Disclaimer: I don't own.
A/n: been meaning to post this since the finale. It isn't fantastic, it was written in a rush, but I like it. So. Enjoy, reviews are love.
When he asked her to call first if she ever felt like running away again, she agreed but knew she wouldn't have to.
She was strong, she was brave, and she knew running away never helped anything. She wasn't seven anymore and the things in her life couldn't be changed by changing states.
And yet she's standing here on her porch with an old backpack and her finger hesitating over the first speed-dial number.
Is it right to pull him into this?
"…Leaving Rosewood?"
"Well, that depends."
"On what?"
"Different things."
"Name three."
"Well, I can only think of one right now."
She knows it's what he would want. He would want her to call. He would want to go with her. He wouldn't let her leave alone.
But as always, it doesn't come down to what he wants. It comes down to what's best.
Because she has a habit of doing what she thinks is right without asking what others think. She has a habit of making decisions for everyone, most especially Toby. She's hurt him enough and if she runs away, he'll be safe for good.
And this proves to her that she loves him.
Because sometimes love is bigger than keeping promises. And sure, maybe she's never seen a movie where pushing the person away was the happy ending, but this is real life. And none of those people have a psychopath threatening the person they love.
Because she would kiss Wren. She's a mess and a mistake and she almost doesn't care if he gets hurt. He isn't Toby, she won't protect him.
She stares at the cell phone in her hand. One button. Just one movement of her fingers and she'd have his voice on the other line. She could apologize. She could tell him the truth. She could hurt him more and more, like she always is just by being there. They're a timebomb and they've already blown up.
She thinks of his face at the police station. She's never had anyone care about her that much. She's never had anyone scream her name like that, never heard anything so desperate and heartbreaking. Never wanted to crawl into a ball and cry so much. And never needed someone so much, never wanted to crash into someone's arms so badly.
She thinks of his breaking voice as he shouted at her. I love you, Spencer.
Before him, no one had ever said that to her.
She thinks of how she walked away, fighting tears. She thinks how maybe he won't pick up the phone if she calls. She thinks how maybe he doesn't care if she runs away.
And she thinks how maybe she deserves that.
Because sure, she's saving him (she's convinced herself that's the truth), but he doesn't want to be saved. Sure, she's being some great martyr in her own head, but it's killing them both, and some little part of her can't believe she's listening to a little capital letter on her blackberry before listening to her own heart.
She stares at the screen, her finger on the number two. Would he even pick up?
If it was the other way around, she knows she wouldn't.
Because he's better at loving than she is. She's good at being independent and fierce and strong and acting like she doesn't need a soul in the world, like she's perfectly fine, even though she's been through hell. He's not afraid to admit that he needs her. And she might get those words out, but she always chokes on them.
She thinks of the way he looked at her when he said it.
"I love you so much."
"I wanted to say that first."
She did want to say that first. She wanted to allow herself to trust someone enough to say that. It's always been different with Toby than with anyone else, and she wanted him to know that.
But although it's been implied, she's never actually told him that she loves him. Never.
She looks at the phone. It isn't fair to call him. He would do so much more for her. She shoves the phone in her pocket, and grabs her keys. She throws the old backpack in the backseat of the car, and reverses without thinking.
His house is just down the street, but she's not intending on staying in this town. She parks a couple houses down, afraid to park in the driveway. She forces herself out of the car, forces herself to stand on the porch. She's terrified and that's hard to admit to herself. She doesn't like being scared.
Her finger hovers over the doorbell, but she can't manage to make herself ring it. She just can't.
This shouldn't be so hard, the front door so imposing, her hands shaking. It shouldn't be, but it is.
Some part of her knows that she never really intended to leave with him. It sounds too much like some fairytale endings, and she doesn't deserve that.
And because, although she's never admit it to herself, she's a coward, she pulls out a scrap of paper and a pen, and promises herself to at least leave him a note. Her pen hesitates over the page, and writes the first thing on her mind. She stops, and stares at the page. She scribbles out the first sentence, and scrawls two small words on the paper. It's not enough, but neither is she. She doesn't sign it, because she knows he'll just know, just like he always does. She grabs a stone from the garden and secures the note on his porch, before escaping down the street and into the passenger seat.
She forces herself not to cry, because she's cried herself out over the past few days. She guns the engine, and takes familiar roads through this small town until she reaches the straight stretch that leads to the "Rosewood" sign. She has to pull over because her vision's too blurry with tears, as she thinks of the night she drove this stretch with him in the passenger seat. It could be the same tonight, but for her own pride and cowardice.
Because once she loses something, she never goes back for it. She pretends she never wanted it in the first place.
Ten minutes later, she pulls herself together. She doesn't know where she's going – to sunny skies, or starlit boardwalks, or empty country highways, but wherever it is, it isn't here. Slowly, she pulls back onto the road, and puts her foot to the gas.
Toby runs his fingers through his hair for maybe the fiftieth time that hour. He's exhausted and broken and still doesn't understand how one night he can be kissing her passionately in his truck, and the next afternoon she's telling him that it's all over.
He rubs his eyes. He's gotten no sleep at all. Maybe he needs to go for a walk.
He looks out the window. Clouds are gathering and it looks like a storm. He doesn't care.
When he throws open the door, he trips over a rock on the porch. Confused, he stares down at the slip of paper caught underneath it. Trash? A flyer?
No, he realizes, as he leans down. A note.
The moment he sees the handwriting, hope pulses through him. It's irrational, but it's still there.
But as it turns out, he shouldn't be hoping at all.
There are two words on the sheet, under a scrawled out scribble.
I'm sorry.
His nails are leaving crescent-shaped marks on the palms of his hands and he's biting his lip so hard that it's begun to bleed, and he's trying so damn hard to fight the tears pressing at his eyes, and he forces himself to decipher what it is that she scrawled out at the top of the page.
When he does, he throws the note off the porch, and almost hates her. It's salt in a wound and she's killing him.
He slams the door on his way in, and leaves her messy inken message to be pelted by the first raindrops of that afternoon's storm, one that he watches from his window, and she watches from the driver's seat. The words and scribbles bleed out across the paper until they're illegible, until they're meaningless smears, until it's almost as if he never read them at all.
I love you, Toby.