Not Going Anywhere

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters featured on South of Nowhere, and only own the few that I created.

Alright everyone, Chapter 8! Sorry it took me so long, my life is a little insane right now, and is going to be for the next week, so I can't promise too much. I'll try to get in either one more big chapter in the next week or two small ones. Again I can't PROMISE. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter, I think I feel pretty okay about it. I know its dramatic haha. Please don't comment saying how this was so predictable – I know it was. I set it up to be that way. Anyhow, thanks everyone for your feedback, and keep it coming!

Chapter 8 – One Phone Call

Ring. Silence. Ring.

Each silence that existed between rings seemed increasingly long, allowing more and more time for me to regret pressing the send button. I could just hit end now. I didn't have to do this.

Yes you do, My little voice told me. I secretly regarded its truth, but my stomach was suspended as if by a thread. A few more rings and still no answer. Maybe she wasn't going to pick up. Maybe that was a sign that I shouldn't talk to her about this.

"Hello?" The thread my stomach dangled from split. I swear it fell out my butt. "Spencer? You there?" She asked, after a few moments of silence.

"Yep, hey Kyla" I answered finally, my voice trembling slightly. I hoped that she didn't notice.

"Spencer Carlin! Oh God, you have no idea what a relief it is to hear from you! After all that went down with Ash, I " -

"Kyla, can you" - I attempted to interject. Fail.

"- Thought you would never take her back! Oh Spencer, this is the greatest thing. I mean, she doesn't deserve you… at all really, after what she did, but it's still so amazing, Spencer! You're every bit as perfect as she always said you were –"

"Kyla, I really need to explain" -

"And God does she need you. I'm just beside myself with happiness for you two."

"KYLA!" I yelled into the phone, growing a little annoyed. "We're not back together." I said tersely. I regretted the harshness of my tone a bit. She was silent on the other end for a moment.

"Oh. Well… are you at least friends?" She asked, sounding a little deflated.

"No. I'm sorry to disappoint you, Kyla" I spat, a little unsure as to why I was speaking to her this way.

"Well then, why is it that you've called me?" She asked, sounding a little more irritable now.

"Is this a bad time? I can call later –" I said quickly, my fears flaring up in my chest once more. The little voice in my mind pleaded that I just get this over with, but it was drowned out by the noise of my anxiety.

"No, I've been meaning to call you anyway, and I saw that you called me. What's going on?" She asked. Okay, here goes.

"Well, it is about Ashley" –

"Surprise, surprise" She interrupted. I could imagine that she must be smiling smugly.

"Well, for the last so many months, I dropped all contact with her, as you probably know. For the reasons you also already know" I said, hoping that she wouldn't inquire further. I didn't know if I could make it through describing what she did to me tearlessly. After all it wasn't as if she didn't know. To my luck, she didn't ask to hear it again.

"I know", she said after a moment of silence. I could hear the smile fade from her face. Her tone was an understanding one, sympathetic. She wasn't going to press me.

"Well I knew it was only a matter of time before I ran into her again. I just…" I paused, stifling the painful memories. "I didn't expect it to hurt so much"

"She told me what happened, Spencer. As if it wasn't enough that you saw her, you had to see her with" –

"Please don't remind me" I pleaded.

"Sorry. Well, I didn't really expect you to take her back I guess, especially after that, but when I saw you called… I guess I just let my mind go nuts. I'm sorry." She said quietly.

"It's fine. Well, I just don't know what to do about her. I don't know if I can ever forgive her" I blurted, holding back the tears that I knew would surface in my voice if I allowed them out of my eyes.

"Well, it sounds like you've got your mind made up. I think that's reasonable. I told you, she doesn't deserve you"

"That's not even the problem." The words flowed from my mouth like unstoppable vomit. I realized suddenly that I hadn't spoken of these feelings to anyone yet. At this thought my forehead blazed. She waited in silence for me to continue. "I still love her" I said finally – so quietly that I wasn't certain the receiver picked it up. She was noiseless for a few moments, and then I heard her exhale slowly.

"Well Spencer, it sounds like you have some thinking to do. On the bright side, if you decide to get back with her, she's there. And I think she means it, Spence. I've never seen her so set on anything or anyone." I longed for her to shut up more and more with every word. This did not make things easier. She didn't know the whole story yet. It was welling up in my chest, growing like a balloon, "She really loves you" – the balloon exploded. I had to interrupt, I couldn't listen to her say this.

"I have a girlfriend, Kyla." I almost yelled. The tears had made their escape, leaving their trails across my reddening cheeks.

