Kyla cleaned up and I took the trash to the garbage can, but when I turned I had expected Kyla to be up and ready to leave, only she was still sitting. So , I sat back down too. She was thinking, her mind elsewhere. She stared over my shoulder off in the difference. When I turned around and followed her line of sight, I saw nothing. I returned my gaze back to her and waved my hand in front of her face.

"Why’d you give it up?" she asked, still not focusing on me.

"Are we gonna start this again?" I asked, now paying more attention to my hands than her.

"Just tell me why, Ash. Spencer . . . " she trailed off when my head snapped up to look at her.

"I didn’t do it for Spencer. I did it for me." I said.

"But it was something you had always wanted. Why did you break the contract?" I sat back in the chair, and Kyla did the same. I took a deep beathe, and decided that telling the truth would be better than anything.

"I didn’t exactly break the contract. I mean, I did, but I can always go back. But don’t you for one second think I did it for Spencer, because I didn’t. I could have stayed but it was too hard. I had stopped drinking but when my retainer states that a bottle of my three favorite men, Jack, Jim, and Jose be ready backstage after the show, it gets hard. And it gets even harder when people are shoving drugs in your pockets at the after party. I know me and it wasn’t long before I would have completely broke down. I would have been back where I started from. An alcoholic druggie who didn’t give a damn who she hurt.

"I broke away because I need to dry out and get clean. For me. I have to find a way to stay that way once I get there. I don’t want to be that person anymore. And to tell you the truth, as much as I want to see and talk to Spencer, I won’t. I wont hurt her again. She deserves so much better than what I put her through. And yes, it nearly killed me to walk away from her, and I felt the same when I walked out the doors of MTB Records. If I could have done it clean, I would have stayed, but as I said, I know me and I wouldn’t ba able to do it. I’ve slipped up. Everybody does when they start out. I’m no different. I had to get away so I could clean up right, Kyla. I just had to. For me." I finished and finally looked up at her.

"I . . . don’t know what to say."

"Say you’ll support me? Please? I may need you in the next few months." I asked her. She stood up and took two steps to me. She grabbed my hands and pulled me up and into a hug.

"I’m right here, Ash. I’m not going anywhere. And besides, you can’t get rid of me that easily." she pulled back and smiled. I smiled to. I couldn’t help it. "Let’s get out of here." she said and grabbed my hand.

She was staring over my shoulder again as she turned and tried to pull me to the car. I turned my head in the direction she’d been looking, hopng it was Spencer. I told myself it would hurt to at least see how she looked. But when I turned my head, it wasn’t Spencer who was standing on the sidewalk, not even 15 feet from us. It was ‘Becca.