So, I'm back with an update and it's pretty long. I want to thank all of you reading and especially those of you leaving me reviews, it really spurs my writing. I'm glad that you all enjoyed the first chapter, and I hope you continue to enjoy the chapters to come.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. The characters belong to Tommy Lynch.

Enjoy!

I Miss You

I sigh heavily as I take a seat at the bar, the beer in the bottle held in my hands empty within minutes of ordering it. I wait for the bartender to remove himself from the redhead at the end of the bar to offer me up another liquid escape. I don't rush him, I revel in this feeling of aloneness that I never feel under Kelly's suffocating presence. I wait as he takes his time in walking over my way, I take my time in asking him for another helping. As he turns around grabbing hold of my request and sliding it on the bar in front of me, I take the opportunity to breathe. I breathe in so deeply I wonder when last it was that my lungs felt so free to move, so able to regulate themselves without me having to tell them to do so. Then I remember, this morning. Once she was gone, taking her constrictive nature with her, they expanded and retracted as if they were meant to. I grab the bottle from the bar's counter top and lift myself from the barstool. I take one last deep breath, hoping it will last me until I make another escape. I look at the table awaiting me as I make my way from the bar. I try not to let the frown so ready to take over my face show as my eyes land on Kelly. I try to focus my attention on the two other occupants at that table. I try to focus on the reason for my being there. But, somehow Kyla and Glen can't hold my attention for long, because all too soon my attention, once again, falls on my dread. And I wonder why I invited her. I wonder why I'm even still with her when she makes me feel nothing but empty.

I hear a shriek come from behind me and I smile. I welcome it, because this shriek, this unbelievably welcome intrusion into my personal life means a delay in my arrival. It means it's that much longer before I have to face that table and the one person I can't be around yet can't remove from my life. So, I face the intrusion. I face the eager girl and her too skinny of a male companion. I face this rare occurrence of fan girl behavior in this city of overly present celebrities.

"Oh. My. God. You're Ashley Davies!"

I smile. I smile the most genuine smile I possess because she doesn't know how grateful I am for her intrusion. She doesn't get how thankful I feel.

"I love you. I-I just love you!" She's smiling wider than I've seen anyone smile lately and that makes me feel good, makes me feel special.

"Thank you," The words leave my lips and she's already fumbling in her purse for a camera. She's pulling out a little hot pink digital camera and shyly looking from me to it.

"Do…do you mind?" She asks pointing to the device in her hands. She asks it so unsurely that it causes me to smile.

"Sure," With another scream of excitement escaping her lips, she hands the camera to her friend and moves beside me, smiling wide and facing the camera. I smile too and with a flash, the picture is taken. A moment is savored and she is beyond overjoyed.

"Thank you. Thank you so much."

"No problem."

She disappears in the crowd and just like that my moment of distraction is over. And nothing is holding me from making my way to that table. I take a big gulp of my beer and start walking. I can see Kyla's eyes light up the closer I get, I see her smile widen. I know she's grateful for the distraction from the awkwardness she always feels when left alone with Kelly. I reach the table and take the seat that was formerly mine, the seat beside the girl I call a girlfriend, the girl whose breathing is starting to work my nerves.

"How does that not get old?" It's Glen who says this, he looks directly at me and for just a second I'm not sure what he's referring to.

"What?" I hold my breath. Surely he wouldn't, not here, not with the knowledge he holds, and the body so close to mine listening eagerly.

"The fans and the picture taking."

I breathe a sigh of relief, and although from the outside looking in it appears normal, it feels strained and uncomfortable. I feel like I'm just a few moments away from gasping for air but I know nothing could be further from the truth. "I don't know. I guess I never really got used to it."

And we're all silent again. We're all sitting in this awkwardness because there's nothing else to say. What else could we say to make this comfortable? To make the knowing eyes sitting across from me, staring at me, questioning the relationship I'm in, with the very girl beside me, less intense? So, instead, we do what we can. We allow the loudest silence to take over this table, take us over.

