Italics are flashbacks. Stay with me, this will make sense later, I promise. ;)

Spencer's POV

I Love
how you make me feel protected and safe

I was never one for violence. It just wasn't my thing. Obviously this might have something to do with the fact that I probably wouldn't be able to beat up a squirrel. A baby squirrel. I have never been in a real fight before. Sure, I've yelled at people. I've had hissy fits. But I have never been in any kind of physical fight. And honestly? I never really intended on ever making that happen.

Maybe the most I would ever be up for would be to slap some girl in the face. But I could not dream up a situation that would propel me to act that way. I could not dream up a situation that would ever even propel me to punch someone in the face.

I was hopping around my room giddily, looking through my closet as Ashley was sprawled on my bed reading a magazine. This was a position I commonly found her in.

We were going to a party at some guy's house. Court, I think his name was. He went to our school and I'm pretty sure he was a grade above me and my friends, a senior. He was openly gay, and proud, I might add. Kind of similar to how Ashley is.

This was during the time that I was struggling to find out what the hell was going on with me. I was struggling to figure out just why Ashley's gorgeous wide-mouthed smile made me melt every time I saw it. I was struggling figure out why her innocent tickling just didn't feel very innocent anymore. I was struggling to un-weave the complicated web that was my love for her. I was also in a point of denial, telling myself that all friends were this close. This touchy with each other. Even though I had never had a friendship like this one. This one with a girl that when we were apart for just a few hours, I missed her presence and her company. When we were apart I missed how she simply made me feel happy.

"How 'bout this?" I asked her.

She looked up at me from her magazine and squinted her eyes a bit. A bad sign. "A little churchy. Don't you have any clothes that don't say 'Hi, I'm a nice girl from Ohio. Care for a muffin?'" She snorted as she said this, laughing to herself.

That was also one of the things I truly loved about this girl. She said whatever was on her mind and she laughed at her own jokes. The fact that she snorted and found herself so entertainingly funny made me find her all the more charming.

"Just because I didn't feel the need to dress like a street hooker in Ohio, Ash, doesn't mean that I'm a good little girl." I said a little fiercely. Trying to hide that fact that I was partly lying.

"Oh yeah?" She answered with a smirk on her face. "I don't believe you."

In a moment of insane boldness, I walked over to her and closely put my face near hers. "You should." I whispered as I smacked the magazine from her hand. I snickered and walked away.

Ashley looked momentarily shocked. I felt her eyes on my back as I returned into my closet, attempting to search for something not so innocent. Again.

I heard her say "Whatever Spencer." Just loud enough for me to hear, even though her response would have been much more convincing if it weren't three minutes too late.

I decided on a pair of tight black jeans and a scoop-neck t-shirt that clung to me like saran wrap. I really didn't think it was that much different from the v-neck t-shirt I had on earlier, but apparently Ashley thought so.

"Better?" I ask her with a bored expression on my face.

She looks up once again and I think her eyes get a tiny bit wider. Her smile is suddenly adorning her gorgeous face and she says "Much."

"I'm hoooooooome." I hear an aggravating voice come from downstairs and then my front door slams shut.

Ashley turns her head back to me with an extremely pained expression on her face. It's a mix between her looking like she's going to throw up and her looking like she's about to have a stroke.

"I thought you said she was working late?" Ashley hisses at me as she gets up off the bed and joins me in the closet. Pulling at the frays of the pockets of her jeans. Something I know she does when she's really nervous.

"I-I thought she was!" I say as loudly as I can in that whisper-yell.

My mother is not the biggest fan of Ashley Davies. Alright, she really dislikes her. The only reason I don't say that my mother hates Ashley is because to me, that idea is ridiculous. How can someone hate Ashley Davies? How can you hate someone who has seriously the prettiest brown eyes ever. Someone with shiny white teeth and plump, delicious lips? I will never know. My mother never told me that I was never allowed to have Ashley over. She never said I wasn't allowed to hang out with her.

Well.

She did say all those things one night but the huge fight it caused made her take them all back. Ashley and my mom don't get along and Ashley hates being at my house when she's home, which really isn't all that much, thank goodness. It would inevitably create a large, unwanted ugly scene if my mother found Ashley here when no one else was home.

The short story is that my mother dislikes Ashley so much because she's gay.

The long story is that my mother dislikes Ashley so much because she's gay.

