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My feet hurt.

I don't know why I decided to wear my boots. And I don't know why I decided to walk to Kyla's apartment, because it's like a thirty-minute walk. I also don't know why I decided to even go. I don't know a lot of things.

But when I am buzzed up to the apartment, I am reminded why I came.

"Way to be late." Kyla says with a small smile as I enter.

"Sorry. I walked."

"Walked? It's far." She says, confused.

I shrug. "I know. I just felt like it"

I walk into the dining room and my eyes are immediately drawn to one person. Not Aiden. Not Glen. Not anyone else.

Spencer's blue eyes meet mine and they have a look in them I can't recognize. It's one that I used to be able to, but after time, after the drifting, I just can't anymore. For a minute I don't say anything.

"Hey." She says easily.

"Hey." I answer back, a very small smile creeping up on my face even though I don't want it there. It's not listening to my brain, and that makes me angry.

"What's up. I didn't know you were gunna be here." I say stupidly. I'm being honest, I didn't know. But if I'm being honest, there was that shred of hope that was tearing at me, wishing that she would be here.

That's why I came.

I glance a sideways look at Kyla, but she turns her head instantly, saying something to Glen.

"Well, I'm here, just…being here." She smiles widely at me.

And with that smile, I totally forget the reason that I allowed myself to drift so far from her. Then, I see a person walk up behind her and give me a forced smile.

And I totally remember why I made myself drift from her.

"Hi Ashley." Carmen says easily to me, her hand on the small of Spencer's back.

"Hey Carmen." I say plainly, trying to smile at her. I'm trying, but it's not working. This time, I catch Kyla's eye and narrow my eyes at her. I'm sure everyone can see the laser beams coming out of them.

"How are you?" Carmen asks nicely. Too politely, like she's always been. It's hard to hate a nice person. It's hard to wish death upon them when they're constantly nice to you. Like there's nothing wrong. I hate that. I want to feel free to hate anyone I want to.

"I'm good, good. You?" I hate this small talk. It reminds me of why I rarely come to dinner or interact with them.

Spencer is just looking at me intently. Almost angrily. I divert my eyes from her and let out a breath.

Carmen nods. "Great."

"Hey Ash." Aiden says, interrupting whatever weirdness was just going on. Maybe I was the only one feeling it. I silently remind myself to thank him.

"Hey Aiden." I smile at him.

"I thought you said maybe?" He asks with a grin on his face.

I shrug. "Changed my mind." I tell him, wishing, really wishing, that I hadn't. "Is Kate here?" I ask, hoping that he doesn't hear the desperation in my voice. Hoping he doesn't hear all the ways I am praying he says no.

Aiden shakes his head. "No." He gives me a look and a small smile. And I, again, silently thank him for doing me this favor. Even if it is coming from sympathy. If Kate were here that would make me seventh wheel.

And I am too young to die.

I go give Glen a hug hello.

"Thanks for coming Ash. I haven't seen you in forever." He tells me, a smile on his face.

I see why Kyla likes him so much. He has that, boyish charm. He almost reminds me of a small baby, goatee aside.

"I know. Congrats on the job. That's awesome." I say, sitting down on a stool.

"Thanks, I'm pretty psyched about it. Beer?" He asks, holding open the door of the refrigerator.

Oh dear God yes.

"Please." I almost plead.

"So I heard your mom is getting married." Spencer's voice says as she walks into the kitchen. There is a slight smirk on her face.

I laugh for the first time since I've arrived. "Yup. Again. I heard you have to help. I'm sorry."

Spencer nods. "Yeah, well. It won't be that bad." She says, looking right into my eyes.

I swallow a long sip of beer. "Speak for yourself." I say lightly, meaning that I hate doing wedding shit. Over and over again.

But Spencer frowns, taking something else away from my words. When we finally do sit down for dinner, it's almost an hour later. Kyla was never one for being prompt. And I guess neither am I.

I take in the way Spencer automatically sits next to Carmen. The way she smiles softly at her. The way Carmen pours Spencer a drink. I take in the way Carmen says something into Spencer's ear, a secret that only they are sharing. After a number of beers, I block those images out and frown.

