De Nile
Spencer's pretty sure that what she feels for Ashley is friendship.
She didn't really try on on every outfit she owns before settling on this one. Never mind that much of her clothing is strewn about the room from yesterday, in need of washing because Ashley tried it on in an impropmtu fashion show and it still smells of her in that girly-but-not-Spencer way.
It isn't as though she gets butterflies in her stomach every time they're together, or about to be together, or when she thinks about being together or just plain being in a world with Ashley, because she never has these thoughts. She never has these thoughts because she never has thoughts of a world without Ashley, who surely must be as much a part of the world as the ground beneath her feet and as essential as the water running through it. But she never has these thoughts either, because that would be acknowledging those butterflies she doesn't have or something like that.
She's sure she never thought about kissing Ashley. Never thought about what it would be like to hold her twice as tightly as she's ever dared, her hands on Ashley's cheeks, their bodies pressed together, a soft chest against her own. And she's never, ever thought of doing more than that. Ever. Because that would just fulfill the puerile fantasies of her brother and just about every other guy at school from what she's heard.
Never mind that sometimes she wakes up, knowing she's been dreaming of Ashley, and her thighs are sticky. Forget that she thinks of Ashley at the most inconvenient times, like during dinner when she thinks of how Ashley's lips pursed around her straw at lunch and Spencer nearly chokes on her own drink, or during class, causing her to miss the teacher's question and inciting the class to laugh at her wrong answer.
No, these things never happen. They can't, because there's dozens of words for girls who think about other girls like that, and she's heard them all yelled at Ash as they're walking down the hall together.
She's not ready to hear them directed at herself.