Her crying had become hysterical.  Sobs wracked her body, and she’d curled onto her side and layed down on the floor. Glasses laying behind her, the tears continued to fall.

Days passed.  The funeral was only a few days; Ashley didn’t show.  As a matter of fact, the girl didn’t show for anything over the course of the next couple of weeks.  The time alone gave Spencer the time to think; to analyze her life.  The more she thought about her life, the less happy she became with it.  She started to hate her friends, her family, and everyone who had ever cared about her.  She felt trapped, and the only person who had ever allowed her to feel free had betrayed her.  No phone calls, no visits. Not even a fucking letter. 

No, Ashley didn’t care about her either. 

Months passed.  By the time senior year came around, neither girl had spoken a word to each other.  The tension was felt by the entire school; their emotional emptiness and blank stares were hard to miss.  Inside, Spencer felt dead. 

No, that’s wrong. Her tears had begun to calm down, but the memories kept on coming.  She ahd to correct herself.  No, she hadn’t felt dead. She was dead.  And she’d stayed dead, until five years later when she met him. Her mind almost wandered off in that direction, before that morbid part of her mind — the part that actually wanted to remember what had happened during and after high school — regained control of her memory.

High school came to a close, and she still hadn’t spoken to Ashley. The girl had left her a few messages and written her a few notes, but each were deleted or thrown away.  She’d given up hope on Ashley, and she was determined to get over her. A part of her didn’t want to get over her. A part of her wanted, desperately, for Ashley to make her talk to her.  She didn’t want notes; she wanted a forced confrontation in which she had no choice but to speak to her.  She wanted her to grab her in the hall and scream at her. She wanted to be walking down the street one day and have Ashley run up to her, grab her by the shoulders, and kiss the hell out of her.  Fuck. She wanted the girl to do SOMETHING.  But nothing ever came, and Spencer had given up.  She applied to Ohio State and was accepted. She wanted to go back to being the ‘old Spencer’; the pre-Ashley Spencer. The Spencer who didn’t have to be scared of liking someone, because whoever she liked would be acceptable. They’d be acceptable, because the old Spencer was straight. She wanted to go back to where she felt safe; or at least to where she thought she felt safe.  She wanted to get away from Ashley.  She wanted to go home.  She left for college without ever telling Ashley where she was going, and she begged her father not to tell her after she was gone.