- - - flashback chapter - - -

Complicated.

5:

Spencer pushed the door to her dorm room open and crossed the threshold with a large laundry basket in her arms. She carried the basket over to her side of the room, set it down on her twin-sized bed, and began folding.

Denise, her roommate, was working on her laptop at the other side of the room. The tapping sound the keys made under her fingers as she typed was driving Spencer crazy. Denise had a 15-page English paper due Monday that she had started Friday night and was spending the entire weekend to work on. The entire weekend, which meant Spencer heard that damn tapping all night long. She tried listening to the stereo, to drown out the sound, but Denise 'couldn't concentrate.' Her headphones had mysteriously disappeared weeks ago, so the only thing she could do was stick it out.

"Oh, your friend called again while you were out," Denise said, without looking away from the computer screen. Tap, tap, tap, tap. Fingers moved noisily on the keyboard.

"Did she leave a message?" Spencer asked, while searching through the basket for a match to the green sock she held in her hand.

"Only that she wanted you to call her, whenever you got a chance."

"Okay, thanks." She tossed the sock onto her bed, and, after grabbing her cell phone from the night stand, stepped out into the hallway. There were a few people chatting outside, so she decided to go into the bathroom for more privacy. It never accumulated a lot of people during the afternoon on the weekends. On her phone, she went to the first name in her list and hit 'send'. After three rings, Ashley's husky voice was in her ear.

"Hey."

"Hey you," she smiled, leaning back against the bathroom's cool tiled wall. "I got your message."

"I figured."

The blond frowned, hearing a hint of annoyance in her girlfriend's voice. "What's wrong?" she asked, her eyes went to the row of sinks in front of her.

"Nothing."
"That was believable," she said, sarcastically. "C'mon, tell me what's going on." Pause. "Ash?"

"It just... it sucks. I never hear from you. I'm always the one calling you. And every time I do, I have to leave a message, either with your roommate or on your voicemail, and I'm getting a little tired of not being able to get a hold of you when I want to." Ashley let out a long sigh. "I know I sound like a whiney bitch right now, but--"

"Ashl--" she tried to interrupt, to apologize.

"No Spence, let me finish, okay? Please?"

"Okay," Spencer whispered.

"It's hard," Ashley started with a tinge of hesitancy. "It's hard being here, without you. I miss you so much, and I drive myself crazy wondering if you're there, missing me too."

"You know I am!" Spencer exclaimed, not believing what she was hearing. "God, Ashley, you're on my mind constantly."

"Really? Ever thought about calling and telling me that? I'm not asking for a fucking two-hour conversation here, just a short two-minute one, to say hi. Is that too much to ask for?"

"Look, I'm sorry. I'm doing the best I can here."

There was another pause, longer than the previous one, but the blond stayed quiet this time, waiting for her girlfriend to say something. Finally, it came. Those three words she never wanted to hear: "This isn't working."

The words were whispered into the phone, barely audible, but Spencer had the cell pressed close enough against her ear to hear what was said. Her throat tightened, and she knew that when she spoke again, her voice would crack. "What are you saying?" she asked, closing her eyes.

"I don't know..."

Spencer slid down the wall into a sitting position on the floor. Her eyes fluttered open and fell to the off-white flooring. She found a long, ugly crack in one of the tiles and focused on it. "Are you breaking up with me?"

"I love you. I do. But I just cant..." She heard sniffling. Ashley was crying. "I need you so much sometimes, you know? I need you, and you're not here. You're all the way on the other side of the fucking country!"

Spencer's elbows were on her knees. One hand gripped the phone. The other was tangled in her long, golden hair. She tried swallowing down the lump in her throat before saying, "It's called a long-distance relationship, Ashley. Look it up." Her words were a bit harsh sounding but she didn't care.

"I, I didn't think it would be this hard. I'm sorry, Spence. I wish I could--"

"No, no." Spencer's head popped up and fell back against the wall. "I've heard what you have to say, it's my turn." She took a deep breath, a shaky one, and then words started spilling out of her mouth. "I know what this is, okay? You're always doing it. Pushing people away when things get rough. Well you never could push me away, Ashley, and you're not going to this time either. We've been together for over two years. Are you telling me you want to throw those years -- throw our relationship away, because you can't deal with the distance? If you really loved me, you'd want to work this out. Not run."

"I've tried to work this out, and I'm not running! I just don't know where else this is going. I mean, for the last three months it hasn't gone anywhere! We barely communicate. Is that how it's going to be for the next three years? Oh wait, I forgot, there's med school after that, so--"

Frustrated, Spencer cut her girlfriend off again, "I admit that the last three months we haven't been able to talk much because I've been busy. I know our relationship has suffered. But I can't help that, Ashley. I have a lot on my plate right now. I'm fucking pre-med! Whenever I'm not in class, I'm studying or doing homework. And when I'm not doing that, I'm at the clinic, volunteering. I have a life here that needs my full attention. I'm sorry, you're just not my top priority right now."

"Maybe that's what this is about. I want to be your top priority."

"God," Spencer released a short, guttural laugh, "how selfish can you be?"

"I'm sorry. You're right, that was selfish. Wanting my girlfriend, who lives three thousand miles away, to make time for me is a very selfish thing. I don't know why I said that..."

Where the hell was this conversation going? Were they breaking up? Or was it just a fight? Spencer's head was spinning. "What do you want?"

"I want you."

"You have me, Ashley."

"No, I don't. I haven't since the moment you got on that plane three months ago. We don't have a relationship. The only source of communication we've had are these sporadic phone calls and emails. We've become fucking pen pals."

Spencer couldn't take much more of this. "Dammit, Ashley!" she growled, head boiling, eyes stinging with tears. "Do it, okay? Say it's over. If that's what you want, fucking get it over with already!"
"Spencer..."

With her eyes squeezed shut, she whispered through clenched teeth, "Say it."

"It's over." There was no pause, no hesitation, no doubts, no retraction.

The tightening in Spencer's chest worsened. Unshed tears began trickling down her cheeks. Her throat felt dry and closed up. She licked her lips. "We're over."

"We're over," the girl on the other end echoed in her ear.

Spencer's hands dropped to her lap. It didn't take much effort to snap the flip-phone closed. After she did, she let it fall to the floor. It skidded a few feet away. She wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her forehead on her knees. That's when the tightening loosened, ripped through her chest, bubbled up into her throat, and escaped out of her mouth as a loud sob.

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