Title: Damaged
Summary: Everyone is damaged, she explained, but not everyone is broken. Ashley never thought that going back to Baltimore with Kyla would bring her face-to-face with the one person who made her feel like she wasn't broken.
Disclaimer: I don't own SoN. What I do own is a computer and the amazing ability to not do what I am supposed to with my time.
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"You think you could give us a minute, Ashley," Spencer's voice was tight and her face blank.
The brunette in question resisted the urge to reach out for the other girl's hand, to try and bring some spark back into her posture, but settled for a nod. She stood and carefully avoided Juliet's glare. She used Spencer's shoulder as a crutch for the last step and let her fingertips slide along the bare skin through, not enough to mean anything but enough to offer comfort. "I'm going to find Aiden and Kyla, just let me know when you're ready."
Juliet waited until she heard the front door click before rounding on the blonde. "What the hell was that?" her voice was a low hiss as she gestured backwards in the direction Ashley had disappeared in.
"No," Spencer shook her head, "No, you don't get to be jealous and indignant after what just happened inside." She set the cup down in order prevent herself from crushing it and stood.
Juliet shifted her feet, "After what just happened?"
"Don't play stupid, Juliet, you were never very good at it," the blonde bit off caustically. The other girl crossed her arms defensively and avoided her girlfriend's hurt eyes, "How could you do that to me?"
"People talk, Spence, it's just the way rumors get around. You heard Scottie, no one cares about that stuff," she replied rapidly and took a step forward, reaching out a hand that Spencer dodged around.
"I care, Juliet, that's my business, my business, not Scott's or Val's or Angela fucking Marco's, mine. And rumors? Really, that's what you're going to go with? That," she gestured vaguely towards the house, "That wasn't about a rumor. She knew where I was, Jules. Three people knew because I told them, and Kyla and Eileen sure as fuck didn't tell her!" She took a breath to force air into her body and calm herself down, her hands were curled into angry fists at her sides and her whole body shook at her attempts to control herself. "So, no, people don't talk, not about that, you talk."
Juliet flinched away from her voice, "What do you want me to say?"
Spencer doesn't know if she can actually believe what she's hearing. "I just want you to tell me why, Jules. Why after all that girl puts you through you constantly go crawling back to her like a supplicant. She tore you down for years," she reminded the other girl like she needed to hear it out loud, "She made you hate everything about yourself and put you on the path for an eating disorder so that when I found you, you were so broken and sick that you couldn't even look in a mirror." Juliet pressed a fist to her mouth to stop a sob as tears began to stream from behind closed lids. But Spencer wasn't done, she was sick of not talking about it, of hiding behind the thought that if it wasn't out there, no one would notice it. "I found you, Jules, I pulled you out of that, I was there for you when no one else was. I stood by you at the risk of my grandparents and my best friend, and I-I trusted you," she broke off painfully. Juliet had curled her shoulders inward and Spencer wondered if she had taken it too far, she ran her fingers tiredly through her light locks, "I just want to know why you would take the first opportunity you were given to betray me like that."
Strands of black hair fell as she dropped her head and shook it.
"No?" Spencer interpreted. "No, you can't? Or, no, you won't?"
Juliet's body shuddered heavily as the tears fell harder. Immediately Spencer felt the pull to comfort her. It was the same pull that had drawn her to the other girl for the first time in sophomore year when she'd found her crying and alone, huddled in the corner of the girl's bathroom at school.
Maybe Kyla was right, maybe she was drawn to tragedy. And all this giving, giving to Juliet and Val and Marissa, no matter how much she cared about them, wasn't healthy if all it was, was giving herself away until there was nothing left. Juliet was crying in front of her and it made her feel worse than terrible because she had caused those tears, but above that feeling, above even the feeling of anger at the girl's betrayal was tiredness. Bone-deep and unsettling tiredness.
"I can't do this anymore, Juliet," she breathed out, all that negative energy dissipating in the words left hanging there.
Wide green eyes, shiny with tears, suddenly shot upwards, "Are- are you breaking up with me?"
"I think I have to," she flexed the muscles of her forearms, thin white lines jumping out at her and with terrible clarity she can remember exactly the last time she cut because those moments are earmarked with self-loathing that only occur to her when she doesn't feel good enough, and no one did that better than Juliet. Angela was crueler, by far, but Angela was not within her defenses the way that Juliet was, so her words never cut as deeply as Juliet's subtle, almost unconscious, reminders.
