The brunette slammed the door closed and turned around to block the locker from her ex best friend.
"Ashley," Spencer said in panic. "What the fuck was that?!" The brunette was breathing hard, her face sheet-white. She had completely forgotten about the picture and like a punch to the gut it came flooding back. "Ashley?!" The blonde shrieked, revolted by what she just saw. "What was that?!" She asked again as the brunette stood paralyzed.
When she didn't answer, Spencer tried to move her out of the way, but Ashley stood firm. "Spencer, forget about it." But the blonde wouldn't have it. Spencer pushed hard against Ashley and eventually the brunette gave up and moved aside as she allowed Spencer to open the locker and appraise the doctored picture of her deceased father.
"Oh my, God." Spencer whispered, horrified. She yanked the picture down and stared at it, mouth and eyes wide in shock and disgust. Ashley's eyes slid shut in pain and embarrassment. She didn't want her ex best friend to know that she was targeted again. "Ashley." The blonde breathed out as her eyes raced over the blood-like smears of ink and the cryptic message of SOON.
Ashley suddenly plucked the picture from the blonde's hands and quickly tore it up with the anger that she felt boiling over inside of her. She ripped hard and fast until tiny bits of paper were flying through the air.
"Ashley! That was evidence!" Spencer screamed, appalled.
"Evidence of what, Spencer?! That there are some truly sick people out there?!" She screamed back, still trying to tear the tiny pieces. "That people love to fuck with me?! That my father is dead and he's never coming back?! What, Spencer?! Evidence of what?!" Her screams turned into sobs and she collapsed onto the pavement, shaking hard. All around her were minuscule scraps of the picture and Ashley wrapped her arms around herself as she stared at each of them.
Spencer was holding her in no time, collecting the girl in her arms as they both sat on the cold ground. "I don't think that was just a sick joke, Ash." Spencer whispered as she held her ex best friend closer to her. The blonde rolled her eyes ruefully as she realized that only minutes before she was being held by Ashley, seeking comfort herself. The blonde silently wondered why the two of them always seemed to be in the midst of life-altering drama and wondered when they could just be. When death would stop finding them and she could try to live a normal life. To be happy.
Not long after, both Spencer and Ashley were inside Ashley's car silently passing the bottle of Jack back and forth still parked at King High while listening to the softly playing songs of Silversun Pickups. The bottle was half way gone and through their drunken haze and bleary eyes they both wished that their lives could be different.
That neither one of them had a deceased parent. That Aunt Marie didn't hate Ashley and that Spencer could be openly gay. That they didn't have to worry each day that someone was going to die.
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