Chapter Six : Breaking Boulders
“So.”
“Buttons.”
“Spencer, really, when are you going to understand that that joke is not funny and makes absolutely no sense.”
“The day you finally understand that it does make sense and it is funny.”
Ashley lets out an adorable laugh, and I smirk, feeling a sense of accomplishment. The smirk follows me as I roll onto my back, stretching straight across a softer-than-soft beach towel. Feeling the hot sun spreads across my skin like static.
This is how it’s been for the past couple of months. This is how it’s been for Ashley and me. It’s so easy, too easy at times. We ebb and flow. We ying and yang. We compliment and contrast.
You get the picture.
We just fit. And it’s amazing. I’ve never had a friendship like this. I’ve never had a person in my life like this. A person who I learn so much from, who inspires me. Who weaves through all my threads, and pulls them together, tying them tighter than they’ve ever been.
In all honesty, I never thought this would happen. In all honesty, I feared we’d never find our way toward any kind of friendship. Especially after what happened at Ashley's that one night. The night where she tried to tell me something I couldn’t hear. Where she almost revealed a secret truth buried inside her. Where she almost revealed the same secret truth dwelling inside me.
But she only managed “almost”.
And maybe that’s why we’ve ended up here, inside a place I never thought we’d end up, sprawled across the wide lawn of our favorite park, together. Just soaking in the late spring sun on a lazy Saturday afternoon.
No complications.
Ashley sighs a very troubling sigh, and suddenly the sun doesn’t feel as warm.
Suddenly, things don't feel so uncomplicated.
“Anyway,” I can’t help but squint one eye her way, finding her fidgeting with her fingers, knowing whatever she’s going to say is not going to simplify anything, "Has your, uh, brother talked to you?”
Ah, yes. Him. Should have known he’d come up sooner or later. I don’t know what the status of their relationship is, all I know is that they basically have one. We hardly ever talk about it. And by hardly, I mean practically never. I’m not sure why. I think it’s one of those “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” situations. We mesh so well, why bring up something that has the potential to unmesh?
Of course, we’re so busy appreciating our comfort zones, we never stop to think about why Glen would shake us from them.
Well that’s not true.
I’m not too busy. I think about it. I think about it a lot. But if Ashley isn’t going to say anything, then I’m definitely not. Because I’m the one who put us here. Because it’s her relationship. Because *I* don’t want to leave our safe bubble either.
I’m perfectly content to live inside it for as long as the air will carry us.
But judging by Ashley’s hesitancy and constant finger picking, I know our little bubble’s about to be tested.
“Yeah, he’s talked to me. But if there was meaning to the conversation, I didn’t catch on to it. I'm sory, you know I don’t speak his breed of moron.”
I smile, content with the deflection and jab at my brother. Jabbing him solely because he’s connected to Ashley in a way I don’t want to define.
“Spence.” Her tone is so sad and serious, I can already feel the bubble deflating,“No more jokes.”
“Ok.” I practically whisper, feeling something plant itself low in my stomach, “He hasn’t talked to me about anything important. Why? Was he supposed to?”
I can’t look at her, but I know she’s looking straight at me.
“No. But I thought I should tell you, I thought you should know, that he invited me to your family’s Sunday dinner tomorrow night.”
Oh.
“Oh.” I want so badly to make a joke, I want so badly to hide my pain with my humor, but I can’t. There’s just not enough wind in my sails for that. There’s hardly enough wind for me to even reply.
“Spence?”
The implications of what this means, has stunned me. Has stunned me into honesty.
“A Sunday dinner.” It comes out so absent minded it’s questionable if I’m talking to her or myself, “Wow, he must really like you,” Before I even finish saying it, I hear how it must sound to her and am quick to reassure, “I mean, of course he really likes you. Who wouldn't? It’s you.”
She doesn’t say anything, and I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not, but the truth somehow keeps spilling from my lips.
“I guess, what I mean is...” I squint toward the sun, knowing how bad it is to look, knowing I shouldn’t be doing it, but I keep doing it anyway, "You must really like him if you’re coming to a Sunday dinner.”
There it is, the truth. The scary, harsh truth finally floundering out there in the open. And it's stunning me. Sinking me deep inside the darkness of my heart. Bursting my pretty little Spencer and Ashley bubble.
“Hey, Spence, look at me.”
But her soft, comforting, voice pulls me from the darkness. Her words begin the impossible process of patching together our invisible walls. The see through walls of our world. The flimsy walls that keep us safe. And I listen, I don’t even blink an eye, rolling over on our beach towel toward her. Laying on my side, with my solemn face to her reassuring one.
“I want you to promise me something, ok?”
