Complicated.

12b:

Ashley played with the skinny green straw sticking out of the top of her cup, sloshing it around several times, then plunging it through the crazy amount of crushed ice their server gave her. She put the straw between her lips and sucked whatever liquid that would come up, which was barely considered a sip in her opinion. They'd only been at the restaurant for fifteen minutes, hadn't even gotten their food yet, and she'd already consumed an entire lemonade.

"So," Spencer said, clearing her throat, leaning her elbows against the high-top table they were seated at. She stared at the woman sitting across from her. They hadn't spoken much since they left the studio. Other than a few words here and there, it had been mostly silent between them. In the elevator ride down to the lobby and in the car ride to the restaurant -- silence. Weird, uncomfortable silence. "What did you think about the photo shoot?"

Ashley set her cup down on the table in front of her and leaned back in her chair. "Oh, um, I liked it. It was cool," she replied, smiling slightly. "I've never seen you so focused and in control."

"Yeah." Feeling the heat of a blush coming on, Spencer rested her chin in her upturned palm, pressing her cool fingers against her warming cheek. She absently picked at her silverware with the other hand. "I, I kind of go into this zone when I'm working. Everything around me fades away, and all of my attention is on the subject and how I can capture it through the lens of my camera."

"Subject?" With a smirk and a raised eyebrow, the dark, curly-haired woman asked, "You mean, hot, half-naked models?"

Spencer grinned. "I'm not always photographing hot, half-naked models. But, in this case, yes, that was my subject."

Right then, the waiter, Todd, according to the name tag on his shirt, walked up with their food. "BLT Club?" he asked, looking between the two women. Spencer held up her hand. He placed that order in front of her. "And the oriental chicken salad is for you," he said as he gave Ashley her food.

"Thank you." Before he could run off, Ashley held up her cup. "I need a refill. Lemonade, no ice."

"Sure." He looked over at Spencer. "Do you need a refill as well?"

"Oh, no. Net yet, thanks," she smiled.

Todd nodded, then scampered off, only to reappear a moment later with Ashley's drink.

The women began eating. For the first five minutes, nothing was said, then Ashley broke the silence, asking, "How's your family?"

"Everyone's doing good, for the most part." Spencer picked up one of the triangle halves of her BLT sandwich and bit off a corner. After swallowing, she continued, "My parents got divorced during my sophomore year, which no one was too shocked about, really. They'd been separated for two years before that. I was more surprised it took them that long to finalize it, you know?"

Ashley nodded. "Has either of them remarried?"

"No, not yet. My mom's had several men in her life since then. Nothing too serious, though. My dad, on the other hand -- it took him a bit longer to jump back into the dating pool. A whole year, to be exact. He's currently seeing this woman, Gail. She's really nice. They've been together for almost two months, I think. He's happy."

"That's good." Ashley's fork hovered above her plate before she spotted a piece of chicken she wanted. She speared the meat with her fork, added some lettuce, then stuffed it into her mouth. As she chewed, she watched the blond woman across the table, sipping slowly from her diet soda. Moist, pink lips wrapped around the end of the straw; neck muscles moving with each swallow. After realizing what she was doing, who she was staring at, Ashley started choking on the food in her mouth.

"Are you okay?" Spencer asked, with a soft, concern-filled look on her face.

After a few swallows of her lemonade, everything seemed to be fine. Ashley nodded, "Yeah, I'm good." She smiled, embarrassingly. "The food -- it went down wrong, that's all. Um, so," she cleared her throat, "what about Clay? How's he?"

"Oh, Clay's great. He's probably doing the best out of all of us," the photographer smiled, thankful that Ashley was interested in hearing about her family. The family was a safe topic. "He's still in school, working toward that law degree. And he recently got engaged to this girl he's been seeing for a couple years, named Rebekah. She's a great girl."

"And Glen?"

"Glen's life hasn't changed much. He's single, and working as an assistant coach for a middle school basketball team."

Ashley chuckled, "Ah, that boy. I knew he was going places."