I push Ashley further into my closet as I close the door behind me. Just in time too, as she walks in right as I'm stepping away from the Ashley-filled closet.

I'd have no problem being in that closet, I think to myself.

"Uh, hi mom." I say as I walk over to my dresser.

"Hi Spence, you going out tonight?" She asks me with a gross, cheesy smile on her face as she leans on my doorframe.

"Yeah, I'm going out with Chelsea, Ashley, Aiden, and Kyla." I spit the names out quickly. The second my mother hears Ashley's name her smile drops and her eyes squint. I squint my eyes back at her, burrowing my eyes into hers, just daring her to say something. Just daring her to say she disapproves. Just daring her to say she doesn't want me to go. Just daring her to say she dislikes Ashley.

She doesn't take my dare.

"Don't be late." She says shortly and closes my door behind her.

My whole body un-tenses the second she leaves and I let all the breath that I had been holding while we had our stare-down out of my mouth. I feel a gentle hand suddenly rubbing circles on my back, and I close my eyes for half a second trying not to shiver outwardly.

"You okay?" Ashley asks me quietly, probably scared my mother might come back waltzing into my room. I shrug my shoulders lightly, acutely still aware of the hand that is still moving on my back.

"It doesn't matter." I tell her when I turn around and give her a sad little smile. She doesn't smile at me, but instead looks unhappy. "You know it doesn't." I say more softly this time. I take her hand that had comforted me seconds before and try to comfort her with mine. Ashley immediately smiles back at me when I squeeze her hand in my own.

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The second we walk into the house that is throwing the party I can smell the alcohol. I can smell the cigarette smoke. I can smell the weed.

People are already drunkenly stumbling around, with beer stains down their shirts and hickies on their necks. The music is fairly quiet, I'm guessing to not wake the neighborhood and lure the cops. It's not like those cheesy parties you see in movies where kids are playing beer pong on the front lawn. In reality, the cops would be all over that.

This party is pretty wild though. Me and Kyla make our way towards the kitchen where we are guessing the alcohol is. Ashley, Aiden, and Chelsea have disappeared into the crowd, most likely to say hello to the host or to talk to an acquaintance. After minutes of searching through the fridge for drinks, Kyla comes up empty handed.

I am propped up, sitting on the island in the middle of the room.

"So Spencer, do you think that girl's hot?" Kyla asks me out of nowhere as she closes the fridge door.

I am taken completely off guard and I feel myself blush and heat up at her words. Did she see me look at that girl's ass just before? Did she see me staring at Ashley?

"Um, I'm sorry, what?" I stutter out, unconvincingly.

Kyla is quick to pounce on how I spoke unsurely. "Do. You. Think. That. Girl's. Hot?" she asks again looking me in the eye as she says each word of the question as it's own.

"No. Do you?" I challenge.

"What about her?" Kyla says still looking straight at me. Her voice sounds like it is ready to never back down.

"Kyla. What the hell." I say. I don't want to play her little games anymore. Especially not here. Especially not now.

Her features soften and for a second she looks weirdly similar to Ashley. They are sisters, but still. Sometimes I forget that fact because they're so extremely different. And I never once considered them to look anything alike. Kyla is a pretty girl, striking even. But she wasn't Ashley. She in no way had that sexiness to her.

"Come on Spence. When were you going to tell me you liked girls? I am your friend, right?" Kyla says. There is a hint, a trace, of hurt in her voice. Showing me that she wasn't trying to hassle me, even though that's just how it came out. She just wanted to be close to me. And I understood.

The thing was that I never really thought about actually telling someone this fact. That I liked girls. Speaking it in verbal form to a person I was close to meant that it was definitely true. I didn't know if I was ready for that. I was hardly ready to face the fact that I loved my best friend in more ways than one.

I'm sick of being not ready, so I just say it. "I'm sorry Ky. I was going to tell you, I just wasn't there yet. I still don't know what it means." I admit honestly. I don't know if I was telling her that or if I was confessing it to myself.

Kyla paces over to me on the counter and her eyes look sad. "Shit Spence. I'm a douche. I didn't mean to rush you, I just thought that you had known for a while and weren't saying anything. I'm sorry."

"No worries." I give her a sincere smile. I think for a second. "Is it that obvious?"

