Calm me with your lies your simple tragedy
It’s all I wish to hear tonight
and you’re all I wish to be
And this is how we all fall

Tonight my heart is cold
Lost in your lies, shallow replies
Tonight I’ll just let go
Lost in your eyes, transparent cries

                But that night was different, on my end at least.  That night I was all too well aware of what I could have.  My heart had been frozen over for months, and now that it had begun to thaw, the truth came pouring out from unbandaged wounds.  I still wanted Ashley.  But here I was with Carmen, willing her to lie to me, to hit me even, because I was used to it.  I wanted the predictability of a life with a girl who could never quite explain the tragedy of her past, who could never look me in the eyes when she promised to stop drinking.  It was stable, it was comfortable, and it was everything I wished I could be happy with.  Because it was so much more emotionally easy than being with someone I wanted to give my entire being to.

And we are, we are, we are the arsons
who start all of your fires

And we are the arsons
who start all of your fires, burning
Burning your city down

                Her number was still on my phone, despite my whole hearted resolve to delete it as soon as I got back from our meeting.  Long after the girl beside me had passed out, I lay there trying to breathe.  I don’t know why I kept trying when my oxygen was so far away.  I pulled my phone out, to stare at the numbers without a name.  Someone who wasn’t even there was pulling my carefully constructed façade down, penetrating all my walls.  Once again I thought of how bitterly unfair the whole situation was.

Tonight my heart is cold
Lost in your lies, shallow replies
Tonight I’ll just let go
Lost in your eyes, transparent cries

                So there I lay, long into the night, with my cell phone open and her number illuminated on the screen.  Her name wasn’t there, I hadn’t saved it.  If only I had realized the futility of trying to stay away.  Even I was surprised when I saw that a call was connecting, that my treasonous thumb had pressed send.

                “Hello?” a groggy voice came on the other end.  For a moment I was stunned and dwelled only on the fact that she still sounded wonderful.

                “Hi, Ashley.  It’s  . . . uh . . . it’s Spencer,” well I sounded just eloquent.  Forget Barack Obama, put me at the podium.

                “Spencer, hey.  What’s up?” she sounded just as surprised as I had felt a moment ago.  I suppose something about me telling her that all her words meant nothing and I didn’t care what she said.  What a lie that was.  And in that instant, I knew, I had to see her.  I had to have her know that I wasn’t just some cold hearted bitch that threw away the one thing that had once kept me sane.

                “I was just wondering, if maybe, we could, I don’t know, get together and, you know, talk,” seriously, I’d rock a speech.

                “Sure.  Yeah.  When?”