I only nod, knowing anything I could possibly say would lose itself in the air between us.
“I want you to always be honest with me. No matter what we go through. No matter what happens. Please be honest. Don’t,” She takes a breath, knowing she’s about to hit a sore subject, “Don’t hide behind your humor. Don’t run away from what hurts you. Don’t run away from what you feel.”
Her eyes scan down between us, as if they’re running away from me, and I don’t know how I feel about it. I don’t know how I feel about any of this, but I stay quiet and I listen. Ready to take in whatever she’s going to give me.
“I need you to do that for me, ok? I need you to, because..." Finally those eyes lock with mine, but this time they’re smiling, “You’re my Jelly.”
I can’t sustain the smile creeping over my lips, as I softly say, “You’re what, now?”
“My Jelly.” She smiles like it’s the most normal thing she’s ever said, “Just hear me out, ok? I swear this makes sense." The smile's still there, big and bright, but something flashes across her eyes, something so miniscule, something so unreadable. "My mom used to make the best peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I mean, Best. Not mediocre, not really good. No, we’re talking the Best, with a capital B, here. Ok?” I give her a quick nod, not needing any more Best pictures drawn for me, “So, she used to make them a lot. You know, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And as a kid I was like, 'Awesome, PB & J for dinner!', Great. Cool. Amazing. Because I was nine, and I didn’t what what it meant, you know? I didn’t understand that I was having PB & J for dinner because there was nothing else to eat. Because we didn’t have enough money to buy anything else.”
She takes a deep breath, and all I want to do is touch her. Hold her.
But I don’t.
“Anyway, mom would make me these sandwiches, these simple sandwiches that were so much more than simple. I survived on them. Two pieces of bread with two condiments between them, and it got me through some hard days. So many hard days. With a smile on my face, it got me through a hard life.”
A thoughtful sigh.
“People underestimate the power of a good Peanut Butter and Jelly.”
She chuckles, but nothing about what she’s saying is lighthearted. It’s far from it, and I know every word out of her mouth is something I’ll treasure for the rest of my life.
“But to make the perfect PB & J sandwich, you gotta have equal amounts of both. As my mom always said, you can’t go easy on either. You have to put as much Jelly on one one half, as you did Peanut Butter on the other. Because if one suffers, so will the other. If one isn’t fully there, the other won’t taste nearly as good.”
I’m following her, but I’m not. I don’t know how this ties into us, but I’m not going to question it. I’m just going to lay here, on my side, and watch the way her eyes look straight through mine. Reveling in every single second of it.
“You’re my Jelly, Spence. You really are. And I hope I’m your Peanut Butter. I hope our friendship is that best sandwich for you, as it’s become for me. You know, I don't think you truly know how much our friendship means to me, but I hope you might have an idea. I hope I’ve made you see just what you are for me, what you mean to me. It scares me, though. How you close up, sometimes. The way you bottle up whatever’s going on inside you. You think I can’t tell, but I can. I can, and I understand. I do. But if you keep doing it, you’ll suffer, and that makes me sad,” Her eyes take a trip between us, before they smile back up at me again. "Because if Jelly's suffering, Peanut Butter's suffering too.”
I don’t know what to say. And it looks like she doesn’t either. So we don’t say anything at all. Somehow, we both know we don’t need to. Somehow, her words about the most basic sandwich in the world, are the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard. Those words are enough to fill the space between us.
They’re enough to fill us, fill me, forever.
“You have something...” Then her hand tentatively reaches out for me, and it takes everything in me to not move away. It takes everything in me to remain brave, allowing her to graze above my eyebrow with her soft fingers. “Right here.”
I feel her sweep away whatever was there, and when she's done, she keeps her hand on me. Her fingers lightly, ever so delicately, pulling strands of hair from my face. Tucking them gently behind my ear.
And it takes everything in me to keep my eyes open.
“God, Spence.” Her breathy voice pulls my unfocused eyes right to hers, focusing like they’ve never seen anything clearer. “How the hell are you single?”
Then her hands are moving away from me, tucking beneath her chin, tying together, and I’m speechless. Between the Jelly and the Peanut Butter, and the raspy "Spence"s, I’m so freaking lost. But that’s not it, I’m not lost. I’m found. I’m more found than I’ve ever been.
I’m right back inside our safe bubble.
“So, J," She flashes me the most heartwarming smile. "You promise?”
With that smile, I don't have to wait a second to answer, “Yeah, PB, I promise.”
Because with that smile, she could ask for anything, and I'd give her everything back.
Never realizing my everything is so very empty.
-------------
My eyes hopelessly scan a sea of faces, searching for one I fear I’ll never find again.
