She stared at the round clock, standing tall on the opposite side of the street. Their time was ticking quickly away.
Keep Toby safe.
She knew what she had to do, but his concerned tone when she called him and the way her mind was racing as she drove to meet him weren't making matters any better.
I only know one way to keep Toby safe. And that's to keep him away from me.
It should be like ripping off a band-aid, she thought, a mild sting when pulled away quickly and excruciatingly painful if done too slowly. But, no. There was no chance that removing Toby Cavanaugh from her life would be anything less than excruciating.
Hands trembling as she sat with him inside the antique truck that was his pride and joy. Her mouth, bone dry; she wasn't sure words would come if she could ever figure out which ones to speak.
"Spencer, you're scaring me." His voice broke the silence. "You said it was important, but you're not talking."
They had been staring straight ahead for what seemed like hours. She didn't want to see the look on his face when she broke the news. Her eyes were already stinging with the start of acidic tears and she tried her hardest to blink them back.
"It's because, I know when you hear what I have to say, you'll realize that I'm not the person that you think I am."
"No... that... that's not true," he muttered, turning to look at her.
She swallowed as a hard lump began to form in her throat. "I lied to you this morning. My dad told me a whole lot more than just to mind my own business."
He shrugged. "I feel like... we've been in this together... with your family and with Jason, too."
"Yeah... ," she whispered, nodding her head in agreement. There was no argument to that; they had been in this together, and that was why she had to get him away from her. She already put him in enough danger by letting him get so close. 'A' made it perfectly clear that he or she knew Toby was her Achilles' heel.
"So, what I don't understand is why you lied..."
All the time in the world wouldn't give her the pause to figure out how to sever the only relationship in her life she couldn't live without. She lied to protect him, and now, she was going to have to break his heart to keep protecting him.
"There's... there's so much that you don't know," she breathed as she finally looked at him, her brown eyes wide and glassy. "And I can never tell you."
Her words hung like a heavy cloud in the air for a moment as he searched her face, looking for some trace of what had been there just mere hours ago. They didn't seem like the same people.
"Don't you trust me?," he pleaded.
Yes, her mind cried. Yes, of course I trust you, she wanted to say. It took every fiber of her being to restrain herself from jumping into his arms and telling him everything, but it was her job to make him believe that they couldn't be together. Dr. Sullivan's life was at stake and if Spencer wasn't careful, the next person 'A' tried to hurt could be Toby.
She dropped her eyes and kept quiet, the silence piercing her ears at every passing second.
He sat back, away from her, hurt manifesting itself through the icy blue stillness of his eyes. "I thought we felt the same way about each other."
A deep breath. This was it. For a moment she wondered if he would ever be able to forgive her for what she was about to do. And then she decided that it might be in his best interest if he didn't. The longer he kept his distance from her, the longer she could be sure that he wasn't a target. Her lips quivered as the words began to spill from her mouth.
"Look, I found a way to survive my secrets, but everybody that I care about gets hurt. And you deserve to be with somebody who can be honest with you. So, I'm sorry..."
Her hand was opening the truck door and suddenly she was running. She needed to get as far away as possible. He jumped out after her and she could hear him calling her name in the distance.
Her feet pounded unevenly on the pavement as she ran further and further from him. Rounding a corner, she stopped at an overgrown tree to steady herself. She was taking in huge gulps of air, but still gasping for breath. Oxygen wasn't satisfying the searing pain she felt in the left side of her chest. This had to be what it felt like when one's heart actually broke.
She clasped a shaking hand over her mouth as the sobs began to overcome her body and she collapsed against the tree trunk, allowing the tears to finally pour from her eyes. All she could do was keep telling herself that the pain inflicted upon Toby at this moment was minor compared to what would happen if she held him as close as she wanted to. This wasn't about what she wanted; this was about keeping her soulmate far, far out of harm's way.
"Spencer... Spencer... wait!"
It seemed that she had disappeared before he could even force his way out of the truck. He slammed the door shut and laid his arm across the top, putting his head down onto it in disbelief
What had just happened?
She called him an hour previously to say she was coming to the job site, there was something important she needed to tell him. Nothing could've prepared him for the whirlwind that took place once she arrived.