The silence that followed was among the worst I'd ever experienced. Sure, I had told Aiden this, but I hadn't cared what he thought. I walked out before seeing his reaction. Here I sat, waiting for an answer from Kyla, a person, though I didn't talk to her much, whose opinion I cared about. She was a friend. My ears rang, begging for the littlest sound to alleviate the weight of this stifling stillness. Still nothing. "She was there when Ashley wasn't. I was so alone, Kyla. I didn't know what to do. We've been together for more than 6 months. She's amazing. She's all I could ever ask for" I elaborated, hoping this would draw something from her. It did, but it wasn't what I hoped for. In fact, it was the only thing she could have said to make my heart writhe in agony.

"Do you love her?" Each of the words was pronounced so clearly. Enunciated in such perfection that Webster would have been proud. At the registration of these words, my mind shut down for a moment, baffled at where to go from here. This was the question I'd successfully suppressed for days. I couldn't feel my heart beating. For a moment I thought I might be dying. For a split second, the prospect made me happy.

Somewhere in my swirling abyss of a skull, it occurred to me that Kyla was still waiting. Process, The small voice commanded. Please do something. Say something. Anything.

"I… I… It's not that easy to explain" –

"Oh really, it is" Kyla interjected. "It's a yes or no question. You love her, or you don't." I resented her for restricting me so. It was not that easy.

"Kyla, I really can't answer that right now. There is too much going on in my head" –

"Spencer, just answer the goddamn question!"

"Please" I begged. The tears were finally evident in my voice. My throat trembled, shaking more violently than my vocal chords let on, but it was still apparent that I was crying. "Please" I reiterated once more, in a sob heavy whisper. I could hear and was ashamed by the desperation in my voice.

"Okay." Kyla finally conceded, after a few moments of soundlessness.

"This is not even the reason I called you", I sighed, pulling my face from the phone so that I could really let it out. My sobs caught in my chest and my eyes were pressed shut. My face contorted with the ugliness of crying. I allowed myself a few seconds, then pulled it back together. Kyla was waiting patiently. I would have to thank her later for this. "I want to know what's happened to Ashley during these months" I said, surprising myself a little with my effective attempt to keep the quaking from my voice. She exhaled slowly. Very slowly. She was lingering.

"I don't know about this, Spencer…" She said, pausing for another breath. "I knew you were going to ask me. I'm not sure if I should be the one to tell you. It should really be Ashley, it's not really my place" –

"Kyla I am begging you." I pleaded, with a new intensity to my voice. It was growing stronger. "I need this information to decide my next step." I said finally, hoping it would persuade her. She was quiet for another many seconds. I took this as a good sign. At least she was thinking.

"Okay." I know she said it, but I barely heard it over the quick rejoice in my mind. "God, where do I even begin?" My every piece of attention clung to her voice. "I guess I'll start with Prom night. You were there, you know what happened." I said a silent thank you that she spared my grieving heart the details. "She is also fickle and crazy scared of commitment, so you caught her in a bad moment of indecision between you and Aiden. I, personally, don't think she would ever have chosen him. You had every right to be pissed though. I was on your side too, though it certainly didn't help that it was my boyfriend that she was considering… but regardless. When everything went down, she was just shell-shocked. You also know that she doesn't deal well with death" I couldn't bite my tongue.

"That is the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard." I blurted, regretting it as soon as it was out. "I'm sorry. It's just… Well, I've heard that excuse so many times. It just wasn't about her. It shouldn't have mattered whether she dealt well with death. It was about me, and what I needed. She couldn't see past herself to see that." I couldn't tell you what a relief it was to finally articulate that.

