Spencer was sitting next to her now. Her hand rubbing Ashley’s back, her voice muffled and distant. Ashley tried to understand the words, allow the soft, calming tone to seep into her pours and reach down to grab her, but a thick wall of fire was engulfing her from the inside out, blinding her.

She grabbed Spencer’s hand with hers, squeezing as hard as she could, wanting the pain to be shared, to cling onto Spencer and give her a taste of what she had to give. Spencer cried out, her hand squirming about, attempting to dislodge from Ashley’s death grip.

Ash let her go, a smile across her face, as if possessed by another, the dark half taking over, speaking for her, fulfilling the destinies of the pained half of herself. It was as if she was divided in two, battling with herself, the pain too strong to keep under wraps, under control. She didn’t want to hurt Spencer. Spencer was hurting too. We were all fucking hurting. Ashley sucked in a sob and rose to her feet, stepping away from Spencer as if not trusting herself, fearful that her alter ego had taken over completely and she would have no idea, just as Jekyll had no conscious memory of Hyde.

The room began to spin as if the walls were caving in and the floor was beginning to crack. Spencer’s voice was clear now, as she kept saying Ashley’s name over and over, taking a step closer each time, wanting to reach out to her.

Her vision began to restore slowly, the walls of the living room still intact. Ashley placed a hand to her stomach, feeling the heat from her skin that had begun to pulsate through her clothes.

Spencer was standing inches from her, crying silently, the fingers of her right hand burrowed inside the thickness of her hair.

Ashley stared back at her, unsure if the words would come, her body unfamiliar, her thoughts foreign and seemingly those of another person entirely.

The words came out of their own volition, Ashley startled by their sudden arrival, and the thickness of her voice. She knew she had to ride this out, that what would come, would come, neither she nor Spencer able to plot the path they would soon tread in the next half hour, three hours, two days, one year.

This was now truth; pure honesty. The venom was coming; so was the passion. Yet neither of that mattered, because all of it would be true.

“I don’t want your pain. Any of it…it’s not mine to take.”

Spencer’s hand fell from her hair to her side with a smack.

“I don’t know you, Spencer…I don’t think I ever did.”