I'm back! And it didn't even take a long time. I knew there was a reason I liked the summer so much, free time. So, I hope you all enjoy reading this chapter b/c I really enjoyed writing it. I can't thank you all enough for your reviews, author alerts, story alerts, and especially just reading this thing. I'm glad you're enjoying it so far. Anyway, here ya go.

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

Enjoy!

You Have to Go There to Come Back

It broke us. That morning completely obliterated us, then again there is no us, so really, it only got me, it only ripped through me, tearing me to bits in the process, leaving only the shattered remains to be salvaged. But that was 10 days ago, 52 beers and 15 shots of Vodka ago, and more accurately 30 unanswered calls and 10 voicemail messages ago, and now, as I start on beer number 53, I'm too numbed to feel how broken I know I am.

"I thought I'd find you here," She says as she enters the room, stepping over my body, and making her way to the piano and taking a seat on the bench. "wallowing in self-pity."

I sit up from my spot on the floor and rest my back against the wall before taking another sip of my drink. Setting it down, I reach for my phone and proceed to scroll through my recent calls. "Hmm, well this is strange, according to my phone here, I didn't call and invite you over, so feel free to leave." Tossing my phone to the side, I down the rest of number 53 and grab number 54.

"You do realize how pathetic this is right?" She says gesturing at our surroundings, which include bottles upon bottles and music sheets.

"At least I'm sending out the right vibes."

She gets up off the bench and kneels in front of me. "Ash-"

"Whatever you have to say Kyla, I don't wanna hear it." My eyes are half closed and my head is lolling to the side as I gesture towards her with number 54. "I just wanna sit here and drink." I add a nod to emphasize my point while grabbing for number 55.

"Well that's too bad 'cause we're talking." She moves to sit beside me.

I don't turn to face her, I just stare at the piano in front of us. "No. I don't wanna talk about her, I don't wanna talk about us, I don't even wanna talk about me."

"Well, that's a first." She says as she starts to laugh.

I smile, it's strained but it's a smile. I bring number 56 to my lips, having long finished number 55, before I speak. "Misery will do that, I hear it's quite humbling actually." We're quiet for a long time before I turn to look at her. I can tell she wants to say something, so when she opens her mouth to speak, I cut her off. "I mean it Kyla, no Spencer talk."

"Fine." She rolls her eyes and they fall on the bottle in my hands before coming up to search my face. "So, I went by the loft yesterday…ran into Kelly."

"Yeah?"

She nods. "Mhmm…since when is she moving out?"

"Since she broke up with me."

"Sorry." Despite her words I see the small smile playing at her lips.

"No you're not."

"I'm not. Are you?"

I shake my head and my shoulders shrug slightly. "She deserves better." I look down at bottle number 57, my fingers tearing away at the label before looking up at her, tears already filling my eyes. "Spencer deserves better."

"I thought we weren't talking about Spencer." She says with a knowing smirk.

"She walked out Ky, she just walked out and left me standing there." I continue to pick at the label, listening to my voice crack as the words leave my lips. "She didn't even fight for us."

"What did you expect? She's still hurting Ash."

"I don't know. I guess, I expected to mean more to her."

She takes number 57 out of my hands and places it on the ground, then turns me slightly to face her. "You do, you know you do. But let's face it, you cheated on her and that's not something you just get over."

I turn my head away from her and look down at my hands. "I know."

"She loves you, she really does. She just needs you to prove that you're not that same Ashley, that you're not the same girl that could cheat on her without even a second thought."

"I tried."

She rolls her eyes. "How? By trying to kiss her in the bathroom at Ego, or trying to have sex with her at her parent's house after Sunday dinner, and lest we forget actually sleeping with her, all while she still thinks you have a girlfriend." She scoffs slightly. "While she still has a girlfriend, I'm sorry but you didn't really prove anything."

"Technically, Kelly and I broke up before I slept with her."

