It wasn’t that I didn’t want to move in with Ashley, fit myself nightly against her bodily shape and fall asleep, become way too easily embarrassed when she catches me watching her as she chaotically assembles breakfast in the kitchen, take an absurd amount of pride in her congratulatory hug when she sees that I’ve found her vacuum (still in the box) and made good use of it, or bite my bottom lip in anticipation when I hear the alarm of her key in the lock and make myself look busy and not like I’ve been responding to every noise for the last twenty minutes thinking—incorrectly—that it was her coming back to me.

I wanted that. God, did I want that.

But it was so soon. Ashley and I seemed to be working on some alien clock that didn’t always correspond with what was realistic or feasible. I didn’t want us to fall apart because of something as simple as rushing a good thing. There was no need to push, and sometimes Ashley’s rushing seemed like fear that everything had to be done now—before I ultimately left her alone again. This wasn’t the case. Not hardly.

I needed to make room for everything. Because the last few weeks had only been about Ashley. I had school and thinking and walking and breathing and Kyla. I had Kyla. And she was my best friend. She was the one aspect of my life that Ashley could never overshadow or consume. Because it wasn’t an option. Because she could be everything else, but she couldn’t be her own blood. It made no scientific, biological, common sense. It was impossible. But it was the way it was.

She had sent me a text message, and I read it as soon as I ended my call with Kyla. I still felt a tiny jolt of excitement just from seeing the “1 New Message from Ashley” on the bottom of the tiny screen. It felt strange to respond so warmly to something as cold as technology. Her message read:

no pressure spence. See you 2nite mybe?

I wanted to respond immediately, but I had to have a serious talk with Kyla before I agreed to spend the night with Ashley. I had to juggle the brunette sisters as usual in some frustrating, mostly unsuccessful circus act. And I was such a wicked perfectionist that doing something again and again never to become better at it, never to have a breakthrough, was the modern girl’s version of torture.