"So you're giving guitar lessons, that's cool." Glen says from across the table.

"Yeah." I smile. "It's really nice actually. One kid told me I was easier to follow than his teacher." I say. I don't say it in a gloating way. I just say it because when the kid told me, I felt really good.

"You were always good at guitar. And piano." Spencer states, looking at me.

I shrug. "I guess." I crack open another beer and I catch Spencer's eyes. She's looking at me in that way that says How many beers have you had?

That face reminds me.

"Ash, I think you're good." Spencer said, trying to take a beer from my hand.

We were at a party. And by party, I mean we were at Aiden's house one Friday night with only four other people there.

"Aww come on Spence." I whine, taking a hasty sip of a beer that was probably in the double digits by now. "One more, I promise."

"Ashley…" She trails off, but I'm giving her my best sad face and I know I can break her. I hear it in her voice and I see it in her expression. "Fine, but then you're done."

I smile wide at her and give her a sloppy kiss to the cheek. "Thanks honeybunch."

Spencer smiles and rolls her eyes. But I see her cheeks become a little less pale.

I poke her stomach softly. "Come on, say it." I grin.

"You're welcome, Oats." She smiles at me and chuckles adorably.

At the time I thought it was funny and cute if I called her honeybunch and she called me Oats. Like Honeybunches of Oats. And I'm pretty sure I continued to think it was funny and cute forever.

"She's cut off, right?" Aiden's deep voice asks from across the room.

"Yes master." I say drunkenly to him and giggle and then hiccup.

"You're ridiculous." Spencer laughs out.

I put my beer on the floor and lay down sideways on the couch we're sitting on. My head landing in her lap. Spencer's fingers automatically brush through my hair and I find myself getting very sleepy.

"Yes." I murmur. "But you love me this way."

I feel more than I hear, Spencer's chuckle. "I love you any way, Ash."

I look up at her from my lying down position, her fingers never faltering. "Good." I smile.

The difference about this memory is that I know I am not the only one experiencing it. I know, by the way that Spencer is looking at me, by the glint in her eyes, that she is remembering it as well. And as quickly as that, this memory is not solely mine. It's hers as well. It's possible that all memories I experience are shared by her. Somewhere, some time, Spencer remembers these things too. These things, these memories aren't just mine. They're simply ours.

"How's uh, whatever you're doing, Carmen?" I ask her, peeling and picking at the label of my Corona. I didn't mean to ask it in a mean way. I meant to ask it in a polite way. But I have no idea how it came out.

"School? School's good, busy and hard, but good." She says, and then she continues on about school, and some project, and some professor, and I drown her out.

I absolutely hate that Spencer shares her life at school with Carmen. She met her during the writing program she went to right before Freshman year. I heard about the new friend, Carmen, when Spencer came home. I heard about how nice she was. I heard about her friend, and just a friend, Carmen all during Spencer's Freshman year. I met her friend Carmen when I went to visit Spencer at school, probably a hundred times. I enjoyed Carmen then, when she was Spencer's friend. She was nice and she was fun.

And then Carmen morphed from friend to girlfriend in the beginning of their Sophmore year. And I heard about how nice her girlfriend was. I heard about how Carmen brought her on dates and bought her flowers. I heard about all the girlfriend things that happen at the beginning of a relationship. And somewhere in there I lessened my visits to Spencer at school drastically. And somewhere in there I didn't enjoy Carmen so much anymore. I thought maybe it was a fling, and with time they would break up. And I would tell Spencer that she deserved better, that she, in fact, deserved the best. It wasn't that Carmen wasn't nice and wasn't a good girlfriend. She was.

Which made everything so much harder.

But time passed and I couldn't handle being around Spencer and Carmen anymore. I didn't want to visit Spencer only to eat lunch with her and Carmen. I didn't want to see them dance together at a party. My heart hurt every time I thought about it. And a year and a half later, they are still together. Still eating lunch together. Still dancing at parties. The difference is that I'm not there anymore.

Maybe my drifting was unconscious. Maybe it was intentional. But it happened so slowly that I sometimes wonder if Spencer even noticed. I wonder that and then my wondering is answered by the way her blue eyes look at my brown ones every time I see her, so about every three months.