She laughs quietly and runs a hand through her hair. "That's not really the point. Look, when I encouraged you to get her back, I meant for you to prove you deserved to have her and not for you to just assume that you do."

"What if-"

"You will."

"You don't know that."

"Yes I do. You guys are meant to be, even if you're too stupid at times not to fuck it up, I know you'll find a way to get her back."

I sigh loudly and rest my head against the wall. "Yeah…if only she believed that."

"Well, if she doesn't, then prove it to her."

I turn my head to face her, my face pressing against the wall. "That's easier said than done."

"Yeah, I know." Silence takes us over again before she begins to speak, gesturing in front of us. "So this is what you've been doing these past few days, just sitting here drinking?"

"No. First I had to go buy the stuff and I get up every now and then to refill, plus you know the occasional shower." I point at my fingers as I speak each item, a drunken smile spreading across my face.

"Oh of course, I should've known." She says sarcastically.

"And…and I even wrote a song." I say excitedly, the effects of the drinks I've had starting to kick in.

"Did you now?"

I nod enthusiastically before getting up off the floor and stumbling towards the piano. "Uh huh, you wanna hear it?"

"Shoot." I can hear the amusement in her voice.

"Okay, I call this I suck. You ready?" I turn to see her nodding before turning back to the piano and placing my fingers on the keys. "Here it goes." I play a few notes before starting. "I suck, so bad. I'm a jerk and she's mad." She laughs loudly and I stop for just a second. "No, wait there's more. I suck, no doubt. And she just cries out. Can't show what's inside, just tell more lies. I suck, you see. Yet she still loves me. But I suck, yeaahhh…" She's laughing uncontrollably at this point and I'm getting ready to start up again when she stops me.

"Okay, I think I get the point."

"But you didn't even get to hear the best part." I start to argue.

"I'm okay with that." She says through fits of laughter as she lifts herself up off the ground and goes to stand next to me.

"Fine, but you don't know what you're missing."

She laughs again. "I'll live. I take it you were drunk when you wrote that."

"What, you didn't like it?"

"No, I didn't say that. I just…don't think it'll have the same appeal Crazy did."

I shrug and look up at her. "Yeah well, I like it."

"I'm sure you do."

I smile for a moment before Spencer crosses my mind and it slowly falls off my face. "Do you really think she'll forgive me?" I ask because I need the reassurance, I need to silence the nagging.

She smiles down at me before taking a seat beside me. "I'm more than confident." She pats me on the leg and stands up, holding her hand out to me. "What do you say we sober you up?"

Taking the offered hand, I smile and roll my eyes. "Fine but we're not having anymore heart to hearts."

"Fair deal, I'm sick of your problems anyway."

After collecting the last of the beer bottles and tossing them in the recycling bin, I take a seat on the couch, facing the huge plasma screen TV, as Kyla goes through my enormous movie collection. She deliberates between two before finally making a decision and putting the DVD into the player and quickly hitting play. I smile as I hear the first few lines of the Circle of Life coming through the speakers. She sends me a wink before turning back and watching the movie. She knows how much I love this movie, there's nothing quite like The Lion King to make me forget about how shitty I'm feeling. But as I sit there watching Scar mess with an innocent mouse, my mind can't help but wander back to Spencer, it can't help but zero in on the look on her face.

I get up off the couch as I watch the credits start to roll, looking down I find a sleeping Kyla, who had dozed off somewhere between Nala attacking Pumbaa and Rafiki hitting Simba with his stick. She looks so peaceful that I don't try and wake her up, instead, I reach for the blanket at the end of the couch and cover her up with it. Then, I make my way to the bedroom and into the bathroom to take a quick shower in the hopes of clearing my cluttered mind. I step under the spray of the water and revel in how warm and soothing it is, and for just a moment it distracts me from the chaos of the outside world. But it's just for that moment and it passes too quickly. When I enter the living room, I don't find a sleeping Kyla there, instead, I find a note.

