Ashley ✓

Fourty-Five | Doorframe

SOTC: Roses by benny blanco (with Juice WRLD ft. Brendon Urie)

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"Is there anything else you need?" Sienna asked from behind the bathroom door.

"No. Thank you, though," I replied from the actual bathroom, opening my Ziplock. "Everything else I need is in here."

"Yeah. Okay."

Seven days later, one duffel bag now contained all the essentials I needed to transfer to Hamilton Estate. I had already toured my new home after two FaceTime calls with Klein family. Belle wasn't lying when she'd driven me to the new home; all four of their members were the definition of lovely yet down to earth during their processing of me. Mrs. Klein and I especially got along; we both shared an undying love for lemonade and YouTube makeup tutorials. So that was good.

Anyway, I'd finally set that ziplock now full of my toiletries into the open duffel. I stared at its displayed contents for a very long time, deaf in to how my blinks slowed and how my breath felt in my chest. For there it was before me, the things I never thought would go into the same bag that took me to a complete stranger's house in central L.A. months ago.

"Hey, you good in there?"

Oh shit.

"Yeah, I'm good!" I called back to Sienna, my exclamation laced with a heightened pitch as I zipped the bag.

"Oh, yeah... that's good..."

"Sorry, I just spaced ou—" I began as I opened the door but stopped upon the sight of Sienna's blotched face, her tears streaming to a quivering mouth.

"Please don't leave us," she whimpered, bringing me in for a hug I took with grasping arms. We rocked each other there like Belle rocked me until she departed for the clinic, which marked the last time I'd see her.

"But since you are," Sienna continued when we finally let go, "call us everyday. No— video call. So I can at least pretend you never did and that you're at a sleepover with some friend and you'll be back."

"I will," I assured her quietly, smiling at the idea of her face still there.

"There's nothing they can do to make me hate you," she whispered after a pause, her thumbs rubbing against my arms. "I know I've said this literally every day since you left the bedroom but still. You're still the girl who lived here and became one of my best friends in the world, and no one will ever mess with that. Ever. Do you understand?"

I responded with initiating tighter hug than the first time around. For a few moments, we examined each other upon letting go again. I in particular fell into the messy gloss her eyes had become, knowing in my heart that each syllable of one of the best girls I'd ever known's words rang true.

It was afterward we descended the stairs, and we stopped at the sight of Fedor's famously backwards hat and baby blue jersey when we entered the kitchen. He turned— no, practically whipped— to us swiftly at the moment of our arrival.

"What's wrong?" Sienna asked when we both registered his immediate look of horror.

"Uh—" he started, but the sound morphed to one in vain instantly. From the sliding glass door that very second came a man, who donned a kid on his hip and a graphic tee of a boxer he tried on for the first time before me at Pacsun just a month and eight days ago. The millisecond we locked eyes, his ripped away from mine, all thirty-two of his teeth grinding against each other.

"Sorry about this, bro," he muttered to Fedor. "Boss needs me in ear—"

"Asley!" Xavier exclaimed, and I knew even during my staring contest with a crack in the wooden floor, he was pointing at me with a smile emitting the brightest illumination on the globe's hemispheres.