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I leave the library and head straight to Madison's apartment. I just need to be around her right now. For reasons that I can't even comprehend. I need her to tell me it will be fine and of course Spencer will come around. Does that mean I need to be lied to?

"Hey, it's me." I breathe harshly into the intercom.

"Ash? I thought you were helping your mom?" Madison's voice floods through the intercom and out into the street. It's loud, too loud than necessary and it almost makes me smile for a second.

"Yeah, I was, can I just come up?" There is desperation in my voice. And I know Madison can hear it because the buzzer sounds and I open the door and jog up the steps.

"Hey." I say to Madison when she opens the door.

She opens the door wider to allow me to step in. "What's up? I thought you had to stay and help Kyla with shit?"

I walk around her couch in circles. Taking her overly bright apartment. The rug is bright blue and her couch is some weird yellow color. Maybe this wasn't the greatest place to come to.

"I did. I left." I rush out shakily. Madison walks over to me and grips my shoulders. Her eyes have concern in them and I momentarily relax.

"Ashley. You're shaking. What happened?" She asks me in a calm, soothing voice.

I glance to the side. "I asked Spencer to break up with Carmen." I speak quietly.

"You what?"

"I asked her to break up with her." I repeat. The words sound funny coming out of my mouth over and over again. I don't like them.

I hate those words.

"When."

I take in a deep breath and look her in the eyes. I almost smirk when I see that one eye has heavy eyeliner and the other doesn't. Like a weird looking raccoon. "While I was hooking up with her in the bathroom."

Madison lets go of my shoulders. "What! I thought Carmen was there?" She waves her arms around and paces over to the couch.

I sigh. And try to shake the feeling of dirtiness off me. "She was."

Madison lets out an exaggerated whistle. "Geez." She plops down on the couch but I don't move. "What did she say?"

I tap my fingers against my thighs. "She said she can't. I mean what's she doing hooking up with me while she still has a girlfriend? Like, that's so messed up Mad, I-"

"Ashley." Madison interrupts me. "There's two of you. I don't want to be bitter or the Debbie Downer or whatever, but you could have stopped it too."

I sit down on the couch next to her. And close my eyes before I speak. "I know. I know. I'm just so torn between- wanting to have her to myself, all to myself. And on the other hand not caring how I have her as long as I get to have some part of her."

Madison rubs my back a little. I feel like I should be crying here but I'm not. My throat is kind of dry and that's about it. Is that abnormal?

"She's not going to keep cheating on Carmen with you. That's just not how it works Ash." Madison says evenly.

"I guess."

Madison chuckles. "It's not a guess. Does she know you want to be with her?"

I give her an unnecessarily mean glare. "I think she got that when I told her to break up with her girlfriend."

"Right." Madison leans back. "You have to talk to her."

I furrow my eyebrows and scrunch my forehead. "I don't want to."

"Don't be a frickin' baby. We're not in Kindergarten."

I cross my arms over my chest. I should know by now that Madison is always right. Except this time, I'm not so sure I want her to be. I don't want to go talk to her or have to work this out. I want it to be like that fantasy that you always have. Where things just happen and they're good and wonderful and you can't believe you even got that lucky. But things don't work like that. And they probably never will.

"Yeah." I sigh and lean my head back on the couch.

"But Ash, at least you did something, right? It was late, but better late than never. And it took courage to not let her leave in the first place."

"Thanks." I say weakly and chuckle a bit. "Since when did you become the voice of reason?"

Madison props her feet up. "I'm just philosophical like that."

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I walk home slowly, dragging my feel over the hard sidewalk. I try to not step on the crack. My mother is a witch but I'd feel shitty if her back broke, I guess.

"Jesus Ashley." My mother said to me, holding up a paper. "Just because you're a senior doesn't mean you can get D's."

"I'm sorry, that class was really hard. No one got a good grade." I said in a defeated tone. Sometimes my mother made me feel so inept. It made me incredibly angry and upset at the same time.

My mother scoffed. "I bet Spencer didn't get a D."

I rolled my eyes. My mother loved Spencer. To her, she was the perfect child, the only good thing in my life, which was fairly accurate, but still. She thought Spencer was the only reason I wasn't a drugged out alcoholic like my father used to be. To her, Spencer wasn't the gay daughter whose only good quality was that she could play the guitar well. But to her, that would never get me anywhere. She always told me that. Of course, she had no idea Spencer was gay.