It was the longest twenty minutes of his life. If asked, he couldn't even explain what went on. She admitted she'd lied to him that morning, about what her father said. He thought she trusted him, he thought they were in love, and she couldn't even answer him those questions. She didn't make a lot of sense as she rambled about not being who he thought she was, her secrets, and then... she was gone.
What could have possibly changed so much in such a short amount of time?
He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up expectantly, hoping to see her, but it was just one of his co-workers.
"Are you okay, kid?"
Toby shook his head as he fought back tears. He was definitely not okay. The only girl he ever loved, the girl he was sure he was supposed to spend the rest of his life with, had abandoned him with nothing but a confusing resignation.
"Well, don't just stand there... go after her!"
He stared at the man as the wheels in his head finally started to turn again. Of course he had to go after her, he wasn't about to let her go without a fight. The man nodded and stretched out his hand in the direction that Spencer had taken off.
Breaking into a run of his own, he hoped that his moment of self-reflection hadn't taken long enough for her to get very far. His work boots clamored against the hard pavement as he searched for her. Turning the corner at a white building with a thin black railing guiding it's steps, he stopped to examine his surroundings.
A little bit ahead of where he was standing, he saw an overgrown tree. The closer he looked at it, the faster he realized that there was a person at the base of it. And that person was her.
She was huddled in a ragged ball on the ground, shoulders shaking erratically. It tore him apart to see her like that and not have a single clue as to why both their world's were falling apart.
He ran closer and called out to her. "Spencer!"
She stood up unsteadily and turned to face him as he staggered over. "I don't care about what you can't tell me. I care about you."
Her eyes were puffy; large tears still streamed down her face as she tried to wipe them quickly away with the sleeve of her sweater. She shook her head and began to back away from him. "Toby. You need to go."
"I love you. Do you hear me? I love you," he replied.
She stopped and buried her head in her hands as the heart wrenching sobs took over her body once again. "Please," she begged," please just go. You are making this worse."
Standing in front of her, he threw his hands up in the air in disbelief. "I don't know what's going on, Spence, but what I do know is that we have never let each other go through something bad alone."
The sobbing slowed as he walked towards her. She she stretched her hand out to him, palm flat towards his face, trying to tell him that he needed to stay away from her. In his eyes, that wasn't an option.
"Whatever is going on, whatever secret's you have, whatever you can't tell me; it doesn't matter. I just don't want to lose you. You are everything." He approached and brushed her matted hair behind her ears with his hands. He used the pad of his right thumb to wipe a few of the still falling tears from her face.
She looked down at the ground. "That's why I have to do this," she whispered," because you are everything, too. I need you to be safe even if we can't be together. I can't explain it; I just know that if you don't keep away from me, something really bad could happen."
It killed him to be in the dark about something. He wasn't sure what could be much worse than what was happening right now. He was baffled as to what could be so bad that they needed to be apart and she wouldn't even tell him what it was. Looking in front of him at the broken rag doll that appeared where his usually no-nonsense, go-getter girlfriend should be standing, he began to think.
He knew this girl. Spencer never did anything without a reason. Though sometimes a tad rash and obsessive, she was the smartest person he knew. He began to realize that she wouldn't do this if she didn't think that it was the best solution to the problem she was facing. Even though he didn't think they kept secrets from each other, there was clearly something she just couldn't tell him. He prayed she wasn't putting herself in danger by trying to protect him from whatever force had this damning hold on her.
"Okay," he replied, taking her hands in his," I trust you."
She looked up. Her sad eyes roamed his face. After everything she had just said and done to him, he was willing to put it all aside because he loved her that much. She realized how self-less they could be for one another and a wave of peace rushed over her still breaking heart.
He felt a deep breath of air flow out of her lungs as her hands squeezed his before she let them drop. "Thank you," she said softly.
She turned and began to walk briskly away from him as he stood with his hands on the back of his head, arms bent in similar triangles. When she thought she was far enough away, she looked back at him and their eyes met one last time.
"I love you," she mumbled softly, knowing that he couldn't hear her.
He nodded after her when she turned back to him, as if giving her the okay to walk out of his life. He began to feel a hollowness in his chest when he, too, turned to walk away.
Moments later, back at the job site, he grabbed his tools and threw himself into the work there was to do. He vowed to keep himself busy. To let his girl have the time she was asking for even though he wanted to run to her at every second and make her realize they could work it all out together.
Something inside him said, let it be. Something inside him knew that this wouldn't be the end.