Spencer grinned. "What about your mom? How's she?"

The smile disappeared from Ashley's face. She looked down at her plate. "Uh, my mom. I haven't spoken to her since I moved out. So, that would be... three years."

Frowning, Spencer softly said, "Ash... I'm sorry."

Ashley shrugged. "It's better this way, really. We never got along. All we did was argue."

"How about when your dad died? Did she contact you then?"

"No. We did all our communicating through lawyers."

Spencer's frown deepened. "I don't understand how a mother can do that, write her child out of her life."

"What makes you think it wasn't the other way around? That I wasn't the one to write her out of my life?"

"Oh. I, I don't know. I just assumed..."

Ashley smiled, "To be honest, it was kind of mutual. After I moved out, weeks went by and neither of us had bothered to contact the other. Before I realized it, weeks turned into months, months turned into years, and we were no longer apart of each other's lives." She took another bite of her salad. Chewed. Swallowed. "But, enough about my relationship with my mother, or lack there of. Let's talk about something else..."

Spencer accepted the request to change the subject. She started a new one off with, "Corey mentioned that you bartend on the week nights."

"Yeah, at the Radisson. Monday through Thursday. I like it. It's a lot tamer than the bar or club scene." The curly-haired woman smiled, "So, um, speaking of Corey, she's a really cool girl. I like her a lot."

Spencer nodded, smiling. "Yeah, she's amazing. She likes you a lot, too. Which is good. I was kind of worried about how that whole living situation would turn out. But it seems to be going well."

"Yeah, it's great. It's fun having her around." Ashley twirled her fork over in her hand, deep in thought. "The two of you -- you and Corey, I mean -- you guys fit, you know? You make sense." She smiled slightly. "More sense than you and I ever made."

With a furrowed brow, Spencer tilted her head to one side. "Well, I don't know about that. I think we made sense at the time."

"Well yeah, at the time, I thought we made a lot of sense too. But, now, looking back on it, I just think that maybe we were too different."

"We may have been different, but it worked. I think we balanced each other out. Our differences weren't a problem. They didn't come between us, they weren't what tore us apart..."

"Actually, they kind of did come between us and tear us apart." Ashley licked her lips, and laid her fork down on the side of her plate. She was going to do it. Finally. The truth had been gnawing at her for a couple of weeks now, ever since Spencer had come back into her life. She had to let it out. "Spence, the distance isn't why I broke up with you. I mean, it was hard being away from you, really hard, but that's not why I ended it. Not really."

Spencer was silent for a moment, trying to guess the real reason behind their breakup. Only one thing came to mind. "Was th--" Her throat tightened, preventing her from asking her question properly. She swallowed and dropped her gaze, focusing on the table's checkered tiled top. "Was there someone else?"

Ashley's eyes flicked toward the blond. "What? No!" She leaned forward, lowering her voice, "Fuck, Spencer, if I had cheated on you, I would've had enough balls to tell you. I wouldn't have kept something like that from you."

"Then, why?" Spencer asked, looking up at her ex-girlfriend, arms folded across her chest. "Why did you end it?"

"I, I guess... I guess I was scared." Ashley fell into a slouching position against the back of her chair, and rolled her eyes. She ran her palms over her face, over her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. "God, that sounds so stupid..."

"Scared of what?" the blond pressed, keeping her eyes locked on the other woman.

Dropping her hands to her lap, as well as her gaze, Ashley began to explain, in the best way she knew how, why she ended their two-year relationship more than four years ago. "Scared because I felt we were going in two different directions, you know? Like, we were growing apart. I was, I was here, in L.A., clueless about what I wanted for my future. And you were there, in New York, living out your dream of becoming a doctor." She licked her lips and lifted her gaze, eyeing Spencer for a brief moment, then looked back down at her hands, which were lying limply in her lap. "I just, I didn't see myself fitting into your life, into that dream world you were creating for yourself."