"Hey." Spencer's voice floated in loudly from the front of the house. She walked into my kitchen and gave my mother a smile.

"Hi Spencer dear. How are you?" My mother asked her with a reciprocating smile.

Spencer nodded. "Good."

"You didn't get any D's did you? I'm sure you didn't. Tell Ashley to do her homework." My mother spit out. It was supposed to come out jokingly but I could hear her words dripping with disdain. Maybe I was the only one.

"Ashley is a smart girl." Spencer said, giving me a smile.

"Well, let's see some proof." My mother answered, leaving the kitchen with a "I'll see you girls later."

"God." I whined, sitting down on a stool by the island. "She's such a bitch, All she does is give me shit. I only got one D and all A's and all she can focus on is that one D? Seriously?"

Spencer's eyes were looking intently at me and she had a frown on her face. I waited a minute for her to tell me to be nice to my mom. To focus on the good things.

"What?" I laughed slightly. "Aren't you gunna tell me to be nice or don't take it too bad?" I asked, furrowing my eyebrows.

Spencer shook her head. "No. Your mom makes you feel shitty, and I don't like people who make you feel shitty." She said simply.

I looked at her and smiled. Spencer sat down next to me and I touched her knee lightly with one finger. "You're wonderful, you know that?"

Spencer's head looked up from where my finger was on her jeans to my eyes. "No."

"Well you are." I told her. Spencer shrugged. "So, did you get a D?"

Spencer smiled sheepishly. "No." She chuckled.

"Of course not."

I took my hand away and read over my report card, swiveling my chair back and forth. I glanced back at Spencer and she was just looking into space. "I love you Spence." I told her randomly.

Spencer grinned at me and blinked. "Ash I love you too. But you know that."

"Spencer?" I question as I see the blue-eyed blonde beauty sitting on the steps to my building.

She stands up with my sweatshirt in her hands. Her fingers are running over it and her eyes are not meeting mine. They're frantically looking around the pavement. I guess searching for words.

"You forgot this." She finally says, looking at me.

"Right." I say evenly, not moving towards her yet. "Thanks."

She holds the sweatshirt out for me and I take it from her grasp, only moving close enough to reach it. "Yeah."

There is a deafening silence.

Spencer sighs. "Obviously I didn't come here to just give you your sweatshirt." She states bluntly.

"No?"

"Come on Ashley. Don't pretend."

I feel anger course through me. I don't know why but I don't like being told I'm pretending. Because for once, that is the one thing I am not doing.

"I'm not."

Spencer sits back down and I sit next to her. But on the other side of the step so there is a good amount of space between us. "Look." She starts, her heading straight forward. "I'm sorry for everything. I just want my best friend back."

And my heart breaks.

"Friend?" I ask.

"I miss us, I miss you. I need my best friend Ashley."

That one word has the ability to tear violently at my heart. At my chest. I don't want to be Spencer's friend. I don't want to be her best friend and only that. The person she talks about other people to. The person she asks advice about girlfriends for. I want to be her best friend and her girlfriend, the one she is with. I feel greedy and I wish I weren't. But I can't help it.

"I want that too." I tell her, not really lying but not being totally truthful. I know I need some part of her, no matter what that part. It might be painful but it's better than being numb without her.

Right?

"So can we just, do that?" She asks, finally turning her head to me.

This is so surreal. It's like this whole last week never happened. I wonder if Spencer wants to kiss me just as bad as I want to kiss her right now. I wonder if she has the same urge to just touch in some way. Have any kind of contact. I wonder how she can just think everything that happened can be fixed by being friends. I feel as if I have no other options.

"Yeah." I say quietly to her. Her blue eyes have hope in them

"Okay." She says as she gets up. "Um, I have to go…" She trails off and she has no need to say the rest because I know what the rest is. The words Carmen is waiting are hanging in the air like a bubble. I want nothing more than to pop that bubble and make it explode and disappear.

"Alright. Well, see you later." I use that later and I hate myself for it the second it comes out of my mouth. My mouth that is too confused to say anything else.

"Call me sometime this week?" She asks, her eyes a little dull and not as bright as usual. I want to think they're dull because she's leaving me and has to go to Carmen. Her girlfriend. But that's just wishful thinking.

I just nod and turn to go inside to my empty apartment. The steps going up are creaky and I understand just how they feel.