Enjoy!

To say that I am not excited would be the understatement of the goddamn century.

My mother's dinner parties are those ripped right out of an episode of a Soap Opera. They're filled with lots of women with their husbands who all have important jobs. But more importantly they all have important money. How my mother knows them all? I couldn't tell you. There's barely any family involved, because my mother doesn't speak to her brother and her parents passed away a while ago. So that leaves me with Kyla, my half-sister. Obviously, her mother will not be attending. Christine is not too fond on making friends with the women her husband used to cheat on her with.

But, who is?

These parties are almost as bad as the wedding themselves. Almost. Flowers, food, drinking. All nice, sure, but mixed with the people they're no Mardi Gras. The only solace I feel from having to attend is that Kyla and Glen will be there. And Spencer will be there. I've been praying for the last week that she doesn't bring Carmen with her, because really, I can only handle so much sober and then I will have to be resorted to getting plastered. And I wouldn't dare bring Madison. Last time I brought her she hit on a fifty-year-old lawyer and knocked over my mother's crystal duck.

Not fun.

The party is exactly one week from the last time I saw Spencer, at lunch. And I am itching to get her into my sight again. It's not just that small fact that I happen to love her. I miss her company and her presence. She used to be the only one that got me to calm down at these shin-digs and anywhere else. I need her, and I am done with the drifting. At least I will try.

I am not giving my mother the pleasure of her getting me to wear a dress. So I acquire some nice slim black pants and a very white vest. I decide to straighten my hair because I accidentally lit one curl a little bit on fire the other day with my lighter, so it looks bad. I am just finishing putting my boots on when my cell phone rings from the other room.

"Hello?" I say, out of breath from running around and nearly tripping on my guitar.

"Ash, get your ass over here. You were supposed to be here like ten minutes ago." Kyla says harshly into the phone.

I look at my microwave clock. "But it starts in fifteen?" I say, confused.

"Are you crazy! It doesn't matter. Christine is ranting my face off, get here. Now." She says in a hushed tone and hangs up.

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By the time I get to my mother's building, I am anticipating a smack down. There are already some people here and I was supposed to arrive earlier. Whoops.

The second I walk in my mother assaults me.

"Ashley. Why are you late." She whisper-yells into my face. I smell the liquor already.

"I'm sorry, uh, I had an emergency." I lie.

My mother looks at me, unbelieving to my bullshit. "Fine. Please, go make yourself useful."

"Yes mother." I spit out and walk away.

I sneak by some couples, not wanting to be asked How are you?! Or What are you doing with your life? Or So, when are you getting married!?

Good one.

"Ashley. How are you, I haven't seen you in a while." Donald's deep voice scares the shit out of me as I am sneaking into the kitchen to get a head start on the being plastered part of this evening.

"Donald, hi. Congratulations." I say in my most fake, dull voice.

Donald is dressed in some fancy-ass pin-striped suit. His hair is combed over to the side, very blonde and very shiny. Too much gel. He's tall, and if he were my boss I would be scared shit-less. I have to say, for an older man, he is not that bad looking. I don't understand why he finds all that Botox in my mother attractive, but to each their own.

"Thank you. I'm very excited. Christine is a wonderful woman." He says happily, a beer in his hand.

"Right, yes. She is." I almost choke out the words. I am relieved when he starts to talk to some other guy in a suit, someone I'm guessing is a co-worker.

I find Kyla in the kitchen, Glen with her.

"I don't get why I have to be here." Glen pouts, leaning against the counter.

Kyla punches his arm, hard. "If I suffer, you suffer Glen."

"Hey." I greet them, opening the fridge to grab a beer. "Sorry I'm late."

"You should be. I had to help decorate by myself. If I weren't on my way to getting drunk I would slap you."

I chuckle. "There's always later Kyla."

"Ashley!" I hear my name screeched from the other room and groan. Kyla gives me a sympathetic look and I down my beer in record time before heading over to where that horrible noise had just come from.

My mother points to a spot by the door in the foyer and says: "Greet."

I glare at her. I feel like an alter boy.

I put on my fake smile and greet people as they come through the door. I greet the lady with the hat that looks like it has a peacock on it and I stifle a burst of laughter. I greet the short man with an ugly-ass puke green tie. And I greet the older guy and try not to throw up when he hits on me and winks in my direction. I try my hardest not to roll my eyes when I am asked by one of my mom's country club friends if I have a boyfriend.

Twenty-five minutes later I am dying for another beer. I hear someone approaching and put my smile back on.

"Hi, how are-" But I stop when I see Spencer.

