confidence with each inhale and exhale.

"It can be hard to trust anyone. It can be lonely. It can point out things… things a person would rather ignore, but you can't ignore a damn thing if all your time is spent on stage and then alone. It makes you think, all the time… it makes you think about mistakes and regrets."

There it is – that honesty, a steady pulse keeping time with the slow streaming of her words, and it is out there now – against Aiden's ears and flashing in front of Kyla's face… it is out there now, Ashley Davies revealed at last.

And Ashley has made a living out of not telling the truth, of covering up supposed weaknesses with candy-coated lies, of sprinting away when the gauntlet was thrown down. And Ashley has made a life out of keeping silent, out of keeping on the move, out of turning motels and buses into homes, out of the brief touches of a stranger's hands.
And she can't do it anymore.
Ashley cannot do this anymore, this duck-and-cover. A father's words coming back to haunt her very bones, this dog-and-pony show…

With the watery brown of Kyla's gaze before her, with Aiden's shy palm upon her shoulder…
With the picture-perfect cerulean sky above, with the dulcet tones from a feathered breast…
Ashley breaks down, hot tears into her coffee, weeping for that life not yet lived - for that life forsaken, but not yet forgotten.
And the trees shake their boughs in a sudden northwestern wind, almost as if they are part of this cathartic moment, almost if they have something to say about all this pain and all this remorse.

But those towering giants just look like Ohio – a sweet and simple state that breeds kisses that can make one drunk - and Ashley can't do this anymore, can't pretend that love has ended with time and distance, can't move on when all she wants is to turn back time.

You, stale breath and soft skin and that halo around your head. You, waking up and emotional and all mine. You, before I pick up your phone and before you get dressed and before you walk out the door.
You, legs and arms finding their spot against mine, a jigsaw puzzle finally put together – you were the missing piece.
You, smiling and reaching out for me and keeping me close. Or was that all me?
Was I the one holding onto you for dear life, fearful that my eyes would open with the dawn and find this all a dream – a gorgeous fucking dream?
Was I the one who acted like a virgin, all stutter and no bite, with your body taut above mine?
Was I the one who fell in love and didn't know how to say it, didn't know how to let you in when you begged entrance, didn't know how to be a lover after so long of being a con-artist – a magician, there one minute and gone the next… was it all down to me that night, the night you decided I was the one to give you a new first time?

But you placed your lips against my throat and my fingertips dug into your back and I think it was the both of us tumbling down – Jack and Jill and a pail of water – and I want to go back there, Spencer.
God, I just want to go back.

Aiden steps back as Kyla steps forward and they embrace her in their own way – Aiden with his eyes and his understanding, Kyla with her arms and her love – and Ashley wants to hate her own emotions, wants to dislike this display and wants to shove this forest away and run back to the buildings that have made up her youth, back to the stench of alleyways and the hazy way the sun looks in the smog.
L.A. in all its broken beauty, the only cradle Ashley has ever known, its bright lights and loud traffic the only lullaby to her weary mind.

Here she is, though, on a porch – with a sister and a friend and a bird flapping its wings against the air and a desire that won't turn to ashes… here she is, a week off from her never-ending touring, with nothing to show for any of it.

And she keeps on crying long after the tears dry up, hollow gasps trickling out of her mouth, a shuddering deep in the sinew of her muscles – phantom pains and reflexive jumps, a veteran of some distant conflict.

She can't do this anymore. She just can't.

"I can't…"

Two words, floating out as the day wears on to afternoon, coffee gone and the smell of something good coming from the kitchen and no one is there to hear it except Ashley Davies and her own beating and fracturing heart.
And what she wants to halt is, all at once, tangible and abstract – stop this longing, stop this needing, stop this tour, stop this whining, stop fleeing, stop stop stop…

But before she can see it happening, the sky is dark and the food on her plate is cold and concerned glances are beckoning.
And Ashley realizes that she can't stop a fucking thing, not back then – not with Spencer or Aiden or my parents or any of it. The future, a place that people used to believe would be the world of flying cars and cloud-bearing cities, it still looms ahead.
It still remains unknown and…

That's got to mean something, right? That's got to mean another chance at getting things right… right?

"So… I know Kyla couldn't have made this. She can ruin a Pop Tart. Nice meal, Aiden."

And they are smiling again, the three musketeers – swords at the ready, but at rest – and they eat and they talk and Ashley doesn't let any of this yearning go, she just allows it to sleep a bit longer.
Because that number is still on her mind and that number is still in a tattered phonebook by the freeway and seven years is a long time and it doesn't make any sense – the waiting and the wanting, dancing together and still so far apart…

But since when does anything have to make sense... since when has anything to do with me ever made sense?

Because Ashley Davies can't turn the clock back, but she can try to move ahead again.
Ashley can't stop this ride, but she can't just keep spinning her wheels.
And she is in love what used to be - true - but she wonders about what might be, of what could be - on the other end of a fiberglass line, somewhere in California's trenches, is that girl that changed everything with just being at the right place at the wrong time.

On the other end of that line is Spencer Carlin.
And it's always been that way.

TBC