"I know." Kyla continued. "I agree with you. Please don't take this as me standing up for her. What she did to you was so wrong, and I wouldn't think badly of you if you never spoke to her again." I nodded, but realizing that she couldn't see me, I thanked her, then asked her to continue. "Well, she took off. She realized that she was waist deep in commitment, and that terrified her. She ran away like she always did. Unlike any past girlfriends or boyfriends though, she couldn't get away from you. You stayed with her in her every thought and dream. When she came back, she tried to get in touch with you, but you wanted nothing to do with her, for which I also don't blame you. And I told her that. Anyway, when she couldn't get you back, it scared her that you were always on her mind while she couldn't have you. She was unfamiliar with that pain. You were to first and only to break the previously invincible heart of Ashley Davies." At this my breath caught. I broke the heart of Ashley Davies. She did let down her walls for me. I just never knew. I was the only one she ever let close enough. "She wanted nothing more than to forget you. You had so much power over her and you weren't even around. She felt like she was suffocating. She set out with the intention of finding a new girlfriend, but none of them ever stuck. She reverted back to her old ways of one-night stands. Each one left her a little more hollowed, a little less whole. Christine started freaking out like she used to when Ashley would start bringing random girls home. Ashley didn't even fight back, though. She would just sit there and stare. I think she unintentionally found that to be a weapon, though, because it seemed to bother Christine more than the arguments ever had. Anyhow, there was only a shell of the old Ashley, after a while. Eventually she stopped trying with the other girls altogether. They never compared to you, and each one reminded her of what she didn't have. What she threw away. I think that's when she hit rock bottom. It occurred to her that you were gone by her own very doing. She disposed of you. It took her long enough to realize it, but she did. I think it killed her that she did this to herself, and though she didn't tell me this herself, I think it killed her that she could hurt you. The way she talks about you – I swear you are painted as the most beautiful and pure creature to walk this planet. I think the very notion that she could have caused you to suffer hurt her even more. She stopped talking to me, she stopped talking to Aiden, to anyone. She…" She paused momentarily, taking a shaky breath. "She engaged in some very self destructive behavior that I still don't want to talk about." I heard her voice quiver. This had obviously hurt Kyla, too. "You know that saying, 'we only accept the love we think we deserve?' well I think that's exactly what happened. I think that she just felt so guilty that she didn't feel she deserved anyone's company. She became so alone all the time. I think there came a point when she was more dead than alive."

The words flowed through my mind, but my expression was blank. The information I took in made me shudder internally. Tears brimmed at my eyelids. I couldn't even picture the Ashley she described. It was so unreal to me. The always confident, invulnerable Ashley. That fire that always burned in her eyes, the heat and excitement that had always radiated from her: gone. Everything I loved about her: dead.

I was so consumed with my thoughts that I barely noticed Kyla's breath becoming jagged on the other end. Quick sobs replaced the calm intake of breath that had existed just minutes ago. There was a little sniffle, and then she spoke.

"One week, she wouldn't leave her room or talk to anyone" Kyla's voice wobbled, her words becoming a little less coherent. "I knew that she was drinking. I should have stopped her, I just… I didn't know what to do." Sniff. "If I had just been a better sister. I should have been there, stayed home from school with her and made her talk to me. I guess I just didn't think that… I just didn't" –

"There was nothing you could do, Kyla" I said quietly, suddenly aware to the tears which had returned to my own voice.

"Spencer… She… She chased a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka" At this she became incoherent, her words fading into tearful whimpers. As Kyla cried on her end, I sat on mine, my eyes filled to the brim with tears, but my face struck in a position of disbelief. My gaping mouth was covered by my hand so that an onlooker would not have seen my violently quivering lower lip. Kyla's snivels became increasingly distant as the roaring silence of my head drowned her out. Through the forefront of my mind flickered many images of Ashley's face, all soundless. Images of her laughing, pouting, crying, singing, everything.

That girl almost left the world. That beautiful girl, who danced through my mind relentlessly, her brown curls bouncing with her step. The one whose face became the focus of my every dream: day and night. The one who haunted me. The one who had made me happier than I'd ever been. She almost left us. The one whose touch used to send me into a frenzy. Whose very voice would send the most euphoric of chills up my spine. The one whose whisper tickled my ear, whose kiss took me away from reality. Whose embrace made me feel invincible, whose very existence made my heart somersault through my chest.

Allowing into my mind the very notion of a world without Ashley was like ripping out my heart, slathering it with honey, and throwing it at a beehive. My chest tightened and convulsed for a moment – my lungs forcing painful shallow breaths through my arid throat. A world without Ashley. That was like an atom with no nucleus. An apple with no core. A circle with no center. In one moment of reflection, I realized that I had never known such a quick and startling agony as the one that currently stared me in the face. It was as if all of the oxygen had been brutally vacuumed from my lungs and replaced with peroxide. The ache that coursed through my entire body was so great that all I could do now was sit in awe of it, impressed by its power. By the power Ashley had over me.

Suddenly a ray of light broke through my wall of darkness. A golden strip of light glittered in the surrounding pitch black of my mind. She was still here.

With this epiphany, sound began to float back through my ears, and I could hear Kyla regaining control of her quick breath. About another minute passed before anything punctured the blanket of silence that both caressed and suffocated us.

"I was the one who found her. After she went and got her stomach pumped, Christine sent her to a new therapist every week, convinced that each one was incompetent when Ashley's state wouldn't change. What she didn't get though, was Ashley didn't want to get better. When she came home everyday she'd just go up to her room and lay on her bed." Kyla took a few slow breaths.

"How did she get better?" I asked, desperate to hear of her restoration. The idea of this half dead anti-Ashley haunted me more with each moment I allowed her to linger here. Kyla let out a soft laugh.

