I never left

"Tell me again why we are here?" Ash asks while trying to look over the top of the restaurants overly large menu currently obstructing her view and keeping her from glaring at her brother.

Blake scoffs at his Sister. "We are here to celebrate, you, finally coming back home and my, now, cheaper rent." Blake coughs out the last part, not really wanting Ash to hear it.

Ash sighs and puts the menu down on the table with a reverberated smack. She trains her eyes on her brothers face.

He's scruffier then Ash remembers he was.

Remembers a time when her brother would stare at him self in the mirror counting his chin hairs and being frustrated with the hair that refused to grow. His auburn hair touches his clavicle now. Ash thinks its must of grown several inches since the last time she saw her brother. Guess when you've been away for almost two years living across the country, time will do that.

"You just had to put that last part in, huh?" Ash gives her brother an expecting look, waiting for his answer.

"If I am gonna spend money on food with these prices," He nods his head down at the menu laying on his side of the table and points a finger at something on it that caught his attention.

"Twenty bucks for a burger?" His eyes double in size. "Yeah I am saying we both achieved greatness."

"What is that? A saying from one of those fantasy games you play?" Ash says through giggles.

He gives her a pointed stare while scoffing at her. "They're called 'Role Playing Games' Let me have this one, A." Blake whines out

Ash looks at her brother like he's grown three heads. "Like thats any better, Might as well say you spend all your free time dressed in tights and parading in medieval attire." She retorts back

Blake opens his mouth to say something back but the trill of his phone stops him from uttering a word. He looks down at his phone sitting face up on the table. Ash's eyes follow those of her brothers but before she can even read the name of the caller. He swiftly picks up his phone, ignores the call and places it back on the table. This time, face down.

Ash glares at her brother while he sticks his head back in to those of the confines of his menu. "Figure out what you'd like yet?" Blake tries to swiftly change the topic of discussion but he also knows his sister. Knows she won't let this one go.

"Don't try and change the subject." Ash grits out. She knows her brother too well. Knows him like the back of her hand.

Blake is more of a person who likes to sweep things under the rug. While Ash is more of a realist. Sees the world for what it is and not what postcards portray, in colorful pictures of exciting new places.

They may be siblings but they are opposites in every way of the word.

"Im not." Blake shrugs it off like nothing unusual just happened. He silently sends a prayer to the universe that his Sister would just back off. But beggars cant be choosers.

"Who was it? Ash continues to watch her brother. He's antsy. Tells her everything she needs to know. Who ever called him is someone he doesn't want to tell her about but Ash has to know, who.

"Who was who?" Blake tries to down play it. Will play dumb for as long, as he needs to. If it means keeping his sister calm.

"Don't do that, Blake."

Blake looks at Ash with pleading eyes wanting nothing more than to change to topic.

"Im not."

Blake flashes his sister a toothy grin before his eyes decided the indent on the table looks better to look at, than his sisters questioning gaze. He reaches for his drink with down turned eyes and downs the last gulps of his ice water.

Ash looks at her brother across the small table, suspiciously. Her arms are crossed over her chest and sipping on her water with a judgmental stare.

His phone rings again, Ash takes it as an opportunity to attack. She hurls herself forward and grabs the phone off the table before her brother can stop her.

"Give it back," Blake goes to snatch the phone from her grasp.

Ash pushes her brothers face away with her palm, She glances down at the phone screen and gasps. "Why did Sam just call you?"

Blake grabs the phone out of her hand. Ash remains frozen. Stunned by her finding on her brothers phone. All logical thoughts are thrown out the window at this point. The man she hadn't spoken to, since the last time she saw him two years ago, right before she left, is now calling her brother and his best friend.

Ash frowns when memories of the last night she saw him, floods her mind.

Flashback (2 years ago)

"Why are you doing this?" Sam questions his friend. Is dumbfounded by the fact she would accuse his girlfriend of almost three years of cheating on him.

Ash grits her teeth, angry that someone she has called friend for most of her life, wouldn't believe her. She knows what she saw when she was at the restaurant with a few of her friends, celebrating their completion of the first semesters of college. All home for Christmas break.

"Im not doing anything but showing you the truth. If it was any clearer it would punch you in the face." Ash lets out an exasperated breath, upset that her friend is questioning her, especially since the visuals are still so fresh in her head, since it was not that long ago that she saw what she saw.

Ash was bored out of her gourd, listening to her friend, Chelsea talk about her new, Boo. She had moved to California for college and came back with a rock the size of Texas on her finger, said they had met while salt river tubbing. Girls always been care free. Bonded over salt water and Margaritas on a inner tube; and the rest was history.

Ash zoned out after the mention of Margaritas for the third time. She was to occupied starring at the couple sitting at the booth straight across from them.