Spencer's eyes wandered to the window on her left. She watched the people passing by outside, on foot, in cars. Some in a hurry, some not. "Why didn't you tell me you were feeling this way?"

Ashley drew her head back up, returning her eyes to her lunch companion. "Because Spencer, I knew you'd try to talk me out of thinking like that. Or, worse, you'd move back here, give up on your dream, put it on hold, something. I couldn't have you do any of that. Not for me."

"So, instead of bringing your fears into it, you decided to take an easy way out by blaming my schedule, our lack of communication, and the distance for our breakup." Spencer nodded, smiling tightly, unable to stop her eyes from watering.

"I know that wasn't a good way to go about it, but I was--"

Spencer couldn't take any more of this; it was too much, too fast. Her heart couldn't take it. "You're right," she said, cutting Ashley off, while yanking her purse off the empty chair to her left, fumbling for her wallet. She fished out a ten-dollar bill and slapped it onto the table. "It wasn't." She hopped down from her chair and, without another word, made her way to the door.

"What the fuck?" Unsure, confused about what just happened, Ashley shook her head. She grabbed her own purse and added more cash to what Spencer had put down, then quickly left the table, hoping to catch up with the blond. Outside, she spotted her across the street, power walking on the sidewalk, heading in the direction of her work. As she dodged the light traffic in the street, she yelled for the blond to wait up. Getting behind her, on the sidewalk, she added, "I drove, remember?!"

"I'll walk!"

Ashley finally got close enough to touch the photographer; she grabbed her arm and turned her around. "It's six blocks, Spencer. Just let me take you back, okay?"

Facing Ashley with a squared jaw, pounding heart and blazing eyes, Spencer jerked her arm away and tucked it against her body. She brought up her other arm, and wrapped both around herself.

Roughly running a hand through her curls, Ashley sighed. "I don't understand why you're getting so upset over something that happened four years ago!"

"You don't get it!" Laughing, Spencer shook her head and glared at her ex. "Do you know who I blamed for our breakup? Me! Me!" She paused, calming down, quieting her voice, not wanting to draw other people into their business. "I spent years blaming myself, because I thought it was my fault for keeping us so far apart, for not having the time to talk to you as often as you needed me to, for not being there for you when you needed me..."

Ashley released a shaky breath of air. Feeling deflated and shitty for her actions, the decisions she made four years ago, she whispered, "I-I'm sorry, Spencer. I fucked everything up! I always do."

Spencer's features softened, but she didn't respond. She stood there, frozen, unmoving. Not sure what else to say.

Ashley moved to a bench and sat down, elbows on her knees. "You know this, this friendship thing you wanted us to try out? I really don't think it's going to work. It might be better if all I am to you is your girlfriend's roommate. Nothing more, nothing less. That's it. Let the past stay in the past." She stared at the cracked concrete under her feet. "We've both moved on. There's really no reason to be digging anything else back up if all it's going to do is bring us pain and cause us to fight."

"Wow," Spencer said, with a chuckle. "You're really good at that, huh? I guess I forgot..."

Head lifted, eyes narrowed, the brunette asked, "Really good at what?"

"Running, pushing people away."

"I'm not the one who's running away this time, Spencer."

"Whatever," the blond muttered. "You know what? Fine. If that's all you want, fine!"

Frustrated, she growled, "Goddamn it, that's not all I want! I just, I don't see how a friendship between us will work. There's too much history. It's too complicated."

Spencer lifted a hand to her forehead, rubbing it lightly, before lowering her hand, tucking hair behind her ear. "I can't do this right now; I have to get back to work."

Ashley popped up from the bench. "Let me drive you."

"I'd rather walk."

While moving forward, the brunette said, "Spence--"

Spencer stepped back, tightening her hold on her purse. "I want to be alone."

Finally, understanding, Ashley gave up, "Okay." She stared at Spencer's back as she walked away. After the blond turned a corner and was no longer in view, Ashley started on the short trek to the parking lot. When she got inside her car, she rested her forehead against the steering wheel. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

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