"Is this because of Kyla, or-or that girl, that- her sister, because I can try harder, I can be," she stops because Spencer is chuckling morbidly and shaking her head. And Spencer is laughing because Juliet obviously doesn't get it. It's not about other people, about the snide remarks Juliet makes about Kyla, or her general distrust of any girl that says more than three words to Spencer. It isn't even about the constant battle it was to be around her and her friends or the fact that it was all mind games and fake smile or their constant need to drag people down or how it was hard to just be okay around them. It was about Spencer and how she doesn't think she's going to survive for much longer if things continue like this, all this giving with no one there to hold her together when all the damaged little pieces don't fit back together the way they're supposed to. Kind of exactly like Kyla predicted.
She knows Juliet knows about the scars on her thighs and the ones on her wrists, but she wonders if the girl knows about the ones on heart. She knows about the camp and Jamison Kelley and Spencer's bouts of depression because she's been told about them by Spencer herself, but did she ever put it all together? Did she even try?
She drops her shoulders from the weight of it all and sighs, "It's not about Kyla, or Ashley, or anybody but you and me. I'm sorry, Juliet," she pinched the bridge of her nose as a reason to not look at her, "It's just not working anymore."
"Spence?" Kyla peaked around the corner of the house, "We're going to take off. Are you," she glanced over at Juliet's shaking form, "You, uh, coming with?"
"Sure," she cleared her throat, "Just give me another minute."
Kyla looked like she wanted to say more, but Aiden put his hands on her shoulders and set her into motion down the front porch stairs, "Take your time, we'll be at the car whenever you're ready." Ashley followed them offering a small, supportive smile on her way.
"So that's it? We're over," Juliet asked when the three were out of hearing range. Her infliction was odd, though, so Spencer couldn't tell if it was a question or a statement.
She shrugged, "Yeah, I guess so." She stepped around Juliet and was at the bottom of the steps before she paused and turned back. "Look, if you ever need to talk, or whatever," she slipped her hands into her front pockets to stop fidgeting, "I'll be there. This doesn't mean I'm going to stop wanting you to be okay, okay?"
"Sure," Juliet smiled stiffly and Spencer wondered if she meant it. The blonde nodded once and turned back down the path. "Spencer?" she stopped and turned back once more at the sound of her now ex-girlfriend's voice, "What am I supposed to tell everyone?"
She clenched her jaw, inexplicably weary at the question. "Whatever you want to," she took two backwards steps so that she could catch green eyes once more, "That's your show, not mine." Not anymore.
She made it to Kyla's Jeep without anymore interruptions and got into the backseat. Aiden was behind the wheel with Ashley in the seat next to him and Kyla waiting for her in the back. There were any number of things that her best friend could say, things she had the right to say because she'd pretty much been calling this outcome from the second after Spencer had told her she's asked Juliet out. Prepared for any of it, Spencer jumped into the car and shut the door behind her.
Kyla grabbed one of her hands and folded it between both if hers, "You okay, munchkin?"
"Why do you people insist on making me sound shorter than I really am?" she rolled her eyes, "And no, not really."
"Do you want to go home?"
Spencer knew that if she said yes that they'd would all go without complaint, but she didn't want to be the downer on their last night in Baltimore any more than she already was. She shook her head and squeezed her hand, "No."
"Coffee?" Ashley suggested from the front seat, "And then we can figure out the next step?"
"That sounds perfect." She threaded her fingers through Kyla's and smiled at Ashley, small but genuinely.
!
Spencer directed Aiden to the same Starbucks that her and Ashley had been at earlier that morning. They approached the door with Kyla tucked under one of Spencer's arms with subdued looks on their faces and Aiden and Ashley bringing up the rear. There were two people waiting on orders to the side and three people behind the counter. The one at the register, a man with mocha skin and a blinding smile greeted Spencer with a laugh, "Hey there, hot stuff."
He and the blonde wiggled the tips of their fingers together, "Hey-a, Micah, how's the night?"
"Dark," he grinned and started ringing in the order. "Anything for you, Kyla? Guests?" he directed passed them at Aiden and Ashley.
They all put their orders in and while Spencer pulled out her wallet Aiden all but slams his open palm down in the back of her hand, "Oh hell no, seriously, if one more person pays for me today I'm going to have my man card revoked." He hands Micah his debit card without pause.
The blonde opens her mouth to respond, he can see the smirk building, but Kyla pinches the back of her arm and thanks him for the both of them. Micah handed the card back with a smile, finishes writing the last order on a venti cup and hands it off to a tall red-headed girl with several bits of metal in her face.
"Thought you were at an in-crowd party tonight, shortie," the girl winks, working the machines with a practiced ease.