"Good, your still there. I was beginning to think I was talking to myself." I smiled, truly grateful that Kyla was expending the energy to tell me all of this. "Well, one day it suddenly hit me, how I'd get through to her. I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before. I went upstairs to her room one day and sat on her bed. She wouldn't look at me or speak to me, but I knew she was listening. I sat there for a long time, and then I asked her what you would think about this. For the first time in what seemed like forever, she looked at me. It was like your name was a trigger. When she looked at me, her eyes didn't quite look dead. It was the first time I really ever saw a flicker of hope that she could make a comeback." I felt the breaths in my lungs come a little easier now. "Ever since then she has been gradually improving. I think that she remembered what you taught her – that she can live with her baggage. She just needed a reality check that would get through to her. It's been about 3 months since then, and she's doing really really well, almost back to herself. I think she's trying to do right by you, to be honest. Well, except for one thing. She started hooking up with Aiden last month, and that really threw me off. It just didn't really make sense – she's always been about you. I still haven't really talked to her about it, but I think it was because she felt bad for him. During all of the time she was sick, she treated him horribly and he stood by her. I guess she felt like she owed something to him. I don't think she knew of any other way to repay him. Again, I might not be correct, but that's just my guess. I know that she felt guilty. As soon as you waltzed back into her life though, she dropped him like a hot potato. You were always the real deal." One thought pushed at the membrane of my mind, poking and scratching until it could be released. I was afraid to hear it come out, but it was necessary, I suppose.

"I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. If I'd just" –

"Stop right there." Kyla interrupted me sternly. "You are not allowed to blame yourself for ANY of this. Ashley brought all of this on herself. She destroyed you when she left you and you don't owe her a thing. Even though she's my sister, and I will always love her, I can admit that she completely did this to herself. It wasn't you at all. This started long before you or I even came into her life. Ashley has been self-destructive since day one. You were like a linchpin holding her together, to be honest. I should be thanking you. When she realized that not only did she lose you by her doing, but she also hurt you, that killed her. With you not being there in addition to that, all of her baggage caught up with her. This type of stunt has been a long time coming. Frankly, you were like the glue that held her binding together. Hell, your name brought her back from what was practically the dead. Thank YOU, Spencer. You saved her."

I could feel my cheeks reddening as the blood pooled beneath the surface. I blinked and the final tears escaped. They streaked down my face once more, but this time over a light smile. Could it be possible, what Kyla was saying? I saved her?

The rest of the conversation followed smoothly, Kyla suggesting that I talk to her a bit and see where anything goes. Part of me still froze in reluctance at this suggestion, but for the first time, another part of me surged onward. In addition to the fact that both Kyla and Avery suggested it, I think I knew it was inevitable.

Kyla and I said our goodbyes, and I thanked her profusely for all that she'd done for me tonight. She had moved me from anxious, to devastated, to somewhat… happy. The emotion overwhelmed me, and I knew it wasn't the last I was going to see of any of those emotions. Reality hadn't quite set in yet, and I was sure that I'd experience a little more of what I did today when it finally hit. For now though, I was content. There was also the enormous relief, the thickening of my windpipes so breathing came easily now. I was filled in. I understood. Knowing the story, I could now proceed forward.

After undressing, I curled up in my bed, pulling my down blanket above my bare shoulders to block out the chill. I rested my head against the soft pillow and took a deep breath.

Oh! One more thing I had to do! I reached underneath my pillow and pulled out my phone which I had just plugged in to charge. The clock read 2:05 AM, but I didn't care. I flipped it open and began typing furiously.

'Meet me in the cafeteria tomorrow morning at 8?' It didn't take long to scroll through my contacts to get to Ashley. I was going to see her tomorrow. I was going to talk to her tomorrow. My tired stomach erupted in a shallow storm of butterflies. My anxiety still existed, but it was no longer alone. By its side, hand in hand, was determination.

I set my phone back down under my pillow, and no sooner than it was out of my sight, it buzzed violently.

'See you at 8 ' the text read.

I was going to see Ashley. I still couldn't get used to the fact that this notion was met with emotion besides terror and trepidation. I was going to get to see her and not feel guilty. Avery told me I should. I was going to be able to really talk to her. For the first time since the prom night. Even the mental mention of that horrid night couldn't put a dent in my euphoric spirits. My energy dwindled quietly as my mind soared. Her amber brown eyes were going to be on my blue ones. I would be able to look at those perfect brown curls without feeling that pang of guilt. I was going to be able to admire those cheekbones, that perfect skin, her perfect lips. My consciousness quickly faded, but her face did not. Like it always did, it clung to the spotlight in my mind like an actor on a stage, but tonight I willingly went to see the show.