Tonight has been a disaster. A disaster that keeps tumbling and crumbling, getting worse with every passing minute. I thought rock bottom would have been the bathroom. It should have been the bathroom. Because Ashley was supposed to come back. She was supposed to push back through that door, mere minutes after slamming outside it, to console me. To hold me. To make it right. To be with me, cause I can’t be without her. Because she knows it. Because she always comes back to make sure I believe it. So I know she can’t be without me either.
Twenty minutes I spent, hands held over my stinging eyes, inside her shiny bathroom, waiting for her. Twenty minutes I waited and waited, hoping and hoping, she'd come back.
But she never did.
Not this time.
She didn’t need me to know anything this time. And when I finally did leave that bathroom, I found her looking like she hardly cared I spent any time waiting at all. I found her looking like she could care less about anything I was doing, had ever done, and never did.
Never said.
The party continued on, fleshed out, and wound down. All the while, I watched her, without any care about who would see. Without any worry about what they'd think. All I wanted to see was what she'd think. All I wanted to see was if she cared.
All I found was nothing.
This time she actually seemed happy, thrilled even, inside her conversations. Not because I was watching. Not because she knew it. But because the eyes she looked through, weren’t mine. Because the words she heard, weren’t my lying ones.
It cut deep. So deep. And it only went deeper when I knew I deserved it. When all I could feel was how much I deserved it.
I let a deep sigh push past my worn out lips, not able to hold it in anymore.
I would have gone home a long time ago, if only Madison were here to go home with me. If only Madison were here to pick up the pieces that Ashley always not only picks up, but easily puts back together. But Madison's not here, and Ashley's not making any moves to get close to me, let alone fix my mistakes. So that merely leaves me and my shattered self to sit on this couch, wondering why I didn't get into that cab with an equally shattered -- but for completely different reasons -- Aiden.
But I know the reason, and I'm sure you do too. I'm here, and not safely home, because this is where I want to be. This is where I need to be. I can't let those twenty minutes be the only minutes I waited. I can’t let them define this night for us.
It’s my turn to come back. It’s my turn to let her know how much I need her. Because it’s my turn to make sure she believes it. I need to see her. I need to talk to her. And as I watch her lead the last group of party goers to the front door, I don't waste a single second in following her there.
Ready to do some right making.
I tentatively step into the hall, watching the tipsy and tired group crawl their way down the front steps, before I rightfully turn my attention to her, to Ashley, but she's just looking at me, neither caring nor uncaring. She’s just looking, not even at me, but through me. And not in the way like she’s looking inside me.
She’s looking through me like I’m not even here.
And if she’s trying to make me feel like I don’t matter, it’s working. It’s beyond working, because I feel invisible under eyes that used to make me feel more alive than anything.
She holds the door open in her hand. Almost as if she were waiting. Waiting for me to take the hint she's so bluntly putting out there.
She wants me to take her open door invitation and walk right through it. She wants me to leave, and maybe she knows I'm not going to, or maybe she thinks even her good mannered invitation feels too generous. I'm not sure what she's thinking, for the first time her walls are so tightly surrounding her, I can’t see inside. All I know is she just shut that front door, without a word, and walked right past me.
She just walked right through me.
Leaving me even more shattered than before.
But I still follow her, albeit shakily, right into the kitchen, the breeding grounds for where this night got off to such a bad start. The breeding grounds for my endless stupidity.
"Ash."
"Don't."
No one said this was going to be easy, especially me, but her mundane tone makes me wonder if it's even possible. But I keep trying.
"Ashley wait-"
"Go home, Spencer."
She's still walking away from me, and I'm still following her like a lost and wounded puppy -- because that's exactly what I’ve become.
"Please, Ash, can we just talk about this?"
She doesn’t blink an eye. "Please, Spence, can you just go home?"
There's nothing inside her. Absolutely nothing. She's not angry. She's not sad. She's not anything. She's only indifferent. And that is so much worse than anything else. Indifference is uncaring. Indifference is feeling nothing for something.
And that's what does me in. That is what wets my stinging dry eyes. Beause all I am is caring. All I am is sad. All I feel is everything for something.
All I feel is everything for her.
"Ashley, please, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." The voice pouring from my blubbering lips is so strange and foreign, I actually wonder if it's mine. Ashley looks like she might think the same thing, like maybe it's what gets her hands to still over the sink, where she's doing the dishes. And judging from the way those hands begin to shake, I know the dishes are just a means to busy herself. To keep her inside a locked and cold place.
But, I can see it, undoubtedly and clearly. I see she's cracking, and I’m right there, chiseling away at the tiny fissures. Hammering and nailing until she breaks. Until she’s completely broken and open to me once again.
