I finished this yesterday and revised it today, so with any luck it's all set. This is mostly just family drama, but it gets Ashley thinking.

I Hurt, Therefore I Love

My pillows go flying off of my bed. Furiously, I destroy my bed coverings. Sheets float through the air or sag on the mattress which is half on the floor while my comforter huddles in a corner. By the time Talise enters the attic, it looks like a rhinoceros trampled my bed.

Pretending not to notice the chaos, Talise drops onto her bed. "I'm assuming you're day went the exact opposite of Aiden's."

"Aiden's a jerk."

"He's looking rather pleased with himself. What did he do now?"

"He asked Spencer out on a date," I explode. Talise looks at me strangely.

"Well, that's probably why he's doing a victory dance in the living room."

"What gives him the right to do that? Seriously, why would he think Spencer would even accept?"

"Judging by his smug grin, I'll presume that Spencer did—," Talise stops and frowns. "Wait, how did Aiden find her anyways? And why do you know about this? I was pretty sure she disappeared off the face of the Earth after the other night."

"Apparently, Spencer's mother moved her to King High, and Aiden saw her when he was picking me up," I expound. Offended by the meekness to my comforter, I stalk over to it.

"Ah, that would explain it." Silently, I fume some more, and throw my comforter back on the bed. Why the hell does Aiden have to ask her out. Can't he just leave her alone? Would it be impossible for him not hit on every girl he sees? I kick my pillow to the other side of the room. "Maybe you should sign up for soccer," Talise remarks sardonically when the pillow lands on top of her.

"Sorry."

Reverting back to our original conversation, she continues, "Isn't it a good thing that Spencer's going to King High though? I thought you liked her."

"I do, but I really hate Aiden." Full of pent up aggression, I flop onto the mattress. Nothing I pummel is hard enough to produce a satisfying thwack.

"Aiden doesn't go to King," she points out.

"Yeah, but now he wants to date her."

"What's the big deal?" she asks, suddenly almost accusatory. "Why are you so upset? It's not like Aiden hasn't dated anyone before."

"I don't know." I snarl, frustrated. "I like Spencer, okay? I think Aiden's an idiot, and he doesn't deserve her."

"And when you say you like Spencer, what do you mean by that?"

"What am I supposed to mean by that?" I snap. "She's nice, and she actually wants to talk to me. Is that too much to ask for?" Angrily I rip the one remaining sheet of my mattress. I don't want to talk anymore. If I do, things that I never admit to anyone will spill out, like wishing for friends or for my Dad to be home more often.

I don't want to be that person who complains all the time about their life, and then rejects help from everyone because they think it's patronizing. I don't want to be bitter. I don't want to be that annoying character in a book that makes you want to shout: "Life sucks, get over it", and throw the book against the wall.

It would be so much easier though.

Moaning, I thread my fingers through my hair and bury my face in my mattress. Ostriches have the right idea.

"Ashley," Talise starts.

"What?" I bark, cornered and agitated.

"Do you have a crush on Spencer Carlin or something?"

"What?" Blindsided, I swivel to stare at her. "Of course not! It's not like I love her!" What the hell?

Talise shrugs, but her eyes still burn into me like lasers. "You seem kind of jealous. And did I even ask if you love her?"

"So what, if I'm jealous? Maybe I'm just sick of being everyone's second-choice," I half-admit.

"Or maybe you like her," I open my mouth to protest, but Talise bulldozes over me. "Besides, it doesn't seem like you're Spencer's second-choice. Last time, she was the one looking for you, remember?"

Falling silent, I mull over that for a few moments. At lunch today, she looked for me too. So did that mean Spencer preferred my company to Aiden's? And was Talise really going insane? I don't love Spencer—

"You might want to start your homework," Talise reminds me while pulling her own textbooks out.

—right?

With a sigh, I glance at my backpack and then at my ruined bed. Anything to avoid To Kill A Mockingbird.

I try to figure out where I threw my sheets.

During dinner, Aiden is almost unbearable. When we first sit down, he's practically bursting. Stupid grin carved into his face, he basically struts into the dining room. After sitting down, he looks at all of us as though expecting applause. As usual, my mother begins her "how was your day" routine, this time starting with Kyla.

"Kyla, how was y—,"

"I'm going on a date with Spencer Carlin this weekend!" Aiden shouts.

Stunned, Christine blinks a few times. "I'm sorry, dear, I didn't quite catch th—,"

"What?" Kyla leaps to her feet, eyes bulging.

"I have a date with Spencer—"

"You jackass," Kyla screams, pointing her finger at him dramatically. "How dare you? You knew I liked her—"

And it all goes downhill from there.

Waldo looks heartbroken and ready to cry, Ben is obviously scheming ways to steal his brother's date, and Kyla is ready to throttle her half-brother. Aiden tries to put on an innocent expression, but that doesn't stop Kyla from throwing a plate full of mashed potatoes into his face. Alarmed, Christine and Joe shush everyone in vain. Assessing the rapidly deteriorating situation, I look to Talise, and we make a decision: we dive into our food and start shoveling stuff down, unsure how much longer there's going to be food left on the table.

"Look, Kyla, I really like—" Aiden tries to placate her.

"Bullshit!"