“Enough!" Sam grits out angrily. His words scorching her skin and bolting her in place before continuing."I cant talk to you about this anymore, Ash. Not tonight before you leave back for school." Sam lets out a Frustrated breath and starts pushing back his curls from the front of his over heated face. Upset they are even having this conversation.

Sam wasn't just her brothers best friend but also hers. The three of them had been stuck at the hip for as long as she can remember. Guess that happens when your mothers have been friends since the eighth grade. The two of them were inseparable. Ash doesn't think she remembers a weekend she didn't see him or his mom.

Every weekend, unless someone was sick, they would see the Taylor's. Like clock work every Sunday at Three in the afternoon, Judy, the boys mom, would drag the boys along for dinner, sometimes against their will and would always show up with her famous strawberry shortcake in hand as a thanks for the meal there families would share, together.

Ash closes her eyes, tightly shut, cringing from his rough words with her. This isn't how she thought her last night back home would be spent.

Not like this.

Not with her feeling the tethered string of their friendship being cut away. She feels the tug on her heart and the tears that well up in her eyes from his cruel words.

Ash cant believe someone she has cared so deeply about her whole life would dismiss her for some girl, so easily.

"This must be a dream?" Ash wonders. It's her only explanation for what's actually happening right now.

"Then we have nothing left to talk about." Ash says out slowly. The words feel like venom when she spits them out but she feels like it needs to be said. Wants him to realize he messed up. She's so unbelievably hurt by what he's said.

Ash wants nothing more than to run far away and hide under her blankets on her bed, wasting away for days on end until someone pulls her out of her make shift cocoon and forces her to be a person again.

That days not today though.

Ash turns away from her friend and heads back towards the front door to his and her brothers, shared apartment.

Sam reaches out to try and stop her from leaving, but he stops. He feels like the biggest dick in the world right now for saying what he did. Wishes he could take it back, but doesn't want to believe his Ashley, would ever do that to him. He doesn't actually believe someone he loved and shared his bed with would ever stoop so low to cheating on him, Would she?

Ash holds onto the handle of the door, She stalls for a moment allowing herself a chance to breathe, She doesn't turn around to look to see where he is. Doesn't feel like he deserves that kind of care.

Ash hopes and prays she's actually wrong and it was a mirage she saw but she knows what she saw and it wasn't Ashley with Sam, lip locked at the booth, hands all over one another. No it was an unknown man, Ash had never seen before, stroking the side of Ashleys breasts, while sitting in a booth for everyone to see.

Ash wasted no time after spotting the two together. She didn't even finish her outrageously priced salad before she high tailed it out of there. Going as fast as she could towards Sams house. Wanting only to tell her friend the truth, instead of letting him find out months down the line, that his girl was a cheater and a snake.

Ash grits her teeth, knuckles turning white from how hard she is holding the door in her grasp, she blinks the tears away. "Goodbye, Sam." She whispers out. Ash opens the door, feeling the cold whip across her face. This was it, the last time she would see him for however long it may be and this is how it ends? Ash has had enough, she disappears through the front door and vanishes away into the shadows of the night.

Away from him and away from this place.

Present

"Ash?" Her brother snaps his finger in front of her face.

Ash shakes her head, waking herself up from the impromptu day dream she just experienced.

"Thank you."

Blake nods his head at his sister, Worry written on his features. "You okay?" He couldn't help but ask, saw the off look in her face, She may be his annoying little sister but he loves her none the less.

Ash nods her head at her brother. "Yeah." She clears the lump in her throat. "I am okay."

"You left there for a second, where did you go?"

Ash huffs. "Its nothing. I promise, I am okay."

Liar. Ash's subconscious, yells back at her.

Blake sighs. He reaches out and squeezes his sisters hand laying flat on the table top across from him. "Look. If it's a problem I invited him here, I will text him to leave. But Ash-" Blake pauses, trying to find away to say this without making his sister upset with him.

Blake blows out the puff of air out of his lips, before continuing. "We both have know him our entire life and I know he didn't mean anything by what he said two years ago. It was a hard time for him between the divorce of his parents and you leaving. Im not excusing his actions. But- I don't think it's worth losing him over either."

Ash cringes at her brothers words. She knows he is right. Of course he is, it's Blake after all. The man could be portrayed as a little flippant. But he has his moments. Moments, where he actually gives the best advice in certain situations- just doesn't ever take any of it for himself.

Ash closes her eyes. Cant fathom what's going to pass her lips. feels like an out of body experience taking over when she says. "Okay, he can come." Ash drops her hold of her brothers hand and lays them back on the table top, crossed.

Blake tries to hide the smile that so desperately wants to spread across his face, he bites his cheek, Hard. To control himself.

Blake grins at his sister with excitement."Great! Because he is outside waiting for my text, right now, for the green light."

Ash clicks her tongue and rolls her eyes at her brother. "Of course, he is." She should of known better than saying yes when it came to Blake. The man had a master plan from the get go. She just didn't see it until now.