Why did I ever stop? How am I stronger now?

Present day- Spencer’s POV- Afternoon: Minutes Before the Carnage

The skies always blue. It’s something you can count on, unlike people and unlike just about everything you can feel. I counted on my ability to make sure Ashley never got hurt by what I was doing. I was wrong to think she’d never be hurt. How can I protect her? That wasn’t my job, my job was to hold her through the bad and the painful, to be the thing she could count on.

Her cheating….. I understand it. It was her way to see if I’d stick around. I know that, I could see it in her eyes. She wasn’t trying to screw things up, but sex is her answer to everything. It’s the only thing she’s known really. She told me that in the moments of pointless passion she didn’t feel alone, she felt she had a purpose, and whether it made sense to me, it was what helped her to get by. I see it now, after experiancing what she meant. After seeing the passion in her eyes last night when we finally had sex, she wasn’t strong Ashley, weak Ashley, free Ashley or any of that; she was my Ashley.

I fear I’ve ruined it.

I can’t let this be. So now I run, as fast as I can to her.

Present day- Ashley’s POV- Afternoon: The Carnage Begins

I stare at it for awhile as the memories of all the other times come back to me. The pain was nothing, especially when it kills the pain inside. It doesn’t numb it like the alcohol, but makes it die off. It helps me to heal. Now that I don’t have Spencer what else do I have. The blade’s not as cold as the last time, but when it touches my wrist it feels like the perfect comfort, almost as if I was in her arms. As the blade slowly cuts down my wrist, north to south this time, I am in her arms. The comfort is over whelming. By the time the blade has made it’s way down to my elbow my arm is throbbing. Tears spill from my eyes from the pain, or from the fact that salvation is almost here.

Pounding, my head’s just pounding away. I shake my head but it doesn’t stop and it’s becoming irritating. But it’s fine, it won’t last. I’m slipping already.

The memories, my life, flashes of smiles, her eyes, her hands against my skin, her voice. Her. It’s all that’s left, but I’m slipping. She’s the one, I know. They always said that I’d know when I met the one, and that day on those blechers, her smile I saw for the first time, that made my life. It’s gone now, so I guess that it’s over. My time has come right?

The pounding continues, and I can even hear her voice calling my name. ‘Ashley’ she screams, it’s almost as if she’s here, right outside the bathroom door. Pounding again, and crying. But it’s fainter than before, and my vision is blurred. M y head gets heavy, and my last visual picture is the door opening and Spencer’s tear streaked face….. and my blood everywhere.