Spencer in a blue colored sundress and small sweater, smiling at me from the doorway. Spencer with her hair curled in loose ringlets around her face, just enough mascara and eyeliner to make her gorgeous blue eyes shine intensely.

"Oh wow." I breathe out invonuntarily, hoping she didn't hear that.

Spencer smirks and it could be from what I said, or merely from the fact that I'm like the little child standing at the door greeting all the grown-ups.

"Hey." She throws out easily, a large smile on her face.

"Hi. How are you? Welcome to Christine Davies' engagement party. Can I hang your coat?" I ask in a robotic voice with a smirk on my face.

Spencer snorts, and it's adorable. "Your mom must have done some serious damage on you."

I smile. "You look really- nice." I say, stopping myself from saying beautiful.

"Thanks Ash. So do you. You always did have a thing for vests."

"And you always did look great in dresses." I retort, smirking. "Um," I shake my head to stop myself from saying more stupid things, "Kyla and Glen are in the kitchen. Well, they were like a half hour ago."

"I bet Kyla's drunk." Spencer laughs, walking past me and I catch some of her wonderful smelling perfume.

"Save me a beer?" I ask and wink at her as she walks away.

Spencer nods and smiles, leaving me to return to hell.

When I am finally relieved of my greeting duties, I make a bee-line for Spencer, Kyla, and Glen in the kitchen. And they're all still there, camping out like they'd light on fire if they stepped out into the dining room.

"How was greeting?" Kyla ask me with a smirk on her face.

"Fantastic. You're doing it next time."

"Please." She snorts. "There better not be a fucking next time."

"Beer?" Spencer asks sweetly, holding out a Corona for me.

"Oh God, thank you." I reply, taking it from her hand.

"Won't she notice that we're not out there, like, mingling?" Glen asks, looking out into the dining room.

"Nah, she's way too into talking to her fancy-ass friends." I tell him.

Glen shrugs. "I'm gunna go eat."

"Oh, I'll come with you! I want that, um, what's that stuff she has out there?" Kyla asks.

"Humus?" I laugh out.

'Yes! Humus." She exclaims like a little girl and takes Glen's hand, dragging him out.

I turn to Spencer and just look at her for a second. I smile even though I don't know why. Maybe because I like being here with her. Just her and me. Or maybe because she looks so absolutely gorgeous that it's probably a dangerous idea for me to be left alone with her.

"I'm sorry you have to experience this. Again." I tell her, taking a sip of my beer.

Spencer shrugs and grins. "It's not that bad." She nudges my shoulder with her elbow.

"Yeah, well, you didn't have to greet." I reply.

"Well, you got to greet me, right?" She says, a smile on her pretty face.

I chuckle, suddenly feeling hot. "The only good part." I tell her, catching her eyes. "Where's Carmen?" I ask.

I don't know why I do it.

Spencer frowns slightly. "I didn't invite her."

"Oh, why?" I ask again.

Someone make me stop. Stop talking Ashley.

"Just, because." Spencer says in an annoyed voice. "Why does it matter?"

I'm taken kind of off guard. I thought I was doing the right thing by being polite. "I don't- know. I was just being polite." I confess.

"Yeah, but you don't mean it Ashley."

"Spencer." I say quietly.

"I wanted to come here, alone. To hang out with you, okay? I barely ever see you anyway. Jesus, just stop asking me about Carmen." She rushes out, her voice getting louder.

I can't help the bitterness that flows through me. "She's your girlfriend Spencer. You're right, I'm sorry we don't see each other. I'm sorry, okay. I don't want to have this conversation, let's just hang out."

"Why!?" She almost yells. I meet her eyes and they're angry and cloudy. "We can never have this conversation Ashley. We haven't been having this conversation for like, a year. I am so sick of not having this conversation and not understanding."

I duck my head down. "Okay. I'm sorry." I repeat.

"Stop apologizing Ash." Spencer says more softly. "I don't even know what you're saying sorry for." She closes her eyes hard for a second and brings her hands to her face. When she opens them, they're not as angry and they're lighter.

I feel bad. And I know why I'm apologizing. I'm apologizing for pushing her away from me when she started to go out with Carmen. I'm apologizing for continuing to push her away after all this time. I'm apologizing for not telling her I love her and that I think about kissing her all the time. I'm apologizing for being so bitter and pretending to care that I want to know where or how Carmen is. I'm apologizing for hurting her, because God, I don't want to do that.

But I don't say any of that.