Of course she noticed.

Spencer and I only ever once talked about how we didn't see each other a lot anymore. About how we only talked sporadically. How it was so different from when we used to talk every day and night and try not to let even one day go by without seeing each other. I chalked it up to being busy. Her with school, and me with- whatever the hell I was doing. Which might have been nothing. I said we were busier now and she agreed. But her clear blue eyes had willed me to say something else. To just say exactly why this was happening.

I didn't. So we promised to try and talk more and see each other more.

Those were broken promises.

And neither of us ever brought it up again.

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After dinner, I clear my plate and some other stuff that's been on the table. For a second, I feel like I am thirty years old. I feel so much older than I am, having dinner at my sister and her boyfriend's apartment. That's such a middle-aged thing. When in reality, I'm only twenty-two years old and Kyla and Spencer are twenty-one. Glen twenty-three.

It's just a strange feeling. But I ignore it and bring my beer bottles and plates into the kitchen.

"You need help?" I ask Kyla as I lean against the kitchen counter.

"Nah." She pauses for a second. "I'm good. Um, Ash, I'm sorry, I didn't know she was bringing Carmen, I-" Kyla says in a hushed tone.

"No, it's alright." I lie. "But you knew Spencer was coming." I state. I can tell Kyla feels my eyes burning into the back of her head.

I see her head bob up and down, nodding. "I invited her but I didn't know if she was definitely coming."

"Yeah." I say, for no reason at all other than that's all I have to say.

"I'm gunna make coffee in like ten." She says, turning around.

"Okay." I say, knowing that she's telling me I have time to go outside for a cigarette.

I turn around and head out the door, not saying anything else. When I get outside it's chilly out and the momentary flash of my lighter warms me.

"I can't believe you still smoke." I hear a voice say lightly to me. And then Spencer's form sits down next to me on the cold steps.

"Yeah, well. Old habits die hard, I guess." I say, looking straight ahead.

"Yeah." Spencer says quietly. She exhales lightly. "I'm glad I saw you tonight." She throws out innocently.

"Me too." I answer.

And I hate this. Because this is weird and me and Spencer never used to be weird.

"How are things with Carmen?" I ask. Honestly, I have no idea why I would ask that question and inflict the pain on myself. I don't know why it came out of my mouth. I just don't know why anymore.

"They're good." She answers. She pauses for a long moment. "Ashley, I hate that this is weird."

I look at her for the first time. Her cheeks are red from the slight chill in the air, her hair up in a ponytail, knees against her chest, hands around her legs.

"I know. I do too." I say honestly.

She brings her chin to rest on top of her knees and I have this insanely huge urge to just touch her face. Just put my palm against it and feel how soft I know her skin is.

"Then why, why is it? Why is this the first time I've seen you in- three months." She says calmly. Every word smooth and devoid of any anger. There's just pure curiosity and a drop of sadness there.

I shrug. "We're busy. You're in school. I'm giving lessons. I don't know, we're not eighteen anymore Spencer. We don't have all that free time."

I meet her eyes and I see them frown along with her mouth. I know she's asking me to say something else. And even if I wanted to, what would I say?

Because I can't stand to be around you and Carmen?

Because I wish I could just go back to being your best friend that you used to call to make French toast on Sunday mornings with?

Because I happen to love you an incredible amount, more than I should?

Because I am too much of a coward to tell you?

"I guess." She says, her eyes still on mine. She breaks away first and I look down.

"Well, you're gunna help with the wedding right? So, I'll see you a lot." I try to comfort both of us with those words. And I think they momentarily do that.

"Yeah." She sighs. "You really need to quit."

"You always were the bossy type." I retort, a smirk on my face.

Spencer shoves my shoulder lightly and chuckles. "Me? Right."

"Hey." A voice says from up the stairs and at the door. It rips us out of our lapse into the past. "You guys want coffee?" Carmen asks.

"We better go." Spencer says, getting up.

I flick my cigarette into the street. "Yeah." I mumble and follow her up the steps.

And it is right then that I realize that sometime soon, someone is going to get hurt.

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My coffee tastes bitter, but I drink it anyway.