iHate Who I've Become
Chapter 2: Clueless, Naïve Teenagers
Twenty minutes later, Spencer arrived on the eighth floor of the Plaza via the elevator, and slowly walked to the front door of the apartment he shared with his younger sister. Before going in, he took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair a couple of times, trying to smooth it down.
Turning the door's handle, he walked right in. That was one thing that never changed at the Shay's—the door would almost always be unlocked. The idea in general was probably dangerous, but for some reason no one ever took the half-second it took to lock the door. Lately, though, the paranoia eating away at him had him locking the door every time it was used, and he would yell at Carly later for leaving it unlocked.
"Hey, Spencer!" the trio called to him from upstairs. Freddie had recently installed a sensor on the front door up to the iCarly studio where a bell would ding every time someone opened the front door to the apartment. It was very similar to how businesses know if they have a potential customer entering or leaving the building.
"Hey, guys!" Spencer yelled in the direction of the stairs, making a beeline to his bedroom so he could change his clothes. Yes, the clothes he was wearing now were clean, but they still had a faint smell of that place. The disgusting place he went a couple times a week for work.
After changing into a yellow T-shirt with a picture of a monkey eating a banana on it and a pair of black sweatpants, he walked back into the main area of the apartment. It was quiet, and he strolled over to one of the stools along the island and logged on to the computer, instantly checking the Internet's history log. After finding nothing out of the ordinary, he logged off and boarded the elevator behind him, heading up to the iCarly studio.
He was welcomed again as he walked to the middle of the studio and flopped down a beanbag. Freddie was messing around with the computer and cameras at his station, while Carly and Sam stood in front of the cart tossing around future show ideas before practicing the opening dialogue for their next show.
Spencer could do nothing but just sit there and watch the kids interact, amazed. He knew that he should probably stop referring to them as kids, though, as they were in high school and constantly surrounded by things that could negatively influence them every day. He feared that one day Carly would come home drunk and addicted to drugs, at the same time pregnant by a man she barely knew in a careless one-night stand. But yet here they were, standing around in his apartment without a care in the world, seemingly so naïve and innocent as they chatted and laughed. Sure, Sam had a bit of a criminal past and still did illegal things on an almost daily basis, but he knew that deep down she was a good kid.
Spencer looked around the studio and saw that, even though they were not filming, all of the lights and other knick knacks around the studio were turned on. Each month the electricity bill was a nightmare, and probably a good 85% of the apartment's electricity was used in this room alone. He just couldn't pay for everything on his own—there were bills for electricity, water, utilities, cell phones, cable, the domain name, his personal internet subscriptions, and more. The bills just didn't seem to ever stop.
Spencer paid a couple hundred dollars in bills a month, and then there was an extra $350 or so spent every other week at the grocery store. He was just buying groceries for his apartment, but extra food was constantly needed since he was usually always feeding two extra mouths besides him and Carly. Then there were the other friends they may bring home or the rare times he brought home a date himself. In any case, the food seemed to be gone before he could even fully stock his pantry.
Of everyone that he feeds on a regular basis, Sam easily eats the most. She will go through about $30-50 worth of food a day, or sometimes within an hour at his house. She gets terribly sick in her stomach if she eats cheap meat, so Spencer always gets the excellent meat with the scary price tag, only because he knows that she doesn't have money of her own, will not get enough food in school, and has a troubled home life. He actually considers her more of another younger sister than just her sister's friend.
Extra money is very hard to come by, especially since Spencer is the only one bringing in income and can barely pay the bills as it is. People still come to him for sculptures, but he only sells about one or two sculptures a month; three if he is lucky. Regardless, the money does not last long—it is gone in the blink of an eye or, more accurately, in the click of a mouse.
Carly never asked Spencer about the bills, and he was too bullheaded to go to their Granddad for help. He used to get money wired to him once a month from his father and Granddad before iCarly started. However, after the incident with the hammers, Granddad stopped sending money out of spite. He just wanted Spencer to admit that he was no longer fit to take care of Carly so he could take her to Yakima with him. And because his father sided with Granddad, Spencer called him up and said that he would be able to take care of Carly completely on his own.
Spencer thought it was in their best interests that they didn't fully know what was going on, anyway. Can you imagine what would happen if they found out that their son and grandson, who was trusted the life of their 15-year-old daughter and granddaughter, was out doing unspeakable, downright disgusting things with strangers all the time on camera for money? They would both deem him an unfit guardian in a millisecond, take Carly away from him, and bring shame to the Shay name.
Spencer just couldn't lose Carly. If she was forcibly taken away, he'd probably go crazy and commit suicide. It sounded downright drastic, and maybe it was, but it's true. She was the one thing on this Earth that reminded him that not everyone and everything was bad.
"Spencer? Spencer!" Carly interrupted his thoughts by kicking his beanbag chair.
Spencer looked around, guessing that he had become lost in his mind for a bit. He made eye contact with his younger sister for the first time in a while, and looked away from her a second later. In just that brief moment, he saw genuine concern in her eyes, and he couldn't take it knowing that she could not fully trust him anymore. She didn't even really know him anymore. "What do you think of our opening bit for next week's show?" she asked.
"It's fine. Funny! Great job!" Spencer tried to sound as happy as he could, when in all reality he did not hear a word of their dialogue at all; he wasn't paying attention. Carly smiled and thanked him, and the beanbag chair squeaked as he adjusted his position so he could stand up. Sam smiled as well, but at the same time hid a smirk; being such an expert liar herself and knowing how terrible Spencer was at lying, she knew that he was simply daydreaming or something.
Freddie was now away from the cart, fiddling with some speaker wires. As Spencer decided to leave the room, he stopped behind the cart and feigned a yawn, then stretched so he could stand there for a couple seconds. No one was paying attention to him, and he took that moment to glance at the Pear computer's screen.
Freddie was in the middle of coding a webpage before he walked away, so a majority of what Spencer saw was just techie mumbo-jumbo. Looking past that to the web browser, he tried to make out some of the tabs that were lining the top of the screen. He didn't know what Freddie was doing, but there were at least twenty different tabs open. Thankfully, none of the web pages or websites sounded familiar, so he walked to the elevator and pressed the down button. As the elevator door opened, he stepped inside and exchanged goodbyes with the trio and told them he was going to bed. As the door closed, he tried not to notice Freddie staring at him with an indescribable expression.
So what do you think? Does Freddie know about Spencer's secret? What about Sam? Ideas and reviews are nice!