"Officially on the outs with that particular crowd, Al."
"That mean what I think it means?" she asked, handing a finished drink to the other girl behind the counter. Spencer shrugged but it's Kyla inability to school her features that gives her the answer. "Damn, girl, sorry to hear that."
"But," Micah interjected quickly, "If that means y'all are looking for something to do tonight, me and Al are going bowling with Michelle, Dave and the rest after shift."
Spencer is shaking her head and laughing as Al hands her a cup over the counter, "I don't think so, man." She turns right into Kyla's puppy-dog expression complete with overly wide eyes and jutting lower lip and frowns, "Aw, come on that was, like, zero warning."
Behind her Aiden is grinning somewhat evilly, "Dude, yeah, that would be awesome. I haven't been bowling in forever and I can totally kick your ass twice in the same day."
Spencer looks to Ashley like she might find an ally there, because come on there's no way the hardcore LA party girl is going to agree to this. Except that she's smiling in a not very sympathetic way and shrugging, "We were looking for something to do, Spence."
"You guys suck," she pouts as Micah and the red-head high five behind the counter.
!
Her reasons for not wanting to go, and Micah and Al's obvious excitement in her agreeing to it, become obvious within the first three frames when she only manages to knock down one pin. She endures everyone's teasing in a manner that Ashley can only assume is unique to Spencer in its good nature. Besides her pout is kind of adorable to the Californian.
There were twelve of them all together, Kyla and her guests being the only ones there that didn't work at the coffee place and every one was excited to see Spencer there. They are all insanely welcoming to the interlopers and even though none of them seem to have anything outside of work in common they were all laughing together and enjoying themselves immensely and their infectiously good attitude bled wholly into Ashley, who as Spencer had thought less than an hour before, would never usually agree to this.
"Why wasn't this the plan from the beginning?" the brunette falls into the plastic seat next the Spencer after her turn (a respectable 7, thank you very much).
"These are my friends," Spencer shrugged and raised her palms absentmindedly, "Scott and them are Kyla's and Juliet's. I would have preferred this, but I didn't make the plans." Surprisingly there is no bitterness or negativity in her tone, just the quiet acceptance of fact even at the mention of her freshly made ex.
David rolls a strike and performs one of the most flawless moonwalks Ashley's ever seen, much to the amusement of his co-workers and Spencer's bright flowing laughter cements it. She likes the blonde's friends way more than she likes Kyla's.
Even if Michelle does stumbles over every word she speaks to Spencer and blushes whenever the blonde replies. Because, pushing down that irrational inkling of jealousy, even Ashley has to admit, it's kind of cute.
!
They bowl three games, which with twelve people takes a while even on two lanes. The fact that the alley is kind of huge, open twenty-fours and the group is apparently a regular fixture there means that they don't get kicked out afterwards so they sit there 'til almost two in the morning sitting around three tables and laughing at stories from the shop.
At half past they make it back to the Woods household where Kyla disappears to take a shower and Aiden wonders off to check out score on Sports Center. Ashley and Spencer are left in the hallway by themselves when the blonde looks at the other girl thoughtfully, "Are you tired at all?"
"Not really," Ashley shrugged, still a little hyped from bowling.
The blonde slipped her hands in her front pockets and stiffened her arms in what Ashley was beginning to realize as an almost nervous gesture. She titled her head in the general direction of the front door and glanced down, "Feel like going for a walk?"
"Sure," she grinned as the other girl's apparent shyness, "Just let me go grab my hoodie."
She was back in less than three minutes wrapped safely in the soft blue material of her comfort hoodie as Spencer pulled on a black, cotton track jacket with a white number 17 on the back and CARLIN printed between the shoulder blades. The athlete tries to hide a semi-startled smile when she catches sight of Ashley, but her efforts are for naught. "What?" she looked down at herself, "Is something wrong?"
Her lips part almost unconsciously as if to answer before she closed her mouth and shakes her head. "Of course not," there's a gesture towards the door, "Ready?"
They walk side by side for a few minutes with Spencer throwing glances at the brunette every thirty seconds or so (Ashley knows this because she times it). When they reach the end of the block in mostly comfortable silence Ashley threads her arm though the space created by Spencer's hand in her own pocket and leans slightly into the other girl, "Have something on your mind?"
She looks startled for a moment before she able to mask it with a soft smile, "I have several things on it at the moment, actually."
Ashley squeezed the hand she has resting on the other girl's bicep lightly, "Anything I can help with?"