“Won’t you at least look at me?”
This time, she doesn’t hesitate in swinging around, shooting her enraged eyes straight through mine.
“Why? So I can see you lie again? I gotta be honest, Spence, that’s a look I’d rather not see anymore. That’s a look that’s growing really old and really tired on you.”
I nod, solemnly, just taking it. Deserving it. Feeling it slowly burn my guilty body on fire. And now the tears pour from my eyes like a steady waterfall, drizzling down my face. The tears for all of this. The tears for the tears I've never cried. The tears for the tears I hide, along with everything else.
I’m a weeping mess, and for a brief, shining moment, she looks like she wants to comfort me.
It's only a moment, though. One single moment in a lifetime of hours, and as quickly as she turned to me, she’s back at the sink. Working away at the dishes. Disregarding me.
“I’m sorry, Ashley.” I wanted it to come out strong, hoping it would show my sincerity, but it only comes out as a croak. A whisper, almost, only making me cry more. Showing just how weak I really am.
"I just,” I breathe deep, trying to pull it together, needing to pull something together, because all I feel is her slipping away, “I just don't know what's going on anymore. I’m so confused. I’m so lost, I don’t know where I am anymore. That's the honest-to-God truth."
Finally, she stills over the sink. Finally, she cracks a little more, her voice quietly assuring me, "I know, but you promised, Spence. You promised me you'd always be honest. And this weird lying thing you've been doing to me, that maybe you've always done to me, I don't know. All I know is it's starting to scare me and it's just not good enough anymore. I need more than that now. I just- I need it."
She keeps her eyes on the running water streaming into the empty sink, like the steady tears streaming inside my empty heart. She's right. She does need more than that, and right now, I'm going to try giving it to her. Taking the shakiest, fullest breath of my life, I exhale the closest thing to a confession I can muster.
"I know, Ashley. You do. You deserve so much more than that. The truth is...the truth is I'm confused and I'm scared. I'm so scared, you have no idea."
She nods lightly, shutting off the tap, taking her time in turning toward me. And even though her eyes aren't looking at me, I can still see inside them. I can still see everything I’ve been missing. Everything I’ve been searching for. Her eyes are concerned. Her eyes care.
And, finally, those eyes find mine, asking with a voice so patently Ashley, "What are you scared of, Spence?"
It's the million dollar question. The money question with, really, the money answer. It unlocks all the secrets stored away inside my small safe. It unlocks it all. And all I want to do is give her those secrets. All I want to do is give her my everything, handing her the key to all my locks, whispering for her to ‘keep ‘em’.
But I can't. Not now. Not tonight. I can still try, though.
"I'm scared," My hands push inside my pockets, as if it could help hide my vulnerability, "I'm scared of the future. I’m scared of where I’m heading. I’m scared of where I’m not heading.” Taking a cliff jumping breath, I look back to her face, not even realizing I had ever looked somewhere else. Not comprehending I ever could, “I'm terrified of the past. It keeps, it keeps me up at night, you know? Thinking over all the things I didn’t do. All the words I never said. How different things would be if I had said them. How much better my life would be if I was - if I was only brave enough to be honest with myself.”
The silence is louder than anything I’ve ever heard, the occasional sound of water dripping from the sink, cutting through the air like a knife.
“I’m scared of turning twenty seven alone, Ashley. I’m afraid to turn thirty seven alone. I’m absolutely terrified of living alone at fifty seven. Because I don’t want to be still living this life. The one I'm living now. I don’t want to live my middle aged years the way I’ve lived the past ten,” I can barely get the words out between my tears, slowly turning into throaty sobs, “I’m afraid of living alone forever, Ashley.”
“Spencer. You are not alone.” Each word is punctuated, so sincerely -- so pitifully -- inside her shaky breath, and it infuriates me cause I know exactly where she’s going with it.
“Yes, Ashley. I am.”
“No, you’re not. You have me.”
And then she went there. She went exactly where I knew she would, and it hurts me so much that it kind of kills me.
“I do not have you, Ashley.”
Finally, she inches closer to me, pain written all over her features, “How can you say that, Spence? How can you, how can you feel that way?”
Her voice gets lost in her emotion, her voice gets lost in the truths we know we're starting to uncover. And I know it’s time.
Time I remained true to a not-so-empty promise I made so long ago.
"Because I don't have you, Ash.” I lean over that cliff, sucking in the deepest breath I’ve ever taken, like I'll never take another. And as I breathe out, I breath a truth out with it. A truth so big, it feels like a boulder tumbling from my quivering lips.
“Glen does.”
-------------
Chapter Seven :: Unknotting the Knots