I reach my hand out and put it on her shoulder. Spencer looks at me with blue eyes and I frown. "Hey." I say softly. "I promise we'll talk." I bring my hand to her hair in a moment of boldness and softly push a ringlet behind her ear. I bring my hand down and touch her chin lightly. "Just keep me company in this hell-hole, please? Before I kill myself?"

Spencer smiles lightly at me. Her eyes looking at mine with something good in them. She nods. "Yeah, okay."

I exhale audibly and take a sip of beer. "I guess we should go out there?"

Spencer nods, grabs my hand, and heads into the dining room. I go three minutes without being bombarded by people.

"Ashley! How are you dear?" Some lady, who I can't for the life of me remember the name of, asks me. She's wearing a beige pants suit and has a weird button on it. It looks like a lady-bug.

"I'm great." I answer absentmindedly.

"Good." She says with a smile. "Who is this gorgeous young girl?" She turns to Spencer, giving her a smile.

I look at Spencer and squeeze her hand in mine. "This my best friend, Spencer Carlin."

"Nice to meet you." Spencer reaches out to shake the lady's hand.

The lady gulps down the rest of her martini. "You ready for the big day?"

I resist the urge to roll my eyes basically out of my head. "It should be great."

"Definitely." Kyla says, popping up next to me.

"Gosh, you two sisters look so much alike." She says in a hazy daze.

I shoot Kyla a warm smile and I see her try not to laugh.

"This is bullshit." I spat out, slamming my bedroom door. "My sister? Seriously? I have a frigging sister now?"

I had just met Kyla for the first time. My dad had died maybe about a month ago and here, on my doorstep, was this girl claiming to be my half-sister. A bastard child and I had to now live with her. It didn't help that my mother was all up in Kyla's business. Asking her questions and making her feel at home.

"Come on Ash, it's not that bad." Spencer said from the across the room.

"How would you like to find out you have some mysterious half-sister because your dead father fucked some other woman?"

Spencer frowned. "Well, when you put it that way. But, Kyla didn't get to know him. You did. Can you imagine how that feels?"

"Whatever. He's dead." I said dejectedly, plopping down on my bed. I put my head in my hands and willed myself not to cry. There had been too much of that over the past month. I was emotionally strained and tired and I so didn't want to deal with this bullshit.

Spencer came over to the bed and sat down next to me. Her hand reached around me to rub my back. "Just give her a chance? I'm sure she's feeling like total shit right now too."

I didn't have time to answer because my door opened and my supposed "sister" peeked her head in.

"Um, I'm sorry to bother you." She said timidly, looking at the ground. "But, do you have a towel I could borrow?"

I looked at Spencer and frowned. Maybe she was right. This girl was probably feeling just as shitty as I was. Her dad, our dad, was a man-whore.

I got up and went to my dresser. "Here." I handed it to her. "And uh, Kyla, if you need anything else. Just, let me know." I gave her a sincere, warm smile, and just that fact that she smiled back, a little scared but comforted, made me not as angry.

"Thank you Ashley." She said and left the room.

I went back to the bed where Spencer was now lying down. I laid down beside her and snuggled myself into her side, needing her right now. Spencer wrapped her arm around me and whispered in my ear. "Not so bad, right?"

I made a grunting noise in response, as to say: "I guess not."

Spencer chuckled and pulled me closer. Her hand ran through my hair and I felt better.

"Ugh, my life is messed up." I muttered from her shoulder.

"Maybe, but you have me."

I looked up into her eyes. "Thank you."

Spencer smiled softly and kissed my forehead. I put my head into her neck and tried to think that as long as I had Spencer then I would be okay.

I had no idea how true that really was.

"I'll call you sometime this week. We have to go try cake and look at flowers and shit." Kyla told me as I hugged her goodbye.

"So glad I'm not doing that." Glen chuckled as he gave me and his sister a hug.

Spencer and I waved to them as they tried to walk in a straight line down the street.

"Thank you for coming, seriously, you have no idea how miserable I would have been without you here." I say to Spencer as I turn to her.

"Of course. But I'm sure you would have been fine." She says with a smile.

"I doubt it."

Spencer laughs lightly and goes to give me a hug goodbye. I embrace her and sigh quietly into her shoulder.

"Goodnight, honeybunch." I say absentmindedly, calling her a nickname from the past.

Spencer blinks and smiles brightly at me with her blue eyes. "'Night Oats." She says and heads down the street.

I watch the girl I wish I were run after her down the street. I watch that girl turn her around and tell her to wait. That girl tells Spencer that God, she loves her and she wants to be with her. The girl I wish I were kisses Spencer lightly on the lips and caresses her face affectionately.

In reality, the girl that I am stands on the sidewalk watching Spencer walk away.