...

I was running on a high from all the reviews. It seems some of you like that I'm more sympathetic towards Ashley than they were on the show. Others think I'm cutting her too much slack. Remember in my version she only planned to be gone for two weeks. Honestly, I'm trying to make both of them as even as possible after the prom. I thought the show was a little unfair to always have Ashley being the one screwing everything up. A lot of stories seem that way too, so I'm doing my best to have both of them take some blame.

Anyways the reviews were very heartening. I'm trying not to post until I have the next chapter written so that I'm always ahead of the game. The reviews are making that very hard though. If at any point I stop posting regularly, feel free to bombard me with constant messages and guilt me into posting more.

The Italics are part of the story.

Obviously I don't own South of Nowhere, otherwise I wouldn't be writing fanfiction.

[Chapter Now Edited for Ridiculous Spelling Mistakes]

It's so easy to find someone online. I think that I will never create a Facebook account. It's so easy to track someone down. I don't want someone stalking my every step. I'm no computer expert and look at what I've already found.

Ashley's PoV

It was awkward.

When I came home from Europe I returned to accusing stares, all summer, you didn't even call. I avoided Aiden like the plague. I lived with Kyla who was avoiding me like the plague.

"Hey, Kyla", I said when I first returned.

"Hello, Ashley. I hope you had a nice trip." And then she left the room.

And Spencer? Well, after the first raging tirade Spencer just sat there and looked at me coldly and started the occasional interrogation.

"Why didn't you call?"

"I lost my phone." It was true.

"You couldn't get another one?" She asked, disbelievingly.

"No."

"You couldn't send a letter, e-mail, anything?"

"No"

"Are you going to say anything about it?" She asked the last question contemptuously in the same tone that teachers use with regard to my homework. I knew that anything I said would be taken as another Ashley Davies excuse. The most ridiculous one being my mother accidentally threw it away. As if my mother would ever clean things up or even be in the house.

"No."

I met her eyes. "There's nothing to say."

She went back to glowering me.

I wandered around the school halls. The teachers were looking at me funny because I'd lost the taste to spar with them. I ignored the usual barbed insults. I felt numb, no energy left to fight.

"You're late again, Ms. Davies," remarked my science teacher with relish.

"Mm-hmm," was my only acknowledgement.

"Any excuses?"

He looked at me. He seemed almost . . . eager. I'd never noticed that before.

I shrugged.

There's absolute silence for a moment.

His face fell. His facial expression was incredulous. He looked like a kid who'd been told he wasn't getting a birthday present from his favorite uncle.

He didn't even send me to the principals office. I swear he was disappointed by my lack of an excuse.

I just throw my stuff on a desk and listen for all of ten seconds as he clears his throat and resumes the stunned class. The class was as astonished as he was. It took everyone to get back on track.

I sat out of habit with Spencer during lunch enduring more unpleasant glares. After school I'd go to a mostly empty home and just sit on the bed. I didn't want to play guitar. Sometimes at night I was so frightened of being alone in the dark that I went to random clubs and nurse a drink through the night.

Before unwanted admirers would get turned down coolly, but calmly. Now, I was liable to freak out and panic at an unwelcome touch. I broke one guy's nose.

I couldn't stand being alone in a dark house, but I had no friends and was afraid of even the most impersonal contact from anyone. When I was in a crowd every face became a possible threat and I couldn't take it.

I was almost relieved at the lack of public or private displays of affection from Spencer. For the first time in my life I was uncomfortable with my body and had taken to wearing loose, too large clothes.

Eventually Spencer stopped being so determinedly angry with me she would really started to worry. I could feel the distance between us growing and I couldn't bring myself to stop it. The wall that I was building contained too much pain and guilt and too many horrors for me to tear it down. Breaking apart the stones would unleash a tidal wave too powerful to stand against.

I just kept building. Pouring my feelings into each brick and building a wall with no gates, leaving me empty. Everything I had was poured into the mortar. I was really becoming nothing. I wanted the numbness so badly. Feeling nothing is better than terror and agony, right?

I never stopped to wonder what the point was in a wall that protected nothing.

Spencer's PoV

It's amazing how much you can delude yourself when you're desperate. I just sat that entire summer foolishly waiting for a call from Ashley. I left more messages on her cell phone than she left on mine. I went crazy.

Inevitably though, the first day of school came and I felt my heart breaking. I felt used and screwed over and so, so stupid- because hadn't everyone warned me that this was going to happen, that Ashley never stayed and never cared. Of course they had and of course I ignored them and defended her.

The minute I saw her I was furious. I was seeing red and I couldn't think straight. I was screaming at her. Luckily we were in a mostly empty hall. And she just took it.

"I'm sorry," was the only thing she said.

"You're sorry, Ash?," I spat out. "That's all you ever have to say. Do you think that magically makes things better? That I should forgive you like we're in Kindergarten and you just accidentally dropped something on me? You were gone the entire summer and I never heard anything from you! Do realize how much it hurts not to know if the one person you'd give everything for doesn't care?"

I expected her to shout back, argue, cry, beg, but she just looked at me tiredly.

"Yes," a pause, and then,"I'm sorry."

Her lack of emotion threw me off and I resorted to throwing her angry glances.

I was prepared to deal with a groveling Ashley, or a defensive one, determined not to let me break up with her. I was ready to end this no matter what, to stand firm. Her lack of any zeal confused me and I tried to figure out what game she was playing.

I was so dumbfounded that I neglected to break up with her. Instead I observed her closely. Before long I was worried. She wasn't acting right. She wasn't her usual cheerful, insolent self. The teachers were shocked by the new level of apathy she's reached. Most of the time she sat silent and broody, just staring off into space. Different from when her father died. Not pushing me away, but not letting me in either.

It just seemed like she had stopped feeling or caring.

In some ways it was scarier than when her father died.

I had no idea what to do.