b Now before I get this started, let me say to the one reviewer so far. Ashley doesn't like boys so much as she doesn't really realize her true feelings for girls, which will all come to light in due time. I'm not trying to change the story in this. Technically if you think about it, the show has Ashley liking Aiden, then back to Spencer.. so really this isn't too far fetched b

Winter break wasn't anything out of the ordinary for anyone. Family and friends hanging out. Ashley was forced to spend time with her family who had come in from around the country for the holidays.

Alex spent his time partying with his friends, calling Ashley every time begging her to ditch her family and party with him. Many of those calls Ashley deliberately sent to voicemail so she would have something to cheer her up when home became too boring. Something about a group of guys singing Journey and Justin Beiber all in one night's worth of voicemail messages was something she certainly wasn't erasing.

Spencer and Carmen broke up right before winter break. Carmen accused Spencer of cheating and when Spencer threw the accusation and proof back in her face Carmen decided to throw the ring Spencer gave her down the dorm hallway. Before leaving for break Carmen put in a request for a room change which Spencer gladly agreed to when the RA confronted her about it.

School started back up again in the middle of January. Alex and Ashley had both failed math the first semester and had both ended up in the same class again, along with Aiden. This coincidence forced Ashley and Aiden to make amends and be friends again. Aiden babbled on about some new girl he had met in another class. He never said who it was but Alex and Ashley didn't care as long as he was acting normal again.

Spencer had come back to NIU for another semester. Her grades were no longer enough for her to transfer to another school and while she could still attend NIU, she decided to make an effort to do whatever it took to get out of Illinois.

The first week back Spencer met Aiden in a science class and they hit it off immediately. Spencer was on the rebound from Carmen and Aiden was desperate enough that she couldn't pass up the chance for something mindless. She knew she wasn't really into guys but in the moment, she didn't care. They only fooled around twice before she had to put a stop to Aiden the same way Ashley did. The only difference is Spencer was a bit nicer about it and they became best friends.

Ashley spent more time at Alex's than the previous semester. Apparently Spencer and Carmen weren't the only ones that broke up over break. Macie and her boyfriend also broke up, but as expected Macie didn't take long before she started dating one of the football players. Ashley wasn't able to sleep whenever he slept over. This guy snored louder than a trucker and his semi combined. Even with her iPod turned up as loud as it goes she could still clearly hear him. Luckily for her Alex's roommate dropped out and he still hadn't been assigned a new roommate so she had an open bed whenever she needed it.

About half way through the semester Alex threw a party and invited over a few girls who were openly bisexual. At the sight of the girls making out something in Ashley changed. She was as hooked as the other guys in the room, her eyes glued to the interaction between them. Was this what she'd been missing all this time? She'd seen this before on television shows and it always hit something inside, but she never thought much about it, but now that it's right in front of her face there was no way she could ignore it.

"Ash, you alright?" Alex nudges her out of her trance.

"We need to talk." She pulls him into an adjacent room. "I don't know what it is but I really want in on what just happened in there. I've never felt like this before, this curious about what it would be like to make out with another girl. This can't be normal!" Ashley starts pacing around the room trying to piece together her feelings.

She'd just recently met a very attractive soccer player and things had the potential to be something real. He was exactly what she thought she'd always wanted, Sweet, adorable, had great taste in music and definitely not bad on the eyes without a shirt. Athletes had always been a weakness for her and this guy was the epitome of athletic. But when he refused to label them as anything official she blew up stating his reasoning was bullshit. So what if he lived 25 minutes away and they would only see each other on weekends? Big deal? What does that have to do with anything?

"Ashley, in all the time I've known you, relationships with you and guys have never lasted longer than 8 months and haven't gotten overly intimate. You ALWAYS break it off when it gets too serious. I know you have commitment issues but I think there's something more to this than you're willing to realize."

Ashley sat down on the bed beside her. This was more than she could handle in one night. She told everyone she wasn't feeling well and went back to her dorm. To her luck her roommate was out for the night so Ashley was able to pass out hard enough to not hear them come in early the next morning.

Ashley decided to ignore what happened with the girls at the party, chalking it up to shear curiosity and nothing more than that. She instead focused on where she was going to live after the semester ended and she no longer was required to live in the dorms. She'd also dropped out of her math class, knowing she wasn't going to pass it no matter how hard she tried, business calculus was never her forte.

One month before the end of the quarter Ashley was invited by some friends to move into an apartment just off campus with them. She'd only hung out with the group of people a few times, but they all seemed like good people. Emily had quickly become her closest girl friend at school based on a similar interests. She'd stopped hanging out with Alex and his group of guys as much but still hung out with Aiden every so often. Their relationship had become very brother/sisterly which after a while they realized was why they fought so much. Aiden still hadn't told Ashley about the girl he had met earlier in the semester but Ashley didn't think anything of it and never pressed the matter.

When summer break came, Ashley had developed a deep friendship with one of the guys Emily had introduced her to who was living with her boyfriend in the same complex they'd be living in. He was literally like Ashley's male twin, the movies they liked the music they listened everything about their friendship was different than anyone she'd ever met. After a freshman year of hell, Ashley finally saw a silver lining in coming to this school. Now she just needed to survive the summer working for her parents friends business.