AN: I took this story down about six months ago because I didn't feel like updating it. But now, I'm writing more, so I figured I'd try to post it again. Hope you guys like it.

Chapter Two

Spencer and I were sitting in her living room the Friday night after we exchanged numbers. She was biting the tough skin around her thumb as one of the scarier scenes in the movie we were watching flashed before our eyes. Neither of us had said a word since the movie started, but she wanted to. Every so often, she'd pull her thumb away from her mouth and open it to say something, look my way, but she didn't break the silence. The television was the only light in the room until Spencer's phone started vibrating and flashing on the coffee table. She hit the "Ignore" button and cleared her throat.

"I hate this movie," she said without taking her eyes off the screen.

I nodded once to agree and smiled as she took the remote and turned the DVD off. "Let's just talk."

So we talked.

"I've always wanted one of those friends who I can spend all of my time with," she said suddenly. "I mean, it's not like I haven't had friends all of my life, because I have. That's not the problem. The problem is that they're friends who want to talk about shallow stuff all the time. Like make-up and clothes and what they're doing over the weekend. A while back, I tried hanging out with guys, but all they seemed to know about was girls and sex and sports. I know that's stereotyping and I know it's wrong to do that, but I haven't been able to find anyone different than that."

"Yeah." Okay, Ashley, I said to myself. This girl just poured her heart out to you, and all you say is Yeah? Try again. "I know what you mean. I've always felt like nobody wants to talk about real stuff. It's always about joking around or gossiping."

"Exactly. Nobody our age ever seems to think anymore."

"It's too much work," I said with a smile.

"Apparently so." Spencer paused and stared at me, bit her lip for a second. She sighed, took in a deep breath, held it in for a moment, and sighed one more time. "Tell me something about yourself."

"Something about...myself?"

"Yeah, tell me something that you don't say every day. Something you think about but keep to yourself."

God, what could I tell her? There was so much I was keeping inside, so much I had never trusted anyone with. So without even asking myself for permission, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "My parents..."

"Yeah?" Spencer asked. "What about them?"

"They're not my real parents," I began, but I wasn't sure where to go next.

"So you're adopted? That's cool."

"Not really. I mean, I'm not really adopted. My parents are really my grandparents. My dad's parents."

There she went, biting her lip again. "So where are your real parents then?"

"My dad is dead now, but before that, he was a musician. My mom got divorced and remarried by the time I was a year old." I was speaking less loudly now, and Spencer was scooting closer to hear me.

"What happened?"

I squirmed in my seat a bit and hugged my knees to my chest. I let my chin rest on my knees and looked away from Spencer' eyes as I spoke. "My mom cheated on my dad from the day they got married until they finally got divorced, seven years later. He knew about it the whole time, but he loved her so he kept her around. When she had me and was still seeing that guy, he got rid of her. Sent her off with her lover, told her if she wanted less than a real husband then she didn't deserve one. When I was a few months old, he realized he couldn't take care of me and Kyla on his own, so he left us with our grandparents. He was going to spend a few months on tour to make some money and then come back to get us after he had some cash saved up. But he fell in love with the atmosphere on the road; plus, my grandparents wouldn't have been able to give us up even if he wanted them to."

"Wow."

"Yeah." I could've stopped talking then, but for some reason I didn't. "It's kind of funny, because Kyla is old enough to remember our real parents, so calls our grandparents Granddad and Gram. But they're the only parents I've ever known, so I call them Mom and Dad."

"Ashley."

Why did my name sound so different coming from her?

"Ashley," she said again, a little louder this time. "I don't mean to sound like my therapist, but...well...how do you feel about that?"

I shrugged apathetically. "How am I supposed to feel about it?"

"Well," she began, and I could tell she had something worth saying. "I would feel loved."

"Oh yeah? Why?"

"Because you know that your grandparents loved you enough to keep you around. They love you enough to consider you their daughter. And before your dad got distracted by his life as a musician--," pause, smile, "he cared enough for you to leave you with good people like your grandparents."

I eyed her suspiciously. "How do you know so much about this?"

"Well, I was adopted. My brothers and I were."

"Really? I never knew that."

"You never asked."

That was Spencer's philosophy: if you don't set out to find an answer, you'll never learn the truth.

-

Spencer and I rode bicycles a lot. Or, well, we rode one bicycle. I pedaled and she rode on pegs. She said she liked to feel the wind in her face.

Once, we were riding and this guy, Aiden, was sitting on the curb in front of his apartment. We passed by him and Spencer told me not to stare at him. If we stared, he'd cause trouble, she said.

"You don't want Aiden to cause trouble," she whispered into my ear. I didn't question her, but I couldn't help but glance Aiden's way for a little more than a second. He picked up a rock that had sat at his feet and bounced it at us. It hit the back tire, almost hit Spencer's foot, but missed it. I pedaled off faster and made a mental note to ask Spencer about Aiden later on.

"I told you not to look at him," Spencer scolded as we turned the corner and away from Aiden.

"You told me not to stare. I didn't stare," I corrected bitterly. "I barely even glanced."

We reached our stopping point, the city park, so I slowed to a stop. Spencer climbed off the bicycle and hung her helmet on the handbar next to mine. "The point is that you looked at him. And since you were with me, it was basically like I looked at him. You should know by now that I'm not allowed to look at Aiden."

"You're not allowed, huh?" I chuckled at the seemingly mock-seriousness in her tone. Obviously she was joking, right? "That sounds like a bit of a stretch."

She pursed her lips and started walking away, towards her favorite set of swings. It was the more rusted, more dilapidated of the two swing sets, which meant nobody but she and I ever wanted to play on it. "It's not a stretch, Donovan," she said when she was sure I was behind her.

"Then what is it?"

"Aiden and I go back."

"How far back?"

"Farther than I like to remember."

That was probably the moment I set out to find the answer. I was going to learn the truth.

-

Maybe I shouldn't be telling you this, because I wasn't there. I didn't see it firsthand. But Spencer told me about it and I trust her, even now that she's dead. So I'll tell you, but don't let it change things. Don't let it make you love her any less than you already do. I know you do.

There was a party down the road from Spencer's house one night. It was a few weeks after we had started hanging out more, and though she had invited me and begged me to go several times, I thoughtlessly declined the invitation. I now know that I should have gone. I should have been there with her, because if I had been there, she wouldn't have made a fool of herself the way she did. I would have stopped her.

She drank more than she should have. She shouldn't have drank at all, but I made her promise before she went to the party that she wouldn't drink more than she could handle. It was one of the first promises to me she ever broke, and I'm not sure I've forgiven her for it. But like I've tried to convince myself and you from the beginning: this is Spencer's story, not mine. It would be so much easier to tell mine.

Anyway, she drank more than she should have, and she ended up swallowing twelve Ibuprofen. She called me and had me and Kyla pick her up to take her to the hospital, but she didn't tell us what was wrong. She just kept saying, over and over again, that she drank too much.

"Yeah, Spence, I kind of got that," I said more than once. I felt irritated and betrayed, but that didn't stop me from holding her hair as she threw up in the backseat of Kyla's car. It definitely didn't stop me from praying to the God that I hoped existed that she really had just drank too much, and it was nothing more than that. It was more than that.

That night should have been a sign to all of us, but it really just clued me in on the fact that even though she seemed perfect, she wasn't. And maybe, since my way of telling stories isn't the greatest, you've known all along that she wasn't perfect. I hope that's the way it is, because that will cause you a little less heartache by the end of it all.