Ashlyn's Pov:

{ December 15th, 2021 }

~

My eyes dropped as I walked back to my dorm after taking my Border Collie emotional support dog for a walk. It had been the first time I'd been able to leave the indoors and venture out into the city for a week and a half thanks to my ex girlfriend giving half the NYU theatre department the Rona on tech week and causing our show to get shut down for the second time this month. But I guess her large unmasked Christmas parties with her sorority were more important than our hard work.

And I guess our relationship was all fine and dandy and she would support me through anything until I got the role she wanted in Les Mis. And I guess I'm just average and get handed things on a silver platter just because I got here on the highest scholarship. And I guess the personal secrets I told her about me failing out of my Pre-Med major and being on the verge of the same thing happening with my plan B Engineering major were never important to keep, because now the I'm being told by a few petty theatre majors that if I can't handle a D in Organic Chem and switch majors instead of retaking the class, I certainly won't survive an audition in the "real industry".

Okay, maybe I'm overly salty about the events of the last few months, but it just feels like life has gotten a million times harder and way less enjoyable lately. I went from a solid 4.0 to barely scrapping a B minus in most of my classes, I've lost my motivation for theatre and feel like I'm dragging myself to rehearsals most days. Honestly, I'm just burnt out, and going through two major breakups and getting stabbed in the back by one of those exes when I finally had the courage to even try a girl, it hurts.

I haven't been that happy girl I used to be since way back in high school, and I miss her. I miss that cheerful girl I was when I had a stable group of close friends, a stable relationship with the person I thought was my soulmate, stable grades, everything was just - you get the point - stable.

As much as I've tried to expand my horizons and make new friends here, I've found myself really only able to connect with Carlos, the one other person from high school that got into and committed to NYU. He continually says it was a fluke and he didn't know how he got in with his sub-par grades, but he really doesn't give himself enough credit. I mean how many high schoolers have head choreographed multiple shows? I've had the luck of being able to room with him this semester since NYU allows gender neutral housing assignments and that's helped us all stay mostly in the loop with our old group, even if we're not all as close as we once were. Well, our old group minus one.

~

"Do you ever knock?", Carlos looked up from his phone where he was sitting on our small couch, simultaneously watching Glee, blaring Red, Taylor's Version in the background and doing whatever he was doing on his phone.

"I mean, you don't", I shot back, hearing a jumbled "hi Ash!" coming from the speaker of his phone by a voice I recognized to be a certain shady blonde boy who is still very fond of Carlos. I quickly threw on a slightly forced smile and grabbed the phone from his hand as Carlos sarcastically glared at me.

"Oh my God Sebby! How are you! How are your finals going?"

Seb had taken a gap year after graduating with me, Carlos and Gina in 2019 to work on his family farm for a bit, before heading into a Veterinary Tech program back at a community college in Utah. Seblos was still going strong after all these years and distance (granted Carlos isn't exactly poor and can afford to hop on a plane whenever he feels like it and visit him). I really want to be happy for them but it still stings. Why couldn't I have had that success with my high school sweetheart, or ex sweetheart, or whatever?

"I'm good! But more importantly how about you, how are you feeling?" His eyes dropped with a hint of genuine concern.

"Oh I'm doing better" I told him, "I'm out of quarantine now and all my symptoms are gone. I'm just tired."

"That's good to hear but I didn't mean just Covid, you know what I mean."

I felt my face fall, "I-" I stuttered with a slight crack in my voice, "I'm honestly choosing not to think about it."

"Oh Ash, I'm so sorry. You deserve so much better."

So Carlos must have explained to him the whole story of what had happened.

"If I'm being honest part of me is relieved. Don't get me wrong I liked her, but I guess I just wanted to believe I was more into it than I was."

"Because it's been over a year and you're still not over a certain someone who ghosted you?"

I could feel my cheeks getting a little hot at that, "Oh would you drop it? It's a sore subject!"

I could have sworn I saw him smirk a bit as he teased, "sore subject indeed" before returning serious again. "I'm proud of you Ash and I'm sending you the biggest hug right now. You are the last person that deserves to be backstabbed."

"Aww Sebby, you have no idea how much I appreciate it, I can't wait to catch up over winter break!"

My eyes glanced at his smiling face on the phone screen before shifting to see Carlos's sarcastic glare once again while he was standing next to me.

"Welp I think your boyfriend wants me to give him his phone back. Good luck on the rest of your finals!"

The blond boy's face contorted in a silly mouth drop, "Caswell steeling people's phones! The deja vu!", he joked.

"Oh hush! Listen, I'm passing you over to Carlos before he gets cranky with me and makes me do the dishes."

~

After passing the torch back to Carlos, I found myself staring at the ray of white hanging lights with pictures attached on the wall above my desk. I had already taken pictures of my ex girlfriend down but interestingly I couldn't bring myself to take down the old pictures from high school with Big Red in them.

There were all sorts of group photos from our annual Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve parties, and various cast group pictures from the shows we've been in together, but the one I kept going back to was a professional photo of just the two of us at his Junior prom. We were all decked out in pastel yellow after I had played Belle in the musical and he insisted in his usual genuinity that I looked lovely in yellow, and he showed up to my house a half an hour early that morning with a bouquet of bright red Beauty and the Beast inspired roses as he called me a princess. It will always be one of my favorite core memories.

Just then, Carlos snatched the photo I was looking at from the clip it was attached to.

"Hey give it back!", I tried to wrestle the laminated cardstock out of his hand but he kept a solid firm grip on it.

"I'm telling you Ash, we know you're not over what happened and that's okay. But it's not healthy to stare at this picture and long for something that's not there. He ghosted you and you deserve to move on and find better."

"It's not that easy!" I rebuttaled before sighing, "And it's just that the Big Red I knew in high school would not have just ghosted me with no reason. Something had to have happened to him."

"Still he didn't give you a reason, he didn't explain himself. It's his loss Ash."

"I guess," I muttered and took the picture back setting it gently on my desk.

~

That night after Carlos fell asleep, I found myself staring at the picture on my desk once again.

"Biggie", I picked the picture up brushing the dust off of it and whispering softly, "If you're out there, and I pray that you still are, I hope that you're okay."

The heartache came and the lump in my throat grew tighter as I clipped the picture back onto it's light and fell asleep shortly after.