The blonde shrugs as a jerk reaction, "Well, I." She stops and starts again, "I mean, I did want to, I don't know, apologize, I guess." A confused look prompts another small smile, "For all the drama. I know it couldn't have been much fun getting caught up in my shit, and I just feel bad because this was supposed to be a fun weekend for you guys and I feel like I may have ruined it a bit or, you know, a lot."
She struggles with something to say because Ashley isn't really used to people taking responsibility for themselves or the way their actions effect other people. "It's alright," she winks to lighten Spencer's apparent guilt, "For real, the drama reminds me of LA, makes me less homesick."
But she doesn't look fully convinced, "You sure?"
Ashley grins playfully, "Remind me to tell you about Madison Duarte sometime."
"Fiery Latina cheerleader with an immense ego who may or may not hate you with every fiber of her being?" the blonde asks, chuckling at her partly dropped jaw, "Kyla's mentioned her once or twice."
They reach the end of the block and make a right hand turn in another round of silence that is broken when Ashley shakes Spencer's arm once, "Tell me something about yourself."
Blonde eyebrows raise in response, "Like what?"
"Um," Ashley chews on the inside of her cheek for a second. "How about, favorite color?"
With a smirk Spencer reaches up with the arm that isn't in the brunette's grasp and tugs gently at the dyed strip of hair, "Red. You?"
"Blue," she gives the blonde a nose-crinkling grin. "Your turn."
The conversation continued along that vein until Spencer couldn't think of any other general questions, so she went for just a little personal. "First girl you ever kissed, and don't feel obligated to answer. And before you ask, mine was Lauren Markecki, behind the bleachers at a football game in eighth grade. To this day I'm pretty sure Kyla's the only other person who knows."
Ashley smirks at the thought of a little thirteen year old Spencer putting the moves on another girl and shrugs good naturedly at her own answer. "Summer after freshman year on vacation. I didn't know her name and had never met her before. She," the brunette pauses, trying to find a way to answer without giving something she wasn't ready to. She looks at Spencer looking at her, concern and something else shimmering in the bright reflection of streetlights in her eyes and realizes how effortlessly comfortable she feels. She realizes that she doesn't want to worry about giving anything away. "She was real, you know?" she finishes finally, "She was real, and solid, and perfect exactly when I needed it." That something was back more strongly in her blue eyes and a light blush was barely visible in the darkness, but rather than be confused Ashley squeezed the arm she was kind of wrapped around and went on. "How old were you when you got your tats?"
They were on their third circuit around the house with Kyla's place just in sight down the street when Ashley built up the courage to throw caution to the wind. The tension that had been present in her blonde companion's shoulders ever since that fist encounter with Juliet that morning was still set between her blades and Ashley has the thought that there are things that she wants to talk about, things she needs to talk about. But these are the kinds of things you have to talk about at a certain time, in a certain way, and with a certain audience. She's about to ask when the phone in Spencer's back pocket goes off, but it's not New Found Glory so Ashley ire at another interruption is only half-formed.
The blonde is apologetic when she pulls her arm from Ashley's in order to answer.
"Hello? Hey, R- uh, no, she's not with me," she frowns at whatever she hears. "We broke up 'Ris, that's what happened, then I left with Ky, Ashley and Aiden." She sighs at whatever is said back and reaches up to rub a hand across her forehead, "Well, she hasn't called me." There was a pause, "Have you tried either of her brothers?" A beat. "Yeah, let me know whenever you hear something." A deeper frown, "I don't think she will, but if she does I'll let you know. Okay, you too. Night." She slides the phone shut with a click and groans.
"What's up? Everything okay?" Ashley asks even if she's knows its not.
"I don't know," Spencer puts the phone back in her pocket, "Apparently Juliet didn't go back inside after our 'fight' and now no one can find her."
Even Ashley has to frown at that, "That was like five hours ago, are they just now noticing she's gone?"
"Most of them aren't all that observant if it doesn't involve them directly, besides I guess they thought she was with me," she threaded her fingers together behind her own head. "I hate when she does stuff like this. Christ, Ash," she turns even more contrite eyes on her, "I'm sorry, I was really enjoying this," she gestured between the two of them and sighed. "This whole day has just been so up and down, is it too much to ask for this night to end on a good note?"
Ashley knew from here they would go inside, head to bed and the day would officially be over and no matter how much fun the blonde had in the last five hours, or the brunette had in the last hour, it was indeed ending with a black mark. But this was Spencer's day as much as it had been Ashley's mini-vacation, so, no, she didn't think it was too much to ask for.
Without thinking about it too much she reached forward to wrap her fingers around the lapels of Spencer's jacket and pressed their lips together.
Yay! Right? :p