Never the Same

Twenty

"Aspen," Ryder says and I just smile and laugh, I feel like I'm going insane.

"You're not stable right now. Come back to me. Please be the girl that I met back in detention, the girl with the attitude and perfect smile. I miss her. I love her. Not this monster," Ryder says and holds his hand out for the pills, I shake my head and hold them close to my heart.

"Ryder. No. Please. I'm not happy here. Nobody cares. Let me do this," I say softly with tears running down my cheeks. I look at myself in the mirror and I don't see the girl that was head over heels for the quarter back or the confident perky girl that knew how to run a blog. I see a girl that's been drained of all happiness and color in her face, a girl that always has mascara down her face. I'm tired of that. Ryder takes a small step towards me and I open the bottle and put it to my lips. I slowly swallow every single pill without water, I get dizzy and fall down.

"Aspen, wake up," I hear a voice say and shake my shoulders. I slowly come out of the darkness that consumed me and I see Ryder, in his black and red pajama pants, in my room. I get up quickly and look around, were in my room, I'm wearing my plain white long sleeved pajama shirt with blue plaid shorts and grey knee high socks. I rub my eyes quickly.

"What day is it," I ask softly, I'm freaking out. I swear everything was so real, it was just a nightmare. My breath is heavy and rapid, I was drenched in sweat and I honestly didn't even care.

"The day after homecoming Aspen. Well more like early morning. It's two in the morning. Are you okay?" It was all a bad dream, all of it. My hair is still the same, Ryder never asked me out, but I want to dye my hair now honestly. I rocked it.

"Yeah. I'm fine. Kate's here right? I'm gonna go down stairs and start making breakfast." I send him an apologetic smile and put my hair into a messy ponytail and throw my glasses on.

"Wait. Lay with me, only for five minutes." He looked at my with puppy dog eyes and I couldn't say no I mean, he's the hottest creature I've ever seen. I smile at him and lay back down next to him with my back to him, he presses his front onto my back and wraps me in his arms. Then I remembered, Carmen. She probably hates me, oh well. I really don't like her but I can ask Ryder about them, can't I?

"Ryder," I ask softy and intertwine your fingers together.

"Mhm," he mumbles back softly, I start to play with his fingers.

"What about Carmen?" He didn't tense up, he just chuckled and I felt his chest vibrate on my back.

"My dearest Aspen, I broke up with her late last night. You have nothing to worry about." His lips pressed against my neck softly and I heard a camera sound go off and giggles coming from the hallway. I assume Kate, Alison and Blair were up, Ryder groans and let's go of my hand. He gets up and kisses my cheek. "Just come down when you're ready." I grab my phone off my bed side table and see I have three messages, from Taylor, Matt and Cam? But that was just in my dream, I shake it out and FaceTime Taylor. He answers after the third ring and says, "Aspen, what do you want?" He wasn't wearing a shirt and his morning voice was incredibly sexy.

"I just wanted to see... If you wanted to hang out today," I say and smile at him, I have a feeling that were gonna be good friends but I have a couple questions for him.