It's after ten minutes of this deafening quiet that Kelly leans over. Leans and whispers into my ear. "I'm gonna go to the bathroom." I nod. That's all I can do because there are no words I have for her. We all release a collective breath as we watch her walk away, easing into a sense of comfort.

Suddenly my heart rate picks up. I feel it drumming in my ears and can count as every beat is amplified. A rush of overwhelming heat takes over my body and briefly I wonder if the temperature was altered. But, the realization dawns on me. It hits me like a ton of bricks, because there's only one person that can completely overwhelm me in this way. Only one body that causes my senses to go into overdrive. As I lift my gaze and find myself looking into blue eyes that consume my every waking thought, the beautiful blonde hair I long to run my fingers through, and the lips I can always somehow feel against mine, my breath catches in my throat. It halts its travel to my suddenly starving lungs and holds there. She walks directly towards us, no hesitation in her step, just fluid motion, and I wonder if she knows the effect she still has on me.

"Hey guys, sorry I'm late." She smiles at the table as she pulls up a chair and takes a seat on Kyla's other side. She even manages to throw a genuine smile my way, which I can't quite return, because there are hands sliding across my shoulders and a body taking a seat beside me, and lips, lips that aren't the ones I want, pressing a kiss to my cheek.

She turns to face this intruder, this person that has infiltrated into this circle, because of me, and gives her a smile as well. A smile, yes, but not one that reaches her eyes, because behind that all too pleasant exterior is a hurt and betrayal personified. "Hey Kelly." It's said with such fake cheerfulness that I wonder how she can muster it when I, almost always, fail to do so. She perfects these pleasantries when her disdain for this poorly constructed attempt at a copy of her is so overtly obvious to me.

"Spencer." And there it is. There is that defensive, protective tone emanating from this girl that doesn't deserve to use it. Because, it's in these situations that her natural oblivious nature is non-existent. It is in the times that she sees me with Spencer, sees me look at her in a way she has never received that she knows how much of my heart Spencer holds, how much of me will always be with my dream girl, and could never be given to her.

Kyla clears her throat. She intervenes in this moment and I'm so grateful. "So, who wants another drink?" We all give her an obligatory nod and she waves down a waitress and orders up another round. "So, Spence, how's the gallery."

I smile as her eyes light up at my sister's thoughtfulness. I watch her lips as they form every word, giving her my whole, undivided attention. I don't care that I can feel Kelly burning holes into the side of my face with the intensity of her stare, because at this moment, nothing else matters, nothing can compete with the words coming from Spencer's mouth. "…so I'm putting a few pieces up too. I figured what the hell, you know?"

I don't say a word. I don't tell her how proud I am of her. I don't make a big production of this monumental step for her, because there's a hand, attached to a body that's holding me back. There's a firm squeeze to my knee that keeps me from speaking my thoughts. I know what she's doing, she's putting on this show, she's playing this role expertly to ensure that Spencer knows. She craves for Spencer to see that I no longer belong to her, but the truth is, I could never belong to someone else. I could never, touch, kiss, love someone in the same way that I do with Spencer. And, as she leans to whisper in my ear, asking for a dance, I follow her. I follower her, because maybe, just maybe I can no longer be in that place. I can't sit there, facing all that I want, all that I've ever wanted, and have myself attached to someone else, so I leave. I get up and follow that hand that's pulling me.

We get to the dance floor and are immediately squished between the masses of people. There's a song I don't bother trying to recognize blasting from the speakers. She positions herself in front of me and begins to move to the beat of the music, pulling me in closer and closer. She's finding herself lost in this movement, grinding against me and I am so far removed that I follow her gyrations rigidly. I'm, instead, staring at the girl sitting at the table Kelly stopped in clear view of. I'm watching her as she looks over at me. I watch her stare at me, taking in this position I am in and immediately recognizing the look in my eyes, knowing without question where I'd rather be and with whom, and for a moment, just a moment, I think I see the same reflected in her eyes, but maybe that was just my imagination. Kelly turns to face me, kisses my lips and I allow her to, allow her to take my lips in between her own and all I can do is watch the hurt look that flashes across Spencer's face before she gets up from the table and walks away.

