Spencer was supposed to hate Toby. He was the town outcast and bad boy. Her family basically ran the country club. As far as she was supposed to be concerned, Toby was of no importance. Alison felt the same way. Before her disappearance, there was the…Jenna thing. Of course he hated them from then, with good reason. But Ali just said it was the natural order of things. Her friends went merrily along after her.

But Spencer always felt like her own version of the outcast in her country-club-straight-A-popular-clique-tennis-playing-future-lawyer-type world. She loved her family in the sense that they were her blood and she enjoyed the company of her friends in the sense that they were her connection to the social world, but she didn't feel she fit in. And she rarely could find any justification or rightness in Ali's antics. But she was Ali; she certainly was not going to cross her and lose her sense of immunity from the evil in her veins. But because of this, she had a soft spot for Ali's prey. For everyone, really. But mostly Toby. He lived nearby to the girls, so they grew up in very close proximity. He always looked so sad…and then his mom died. And Ali never, ever quit giving him a hard time over what may or may not have been a crush on her at camp one summer. Spencer always trailed behind her girls, giving him a sympathetic look, a whispered apology, a human response.

Which is why when Spencer's crazy brother-in-law and ex-boyfriend tried to kill her in the bell tower, Toby didn't forget all the times she made him feel alive. He followed her, and he pushed Ian off. And then he ran. He's already been in legal trouble over the Jenna thing and couldn't afford to be charged with Ian Thomas' murder. He had his hood up, and he ran away, as fast as he could. Spencer barely saw who it was. But she was a Hastings: she had a hunch who the hooded figure running away was.

A few weeks later when things had settled, Spencer saw an opportunity and pounced: she signed up to tutor Toby in French. He was working on his GED at home since the Jenna thing, and needed some extra help. She took the case to see if she could grill him. She had a weird feeling in her stomach that it was him. She wasn't sure why it would be him; why he would help her when everyone thought he was so scary and dark, but she thought it was him.

She slowly approached his porch and lightly knocked on the door. All of her friends thought it was a bad idea. They were still convinced that he had killed Alison. But she had had her focus on Ian for a long time, despite her friends' doubts. She was nervous, more nervous than she should be.

When he opened the door, she could tell he was surprised to see her. "I'm here to, uh… you need a French tutor?" She stammered.

"You're my tutor?" he squinted. "Uhhh… come in." he led her right to his basement apartment under his dad's house.

"This is a cool pad. You have the whole downstairs?" She looked around, impressed.

"Yep, all mine." He sat on the couch in front of the coffee table.

They awkwardly went through different dialogues in French. They spent a long time talking about school stuff, mostly in French. She was finally closing her books, not looking up at him, when she blurted it out. "It was you at the bell tower…wasn't it?" she slowly looked up.

"I didn't mean to….hurt him. And I hope I didn't hurt you…" he spat it out so quickly and nervously, she could see him visibly shaken by the ordeal. "I just wanted to help. You...it didn't look good."

"Toby…Toby slow down. I wasn't blaming you." She shook her head. "I wanted to thank you…He was a horrible man, and you…I mean, I wouldn't be here right now."

"But instead he isn't…" he looked away. "I…killed him. I took away someone's LIFE. There's no coming back from that. I know he was bad, but he was someone's family…"

"Toby…he killed Alison…I'm pretty sure. And he tried to kill me. There's no reason to feel bad about what you did. I mean, I get it, but…don't, Toby. The police already think he fell when we were fighting and I was defending myself…you aren't going to get into trouble. If you didn't…I would be dead. I owe you. Big time. You're a hero." She reached out to touch his hand but he flinched, moving away quickly.

"I don't want to talk about it…I'll walk you out." He stood, touching his knees pushing down his bunched up jeans.

"We don't have to talk about it…but I don't want to leave you alone…now. You're upset… Uhmmmm…" she tried to think quickly. "I could stay. We could watch a movie, or play a game or something."

"What game?" he asked, not looking at her yet, still making up his mind.

"Well, what do you have?"

"Uhm, checkers, Scrabble, Monopoly… some video games."