Kyla laughs and smiles. "I like to think I have good gaydar." She pauses for a second, thinking dramatically. "I kind of think Aiden's gay."

I snort loudly and hop down from the island. "Shut up." I laugh as I pull her with me into the other room.

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"Hey there." Ashley says to me as she puts her arm around my waist.

I look at her happily and smile. "Hi."

I see Kyla look at me from the corner of my eye, and I see her eyes widen just a tiny bit, something that only I would notice. A flash goes across her face, almost as if a light bulb had just gone off above her.

Kyla knows.

"Hi queers." I hear a nasty voice say towards where Ashley and I are standing, still with her arm around me and my hand lightly touching it.

"Hey bitch." Ashley says nastily to Madison. "What brings your super large ass here?" Ashley's arm tightens around me as she says this.

Ignoring the question, Madison speaks with disgust. "Why don't you two dykes take this somewhere else." She looks at me, daggers coming out of her eyes.

I try to not let her comment affect me. I've been around situations like this before and it never gets easier. But now, with my confusion at its' height, the comment hurts me in a place that should only be filled with love. I will my eyes to not look hurt, but my body betrays my pleas as my heart pounds hurtfully out of my chest.

"The host is gay Madison, why don't you put him down." I hear my shaky voice say, trying to be mean, but it just comes out sounding pathetic and weak.

"Whatever, you two, especially you" she motions towards Ashley, "are making us" she again motions towards the cheerleaders around her, "uncomfortable."

Ashley's arm leaves me and I see her hands curl into fists, visibly shaking. "Fuck you. We're not even doing anything. We're not even together." Ashley swallows after saying this last part. I can see the tension all over body and in her face.

Madison sneers at Ashley's words. "Sure. Your stupid little girlfriend is obviously upset Ashley. Why don't you comfort her." She laughs in a high-pitched and horrible tone.

Before I know what has happened, Ashley's hand comes into loud contact with Madison's cheek. Slapping her with a force so loud and strong Madison staggers backwards into her friends around her. After that, Madison goes after Ashley, returning the favor and all of a sudden there's an outbreak of fighting. I try to get my bearings and pull my best friend out of this worthless mess, only to be back-handedly slapped by an unknown girl. I stumble backwards into Kyla who had been standing behind me the whole time.

The second Ashley realizes that someone touched me she shoves, hard, the girl who slapped me, steps back, and takes my hand, leading me out of the house.

At this point, tears are streaming down my eyes, not because I'm crying but because that girls' hand was so dangerously close to my eyes, making them water uncontrollably. I find myself outside and down the street from the house, with Ashley looking hesitantly at my face.

"Shit." She mutters lowly, in a deep voice. Her hand comes up to my face and I cringe. When she takes it away, I see a slight trace of blood on her fingers.

I guess the girl's nails scratched me on their way across my face. I bring my hand up and feel three deep marks across my cheek, ending extremely close to my eyes. My eyes start to water again after I touch my face and Ashley brings her strong arms around me.

"I'm sorry Spence." She says as she brings her hand to push the hair out of my scratches.

"It's not your fault." I mumble almost inaudibly into her arm.

"HEY!" I hear Kyla's high voice coming down the street towards where we're standing. "We should get that cleaned up." She finally breathes out.

I am now in the Davies' bathroom, with Kyla kneeling in front of me. She's wiping at my face and putting something that is stinging me painfully on my scratches. Ashley is standing next to me, with her back against the wall, rubbing soft circles on the palm of my hand.

"Ow." I say mundanely.

"Sorry Spence, I know it stings but it'll keep it from getting infected." She says, looking at me with large eyes. "Fuck, that was intense." She says after a moment of silence.

I chuckle lightly. "I guess."

Ashley's other hand is now on the top part of my head, fingers playing with and stroking my hair. I close my eyes for a long moment while I let her soft touches overcome the hurtful stinging I am feeling on my face.

"Are you alright?" Ashley asks me quietly. She is not even acknowledging Kyla's presence.

"I'll be fine." I sigh out.

"Okay, you're good to go." Kyla says. She smiles lightly at me and walks out of the bathroom.

I stand up slowly and I feel Ashley immediately put her arms around me, hugging me tenderly. I place my head on her shoulder a second later. I've just been accused of being disgusting, slapped across the face, and now have three bloody lines across my cheek.

But in Ashley's arms, I've never felt so protected and safe.