Watching her go I get the urge to follow her. Because I have to explain. I have to make it right. I have to take away that little glimpse of hurt she allowed me to see. I pull away. I take back the lips that were never hers to claim in the first place. "I'm gonna go to the bathroom." Looking into her eyes, I know she doesn't believe me. I know she can see that I'm going after someone, someone her kiss drove away. But I don't have the time or care to explain myself. I just walk away before she even tries to challenge me.

I push the bathroom door open and find Spencer standing there, hands on either side of the sink, staring into the mirror at her reflection. She doesn't turn to look at me, she lessens the blow by looking through the mirror at me.

I attempt a smile but it's strained. "Hey."

She sighs and turns to face me crossing her arms over her chest, a feeble smile spreading across her face. "Hey."

And with that I breathe. I breathe so easily that it astounds me. "Look, I'm sorry about-"

She cuts me off with a raise of her hand. "You don't have to apologize for kissing your own girlfriend, Ash."

And it only takes the use of that nickname to make me want her more than I have for so long now. An abbreviation that has been uttered in our most intimate of interactions. Said between lingering kisses and traveling hands. "Then why do I feel like I should?" It's an unfair question. I know that, I know that there's no possible way that she can answer it but I ask anyway, because a part of me needs to know, a part of me begs for it.

"I don't know." She lowers her head, her eyes resting on the floor instead of me, her hair falling in front of her face, almost shielding it from me entirely and that causes me to take a step towards her, to move closer to her.

My hand comes up without permission. It invades her personal space, lifting her chin up bringing her eyes to meet mine and pushing the hair, that once covered her face, behind her ear. "Spence-"

"Don't." It comes out weak, fragile. It stops me from what I had intended to do. It stops my lips from meeting hers, completely halted the advance she knew was coming. Her eyes beg me not to go there, pleads for me to back away and allow her to breathe once again, but as I cup her face, my thumb grazing back and forth on her smooth skin, her eyes close. Her eyes close and she leans into my touch, and just like that I know that she wants me to, that she longs to have our lips connected in a way that they haven't been in way too long. So, I go for it. I pull her face towards mine, ready to embrace this feeling again, ready for it to be a thing of passion as it was once. And just as my lips are about to meet with her own, her phone rings. Her phone crashes into us, throwing us apart. Her blaringly loud phone interrupts our moment and I curse the universe. I damn its need to completely go against everything it knows I want.

I take a step back as she answers the phone, as she breathes the name I dread to hear, and I think she knows it because she averts her eyes, she looks anywhere but me. She knows how it breaks me to hear her address this other so affectionately. She knows all too well how much damage is done with just the mere mention of this girl, the girl that gets to have Spencer, my Spencer, and suddenly I remember why I invited Kelly, I remember why I'm still with her.

I look away from her. I can't see the smile that's taken her face. I can't let her see the tears beginning to fill my eyes because it'll hurt her too. It would break her and I don't want to do that. I don't want to hurt her more than I already have, because maybe she can't take anymore. But when the tears fall, she knows. She sees their descent and she knows their cause.

"Hey Stace, I'll call you back okay?" She stares at me as each word leaves her lips but I can't meet her eyes. I try to focus on anything else as my weakness becomes so evident in this space but I know there's no avoiding her. "Okay, bye."

She attempts a smile and takes a step towards my shaking form, the tears no longer holding back. I shake my head, letting her know that I don't want her to touch me right now, I can't have her touch me, it'll only break me further. "I just need a minute." So, she gives it to me. She sighs and walks out of that bathroom and into the mass of people at Ego, so that I can pull myself together.

I wipe away the tears that had taken over my face and look at myself in the mirror. I see those blank eyes again, only this time a little reddened and I have to look away. I'm already too close to a breakdown to face the woman reflected back at me head on.

