Ashley left.
She left before I woke up, changing back into her damp clothes and leaving my boxers and shirt in a neat pile on the dresser.
I turned on the TV, went to find my cell phone so I could call her maybe, ask her if last night really happened, when I heard a faint word. "… Davies."
Ashley, live on air, fresh from the suburbs of Los Angeles, my bedroom, walking out of the club, in her dark heels, scandalously short skirt, leather jacket, sunglasses that hid everything from the world, from me.
She tipped the whiskey coloured bottle in her left hand against her lips, as someone shouted her name from behind the camera.
She turned unsteadily and looked straight at the lens, and smiled that smile that used to be meant just for me.
Ashley left.
She wouldn't leave without a fight, but when the nurse threatened to call security she finally had, pausing at the threshold to give me a long look I wouldn't return.
That was last night.
The sun's barely above the horizon when I buzz into my apartment, in some shoddy place downtown that six years ago, I wouldn't have looked twice at or gone within any distance of. I call this home, now.
There's a doormat of fresh letters inside that the door skids over. The apartment smells damp, like dirty clothes, like dust. I wonder if it's worth it opening the windows and being cold all night.
I pick up the letters, dropping them onto the card table in the kitchen. There are dirty dishes still in the sink, paper from old letters and flyers still littered on the floor where I've tried to sketch on them. There are the new letters on my card table, stamped with 'overdue' in red ink, big black block letters with numbers asking for money I don't have.
Money I won't have. I wonder if maybe I hadn't come back at all, if they would come looking for me. What their faces would look like when they realized I couldn't pay them anymore.
God, no one would've even noticed if not for Ashley. It would've been so easy – and now it's not anymore.
I bury my face in my palms and try to take a composing breath, and all I get is shaky and stuttering, I can hardly feel the air entering my lungs. I can feel white panic creeping up on my periphery, threatening to close up my throat and well up tears where they don't belong.
It's not until someone raps at the door sharply once, twice, not stopping, I notice. I hope it's not the man from next door looking to borrow money again, because I have nothing left to give.
"Spencer, I know you're in there."
I hear myself gasp faintly. Even now, I recognize Ashley's voice through the door, and it takes all my willpower not to run to her and her warmth, reassurances, maybe now deceit.
I don't need her anymore.
"This lock looks pretty dingy," Ashley continues.
I can't help but smile at her attempt at a threat. I hear a muffled thump, then, heavy footsteps that can't be Ashley's.
"What're you doing?" Her muffled voice cuts through the door.
And I'm out of my seat, undoing the three bolts and locks on the door, pulling it open so it rattles on it's hinges.
It's Eden from next door, towering over Ashley as she takes a defensive pose.
"Eden, I don't think she has any money on her," I lie quickly, trying so hard not to cringe.
He looks at me, brow furrowing, I try not to breathe a sigh of relief Ashley can hear when he shrugs in defeat and lumbers back down the hallway.
"Sorry," I say, before I remember what has changed between me and her.
She gets a face like she doesn't know whether to smile or frown. "It's okay."
The light overhead flickers and fizzles out. I stopped noticing these things months ago, but when Ashley's standing here in her thousand dollar shoes and that look on her face, I wish I could be anywhere but here. "How'd you find me?"
"I have connections."
I look at my shoes and try hard not to smile. "Right."
I hear her sigh, feel the sudden warmth of her hand under my chin. "Have you been crying?"
Tearing my face away, I step back blindly. It's been awhile, anyone's touched in a way I like. "What's it to you?"
I look for her biting the inside of her cheek, the way I used to watch for when she held back from making some biting retort. But all she does is look at me and soften her eyes impossibly.
I bring my hands to together, wringing before I can stop myself, a gesture Ashley used to ridicule. "What do you want, Ashley?"
Her eyes dart up from my hands, confidence returning to her tone, holding herself up now, in a way I'm so familiar to. "I want to know why you're living in place like this."
"What makes you think you have the right to know?"
She looks down at my hands again, and I quickly drop them. "Because I know you, Spence. People like you don't live in places like this. You deserve so much more than this –"
"You know me?" I let out a wry laugh. "The Spencer," I enunciate almost bitterly, "you knew wouldn't be here. Maybe you should look somewhere else." Stiffly turning to go back into the apartment, not bothering to gauge her reaction, I think of her fancy neighbourhood in Hollywood, with maybe the pretty blonde across the street she screws every weekend, the lovesick boy next door who offers to mow her lawn every week, the loud parties she throws no one ever complains about.
I wonder if I know her.
The closing door meets the thwack of her palm against the marred wood, as she covers that last distance between the door and me. I look at her face, trying to convey my exasperation, when I see her eyes are trained on the room over my shoulder.
No going back now, because she's seen all of it. The hall that leads to the empty bedroom, the grubby couch with a tacky floral print I sleep on, the kitchen with it's single folding chair, cardboard boxes used as corner tables, the few clothes I have all stacked up in a miserable little pile.
I hear her sharp intake of breath, and when she looks at me, her eyes have no trace of warm honey brown left.
"You live here." Her tone is steely, so unfathomably angry again.
"No kidding."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Why would I?" I counter, and feel as if it's getting old.
"Why wouldn't you? Hospital patients aren't supposed to leave and come back to a place like this. You shouldn't be coming back to a place like this –"
"I'm sorry, Ashley, but not everyone's as well off at you."
I see her jaw clench, and it's not as gratifying as I wished it would be, hurting her. "You should've told me. I could've helped you."
"I don't need your help."
"You don't?" Her eyes wander the room again, stopping at the letters on the table, reading some of the big ugly block text, perhaps, then wandering slowly, deliberately, back to me, proving her point so firmly, painfully with every perfect breath she takes in this desolate place.
I grit my teeth together and shake my head no.
She nods once, and closes the door behind her.
I think about Ashley as I smooth out my white blouse and black slacks, the same ones I wear to wait tables except for Sundays. Sundays, when I don't work, loitering for hours at the mall and looking at the paints and the pencils the way Ashley and I used to pore over clothes years ago. I can pretend that I actually belong there, just for a day. That I actually have enough money to indulge. The closest I can get today, is outside the store.
That's never happened before.
Of all days today, I can't even bring myself to go inside, bask in the familiar warm yellow studio lights. I don't belong, in the two sets of clothes I alternate throughout the week, the tattered dark grey wool coat that looks three sizes too big.
Ashley just had to come last night, and prove it to me without wanting to at all. Change everything without trying at all, walking away without thinking at all – again.
So I take my time walking home, not wanting to see the bills on the table and the man from next door who needs money as much as I do. I put the key in the lock, walk into my apartment, flicking on the switch that's on the right of the door.
The room's illuminated with white fluorescent light bulbs.
Everything's gone, and the bills are a pile of ashes.