Ash,

Thanks for letting me sleep, too bad Glen didn't get the memo. I had to go. Apparently the boy can't feed himself without me. Anyway, thanks for the movie and remember what I said. Love you.

-Ky

I smile at her words and place the note back onto the couch where she left it.

I'm not sure how it happened but I find myself outside of Spencer's apartment, knocking on the door anyway. I guess, it was some time between getting out of the shower and finding Kyla's note that I made the decision to come over here. My hands are hanging loosely at my sides as I wait for her to open the door, silently hoping that it isn't Stacey that does this instead. Thankfully when the door is pulled back I'm met with a sleepy Spencer wearing a tank top and shorts.

"Hey." I send her a sheepish smile as my eyes take in her appearance.

"What're you doing here?" She has a look of sadness that crosses her features before being replaced with annoyance.

"I know you don't wanna see me right now, but-"

"You're right, I don't wanna see you. I thought the whole ignoring you thing drove that point home but apparently I was wrong."

"No, you made that very clear. I-I just need to tell you something and then I'll back off and give you your space." I look her in the eyes, hoping my pleading ones will convince her skeptical ones.

"Yeah, well I don't-"

"Will you just hear me out? Please?"

She sighs and takes a step to the side, opening the door a little more. "Fine. Do you wanna come in?"

"Uh, n-no thanks, this'll only take a minute."

"Okay."

I take a deep breath and gather up all of my thoughts before I speak. "I know I hurt you. And as cliché as I'm about sound, I'm really sorry about that and if I could take it back I would, but I can't and I know that deep down, there's a part of you that will never be able to forgive me for what I did. And I accept that 'cause I honestly don't deserve to have you forgive me, not after everything." I stare directly into her eyes as each word leaves my lips, hoping she can see the absolute sincerity in them. Even when she looks away and stares down at her feet, I don't remove my gaze.

"But I want you to, and I know that that's selfish of me considering what I've done but I want your forgiveness more than anything, because I can't imagine not having you in my life, even if we're nothing more than just friends. And if you decide that that's all you want, that what I did…" I lose my words in the dryness of my throat for a moment before I clear it and push through. "…that cheating on you is as unforgivable as I know it is, and that all we'll ever be is just friends, then I'll be okay with that. I'll accept it if that's what you want, because I just want you to be happy, no matter what." Her eyes, the ones that were just glued to the floor, snap up and bore into my own.

"But I also want you to know that I love you. God Spencer, I love you so much. When I'm with you I'm just…I can't even describe it, I'm just…happier, better. I smile…more, I breathe easier, hell food tastes better." I laugh a little before clearing my throat, once again, and continuing. "You make me want to be better, more than this." I move my hands down my body hoping she gets my point. "I wanna be the person you see when you look at me, the person you fell in love with. And I know I'm not her." I stop for a second as the first tear falls down my face, I don't bother wiping it away.

"I haven't been that person in a long time, even before I fucked everything up. But I'm trying, I'm trying to get back to that. And I know that my actions lately haven't really provided the best examples, but I'm gonna change that, I'm gonna stop being the selfish, careless person I've become and go back to being the person you knew I could be. I wanna deserve to have you love me back and be worthy of loving you. And I know that that's not just gonna happen because I want it to, I know I'm gonna have to work at it and I'm willing to do that because you're worth it, Spence you are so worth it." I cup her cheek as my thumb grazes over her skin.

"And because of that I'm willing to wait, I'll wait as long as it takes for you to realize that we're worth fighting for…because we are. I just have to look at you to know that." I carefully wipe the tears from her face before removing my hand and taking a step back. "And I know that right now you want your space, so I'll give it to you, I'll back off and I won't push, but I want you to know that I'm not giving up on us. I'm never gonna stop trying."

She looks at me for a moment, completely examines me, sizing me up before she says just one word. "Okay." With that, she walks back into her apartment and shuts the door behind her.

I stare at that door for just a second, a small smile playing at my lips. "Okay."