After taking a deep breath, I walk out of the bathroom and push my way to the table. I get there and take my seat beside a fuming Kelly, but I don't care because Spencer's not looking at me, she's avoiding me at all costs and I sigh. I survey our table, taking note of the look on Glen's face as he looks at Kyla, bringing their intertwined hands to his lips, kissing them before lowering it, I wonder if things would be different if they had introduced us, if they were the cause of our meeting and our eventual relationship, and not the other way around, if we would be in their position now. Staring lovingly into each other's eyes and not hesitating in delivering affectionate touches every so often, rather than stealing torturous moments in a bathroom and attempting to avoid hurting the other. But, these are questions that can't be answered. These are mysteries that can never be solved because they didn't introduce us. Glen didn't introduce me to his sister, I introduced him to mine. And she didn't hurt him the way I hurt Spencer, she didn't cause the kind of pain that no one should ever experience to him, like I did to his sister. She didn't break him and he didn't break her, like we did.

I get up from the table because I have to leave, because this is too much. This is way more than I can ever take, so I remove myself from the situation. I get up, say my goodbyes and head for the exit with Kelly following behind me.

We make it to the car in silence and as we get in, and drive to my loft, I could never call it ours when this our is associated with someone who isn't Spencer, we still don't speak. It isn't until we come to the parking garage and she begins getting out of the car, while I continue to sit there, does she say something. "Aren't you coming in?"

I look down, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter. "I just need some time to think."

She doesn't argue, she doesn't show the possessiveness that always seems to present itself in front of Spencer. She simply nods and shuts the passenger side door.

I pull up to the beach house that is my salvation. I can hear the waves crashing against the sand and that, somehow, soothes me. I walk into this dark house, locking the door behind me. I don't bother turning on the lights, I know this place too well to need them. I navigate my way to the room I need to be in. The room that will provide the comfort that was removed the second Stacey called my Spencer, claiming my Spencer as her own. I take a seat at the piano there, lightly placing my fingers on the keys. I revel in how smooth they feel against my flesh and how at ease they put me. My fingers begin to press down upon them, playing a familiar song before I register they're doing it. It's a song I've come to know so well, a song that I wish I'd written, because it speaks so directly to me, takes my life and places it so perfectly between its words.

"As high as the moon
So high were my spirits
When you sang out my name
And coming from you
It was enough just to hear it
Oh, it rang like the bells did today
But even the sturdiest ground
Can shift and can tremble and let us fall down

Kindly unspoken
You show your emotion
The silence speaks louder than words
It's lucky I'm clever
If I didn't know better
I'd believe only that which I'd heard…"

I close my eyes as my mouth wraps around the words, sings them so perfectly that one would think, they were meant for me to sing.

"In the days of my folly
I followed your lead
I did what Simon said to do
But I won't let melancholy
Play me for a fool
Oh, no I'm on my way somewhere new
And as far as your lack of something to say
Well, to tell me goodbye there was no better way

Cause kindly unspoken
You show your emotion
The silence speaks louder than words
It's lucky I'm clever
If I didn't know better
I'd believe only that which I'd heard

Well, don't keep me up 'till the dawn, no
With words that'll keep leading me on, yeah well
I know much better than to wait for an answer from you

Kindly unspoken
You show your emotion
And silence speaks louder than words
It's lucky I'm clever
If I didn't know better
I'd believe only that which I'd heard…"

I feel someone take a seat beside me. I don't jump, I don't bother flinching. There's only one person that would know I was here, and as she rests her head on my shoulder, watching my fingers continue to move across the keys, she doesn't say a word, she doesn't need to. But I do. "I miss you, Spence." My eyes close on their own accord, they let the darkness of this room engulf me, sending me to speak the most honest truth I possess because I can't lie to her, I can't hide behind anything, not in our place, not at our beach house.

"I miss you too, Ash."

The song used is Kindly Unspoken by Kate Voegele.