"Language, Kyla!" Christine reprimands. Kyla ignores her. I reach for a roll.

"You're just trying to hurt me," she spits.

"Why the heck would I do that?" Aiden protests, "I have no reason to hurt you. I honestly—"

"Hey, quiet down," Joe interjects, attempting to end the conversation entirely.

"He's a jackass. He knows I like her, and he's going after her anyways," Kyla plows on. Joe turns a sulky bright purple.

"Enough!" he shouts, slamming his hand on the table. 'You two work this out for yourselves, in the meantime I'm out of here." He storms away, and I guess that's supposed to show us something, although I'm not sure what (but hey, more ribs for me).

Despite their father's dramatic exit, Kyla and Aiden are still going at it, and now Waldo is even tentatively adding to the clamor. Christine glares at the door Joe just left through before trying to referee the upcoming rugby match.

"Should we go?" Talise whispers.

"Yeah." Without further ado, we slink out of there. Well, more like walk loudly. No one can hear us either way.

"So, did you have Spencer in any of your classes?" Talise asks after a heavy silence. The silence is only between us. We've been lying on our respective beds, listening to the turmoil downstairs. Most of it gets lost in the voids of our house, but occasional words and a constant buzzing find their way up. By now it's obvious that my mother is furious at Joe for walking out at dinner, saying that it's his responsibility as a parent to see this through.

Talise mutters something when Joe bellows, "I just don't want to deal with this," and shrugs off any family responsibility as usual. The sound of people stomping up and down the stairs and enraged, shrill shrieks harmonize so nicely, don't they? It's the Dennison family at their best, and somehow I'm part of it.

"Spencer's in my lunch block, but that's it."

"That's too bad. Did you get to talk to her?" For a moment, Talise sounded almost exactly like Joe. "That's too bad" is something he says a lot. Usually, he's trying hard to sound nice and sympathetic, but it always sounds fake to me. With Talise, I can't tell whether it's real or not, so I just answer the question.

"She sat down next to me for a bit, but her brother and Madison came up to get her to sit with them." Talise says nothing. Uncertain about whether I want to keep talking about Spencer given our last conversation, I decide to rant about something we can at least agree on. Maybe it will convince Talise that she has it wrong. "She said her mother was a really nice person deep down of something like that. I mean, isn't that kind of deluded? Then Aiden, afterwards, was all perfect gentleman about it. He just lied to get Spencer to like him more. I don't get it. How can someone say their family is crazy but always make excuses for them?"

"Ashley, if you had gone back to the 1940's or maybe even now, I bet there is someone out there who would proclaim to the world that Hitler was a really nice guy deep down, and he would be telling the truth. Everyone is. It all depends on how you define "deep down". She looks over at me, and I realized that I've stupidly tapped into a Talise Dennison geyser of suppressed opinions and there's no stopping the onslaught now.

"That guy would be an idiot." I state as firmly as possible, wanting to end this conversation before things get into something like a debate on whether religion is morally wrong— with Talise arguing both sides of course.

"Not necessarily. People are complicated, and I don't think you can label them as good or bad. All the bad stuff someone does doesn't negate their good or vice versa. It's like convicting a serial killer if he's really lost his mind.

Pausing for breath, she seems to re-orients herself. "There's all this stuff out there about being true to yourself. Generally, they have this notion that your true self is perfect, kind and confident. But can everyone in the world actually be like that? Wouldn't all our true selves be almost exactly the same? What's the point of having a self if it's identical to everyone else's? I doubt that people have a single true self.

"Everyone wants to love someone unconditionally, but no one seems to understand what that means. If you really love someone unconditionally, you would forgive them for murdering your mother. That's what it means. Perhaps everyone is convinced that the person they love would never do that, but that doesn't make it impossible."

Oh god, she's using the "perhaps" 's now. I'll never get out of here.

"In Spencer's case right now, she wants to love her mother unconditionally. Of course she'd defend her. She'll make all sorts of excuses.

I'm ending this right now. "Congratulations, Descartes. You've explained the mystery of human existence… I think. Now, I'm going to take a shower, and you, hopefully, are going to check into the asylum. Sweet dreams."

Once I'm in the shower, I relax. Hot water therapy always works. Whooshing water blocks out any stray sounds from downstairs, and I wish I could spend eternity in a hot shower. Sometimes, it feels like the only place I have to reflect on anything.

Do you have a crush on Spencer Carlin?

What? No! She's just the only friend I've had in a long time.

You've never had a problem with Aiden dating before.

I've never known anyone Aiden dated before.

Why should you care at all?

It's weird, okay? It seems weird.

You seem kind of jeal—

I clamp down on my unruly thoughts and think about angry koalas for a moment. They sound like cats that are getting their claws slipped. I saw one on Animal Planet. Koalas are supposed to be cute little things from Australia, but they actually seem quite vicious. Kind of like swans. I wonder if Spencer knows. She probably does because I think she likes animals. After all, she was wearing that rabbit shirt, and didn't Kyla say something about a tortoise? Lonely James or something? What else does Spencer do? I wonder if she really wanted to talk to m—.

Turning off the knob, I hop out of the shower. So much for thinking time.

I don't know what happened there with the whole philosophical thing. Once I started writing, I couldn't stop.