i

The day is too bright even from behind sunglasses but the headache is not all hangover. She doesn't play flippant well, and the silence in the car has been telling. Their house comes in the view and I realize that I've stopped more than two blocks away without conscious thought. She looks at me now, and I shrug.

"I still have raccoon eyes." We both know nothing is visible behind my sunglasses, but she nods along as I finish. "Wouldn't want to scare your mom more than she already is by showing up like this." Truth is, silent disapproval from one member of the Carlin clan is more than enough to start the day – adding a possible encounter from Mrs. C would be too much.

"Okay, then." She opens the door and my chest constricts. My hand is on hers, stopping her.

"Wait. Are we... okay?" I hate how my voice sounds, young and vulnerable and everything I don't want to be. Not again.

She looks back at me and for the first time since I met her, I can read nothing in her eyes. Then she reaches out and lifts my sunglasses to the top of my head, laying me bare. I let her, I let her see me and it has to be one of the hardest things I have ever done, sitting like this under the glare of the sun and the inscrutability of her gaze. When did she learn to hide her eyes like that?

She blinks then, and lowers her head, and when she looks back at me her smile is tender, but tinged with a touch of something I recognize only too well; resignation.

"Yes, yes we are. Go home and take care of that hangover, and I'll call you later." And then she leans in quickly, and I can smell her hair as she kisses me on the cheek. I realize that the smell of her hair was threaded through my dreams last night. My hand is up, pads of my fingers tentative against the skin of my cheek where her lips were just a moment ago, and when she looks at me this time, her smile is all Spencer Carlin; open, kind and a tad mischievous. "'kay. I'm off to dash Glen's high hetero hopes."

I turn the car around, not wanting to watch her walk away. Five minutes later, after taking the seventh blind turn, I have to pull up. I don't know where I am. My forehead against the steering wheel, I briefly wonder if I will have to throw up. This is not hangover, I know. This is equal parts fear and excitement. There is more, I know, but I am not strong enough to take stock of it. I straighten up and slip my glasses back down again. How easy it is to get lost. How difficult to find your way again.

LA glitters in the sunlight before me, deceptively benign. I descend into the madness.

ii

I stared at Spencer, not believing what I heard. Her mom slapped her. The shock of hearing it was bracing. The "Can't leave home without breakfast" mother. The "Diagonally cut sandwiches" mother. Hit Spencer. Because of me.

Of course, Spencer didn't say that – she would never even intimate it, but I learned to read between the lines and hear the unspoken at an early age.

And Spencer… I could see how hard she tried to be flippant and breezy about it – straight from the Ashley School of Parental Dysfunction – but it's difficult to pull off the could-care-less attitude when you have to keep blinking away tears. I should know.

That was the first time I heard her voice on the verge of tears. I could have cried for her right then. But, instead, I followed her lead and threw out a joke about maternal mood swings and dangers of estrogen imbalance in women of that age. Spencer tried a chuckle, but it came out as a cross between a hiccup and a sob.

I undid my seatbelt and opened my arms. She looked at me, wide-eyed, and swallowed. For a second she teetered on the edge of deciding whether to try to tough it out or give in, and it nearly killed me to see her like that. Was it mere weeks ago that Spencer was a daughter going to the movies with her mother and receiving good-night kisses like all good girls do? A tear slipped down her cheek, and she slid into my arms and sobbed.

I held her then and didn't say anything. What could I say to her? "It will be okay"? "She didn't mean it, Spence"? "If they hit you, at least you know they still care"? Hold your tongue, Ashley. Instead, I let her cry, and kissed the top of her head; a pale substitute for what she lost.

Afterwards, I gave her a tissue and lent her my mirror as I drove us to school. Half-way there she turned the music on, loud. I looked at her. She smiled. Then she put her hand on my forearm and left it there. She didn't have to say anything – we had the music and the wind in our hair and we could make that be enough for a while. And - she tried to hit a high note in the song and I cringed - maybe it would be okay.

iii

My hands shake. This is not excitement. This is all fear. She is sitting under the sun, face turned up, eyes closed. Students buoy around her, talking, laughing and I am amazed, over and over again, how they fail to be struck dumb by the sight of her. I look away. Sunshine hurts my eyes.

If I go over there, she will smile, and complain about her math teacher, and ask me about my day. We will sit next to each other and laugh, like we have on days like these in weeks past, but none of it will be the same. I will put on my "Ashley knows best" face and tell her that her math teacher is taking his sexual frustration at home out on his students, and she will scrunch up her face in fake disgust and then laugh, and shake her head saying that I bring sex into everything, and then we will be making plans for later on that night and talk of clothes and – and we will be looking at each other the entire time, saying something completely different with our eyes. And everyone around us, all the jaded, knowing, disapproving eyes will notice the change, too. Spencer doesn't know the rules of the game. Spencer still doesn't know that you have to lie to live. And when I look at her, when she smiles at me, she makes me forget there is a game being played out there, and that it is a spectator sport.

I can't forget for long. Cue in Madison with her splenetic taunts. Notice the quiet glare of the homeroom teacher when Spencer leans in to close to me, and giggles. He is not upset about the noise; his gaze is on the hand she has laid on my arm, and left there, and I twitch under his eyes, and move my arm away. See the involuntary sneer on unknown faces as our hands brush when we walk by them. The rules change when you move from the sidelines and join the game.

And then there are the stares. I've gotten used to the thrumming wave of whispers in school corridors, the thin-lipped disapproval and the occasional bump-in in the hallways that is just strong enough to make it clear that it wasn't unintentional. It's a part of the daily routine now, and I have learned to give as good as I get. Some days it is almost fun – to see how many of them I can make back down. Some days you simply must find something to laugh about. The stares, though, they envelop her now, too. Every time her voice rings out in laughter to something I said just to make her laugh, eyes will be on her, judging, and weighing. Every time we meet in the hallways, pause to say 'hey, and 'what's up', they will be watching from the sidelines for the tell-tale signs of the dreaded lesbian affliction. They couldn't taint what was already tainted when it came to me, but they can do damage here. This is new. This is brand new and shiny and I want to protect her from all of it, from the mocking and the insults, from everything that will, day by day, turn this brand new thing we have into something dull and dirty, something fit for Ashley Davies.

And she... She is becoming bolder. She has learned that the Davies bravado crumbles like petrified chalk under her smile and renders me smitten and tongue-tied, and she is learning to play with that knowledge. Her touches are longer now, more pronounced, and she observes me as she lets her hand linger, head cocked to the side, a small smile on her lips. She has grown to revel in the effect she has on me. She watches as I spill my coffee when her hand brushes against the back pocket of my jeans. She notices the white-kunckled grip on my pen when she leans over me to look at my notes, breasts to shoulder blades. There are times I want her so badly I think my hands would burn her if I touched her. There were times I was sure she felt the same. I held back, wanting her to be sure. She has made me discover strength and control where I thought I only had want and selfishness. She doesn't want me to hold back anymore. I look around at the suspicious, hostile faces around us and realize she doesn't know what she is asking for.

There are times when I tell myself I can be strong enough, strong for both of us. I can protect her. I can be enough. You lie to live. I can't lie to myself.

I fist my hands to chase away the tremors. She waits for me on the bench, lunch break almost half-over. Turning away from her, then, and walking away is the easiest thing I have done in the last few months. I let her bask in the sunshine.