"Scrabble! I love Scrabble! That's, like, my FAVORITE game. Nobody ever wants to play Scrabble with me…I'm kind of really good at it." She was beaming. She wanted to know more about the sad boy she spent years avoiding due to some unspoken rules of separation. The boy that saved her life. She also wasn't ready to go home yet. She hated being in her house, especially since Ian died and her sister moved to London. All eyes were on her, and she was never quite good enough.

"Okay," he started going through a cabinet to pull out the game. "But you should maybe think about switching to water," he smirked, nodding at her extra-large cup of coffee she was holding on to tightly.

"Sorry, I just haven't played games in…years, probably." She blushed.

They started to play and of course she was competitive. But he was really good. Much better than she thought he was going to be.

"Wow you're the biggest competition I've ever had with this game." She narrowed her eyes looking at how he used all his tiles on a stupid word like "Goofball" and got an absurd number of points. "

"You surprised?" He laughed. "Tutor gets schooled…" he mumbled. "I'm just bad at French. I've always done well in everything else. I could give you a run for your money Brainy Hastings."

"I didn't say I was smarter than you. I'm just good at this game." She smiled. "So you like school…well, learning…" she remembered he didn't go to school in the traditional sense of the word.

"I do, yeah. I like bettering myself. Getting stronger, smarter… Plus I'm good at it."

"I used to like school," she sighed. "There's just so much pressure now. I have to get into n Ivy League school, and…its all just a lot. I wish I wasn't smart sometimes. I think it would be less of a disappointment." Her family put tremendous weight on her to uphold certain standards. She wasn't congratulated for being smart when she did well, either. It was expected. It was either sour disappointment or nothing – no praise, because she was doing what was expected when she did well. It did a toll.

"That sounds…horrible, actually. Really bad. I want to go to college eventually, but I'd rather work… wow, Ivy League…"

"I don't even want it, honestly. But God forbid I don't go to Princeton like my sister and my parents and my grandparents…" she rolled her eyes. Her friends never let her go on about this stuff. She was supposed to be happy to have a family that was so elite and had the means to send her to Princeton. She was a brat for not wanting it. But really, she just wanted a break.

"So go somewhere else, it's not as hard as you think to break the cycle."

"My parents won't stand for anything else… you don't know them. They care more about status and what their friends think than they do anything else. I just can't stand disappointing them. And they won't pay tuition anywhere else." She sighed. "I'll get a chance to make my own choices when I'm older…probably." She put down a word using all her letters, looking proud of herself.

"If you say so," he did the same, but on a triple word score tile, beating her again. "Where would you go to school…if you could go wherever you wanted?" He asked.

She made a face. She never lost this game but he was beating her. "I don't know, honestly. Maybe somewhere in New York… or get far away…USC, maybe. Or somewhere in the South, get away from the busyness. Something not so competitive. What about you? Your plan?"

"I don't know. Probably get my degree online. Or go to a community school and then state school. But I don't want to stay in Rosewood either… getting far away would be nice."

They played for a while more; he beat her twice. "Crap," she grunted, helping him put away the game and looking at her watch. "I didn't realize what time it was. I'm already half an hour late to dinner with my parents. I have to go…but we WILL rematch." She smiled. "Text me if you need anything… or just need to talk, or whatever… Goodnight." She awkwardly kissed his cheek before hurrying out. But when she got home it turned out her parents hadn't noticed she wasn't home. She apologized quickly when they got home, thinking they'd gone out for dinner, but they had each apparently worked late and hadn't bothered to text her. They had no idea she wasn't home, and they didn't care.

Later that night she was sitting at her desk, having just finished up homework and getting ready for bed when her phone buzzed. She settled in bed and typed in her passcode and saw a notification from Toby Cavanaugh. He invited her to a Words With Friends game.

"Rematch is now ;)" he wrote in the chat feature of the app. "How was your walk home?" He asked, genuinely concerned for her safety. He was a big gentleman.

"Ugh. Long story short my parents didn't realize I wasn't home. I could have stayed out and taken my time and it wouldn't have made any difference whatsoever." She messaged back, smiling at her screen and overanalyzing the wink face he had sent in the initial invitation. She wanted to beat him this time.

"So, come back over. If they don't care if you're home…"

She re-read his message a few times before closing the chat box and making her next move.