A/N: Okay. All caught up with my chapters now! I don't mean to be a drag, but the lack of reviews has been really discouraging. I'll keep writing it either way, but if you're enjoying it, I'd really love to know. Feedback helps us grow as writers.
xoxo
CHAPTER THREE
DEAD TO ME (3x18)
...
Start bending me, it's never enough
'Til I feel all your pieces
Start bending me, keep bending me
Until I'm completely broken
Can you help me I'm bent
I'm so scared that I'll never
Get put back together
Keep breaking me
And this is how we will end
With you and me bent
("Bent" – Matchbox 20)
Hey champ. It's been a while since we talked, but I know today is usually a rough one for you. I just wanted to check in.
The message had come at such a surprising time that the tone of his phone going off nearly sent him jumping out of his own skin. He hadn't even made it to the outskirts of Rosewood yet, and already someone was trying to pull him back. He had not spoken to his dad in weeks, and that was certainly no accident. Ever since Jenna had disappeared, his father and stepmother had been particularly cold and distant toward him. More than usual, that is to say. As though he had chased her out of Rosewood, himself.
He didn't mind much, if he was being honest. He did far better being on his own.
He had admittedly taken a moment or so to decode the vagueness of his father's words, and foolishly thought for a second that he knew something about what had happened with Spencer.
Then he had noticed the date stamp on his phone, and instantaneously felt his heart plummet into his stomach. It was the anniversary of his mother's death.
'Check in.' How very kind of him to do so through a text message.
With all that had happened as of late, he hadn't even noticed the date was approaching. He used to be so mindful of its ominous presence creeping up behind him. It was the same every year – like he was watching an old filmstrip and it had just finished rewinding, ready to play its course once more. Prepared to unearth the pain all over again, as heart wrenching as it had been the actual day that it happened.
He had dreamed of when this time would come. Of when he would finally cease to be continuously haunted by her memory, so debilitating in the month of November that he often felt incapacitated by grief. He'd somehow expected it to be a far more relieving feeling.
But instead it seared at him like a freshly forged sword, pulled directly from the fire. The guilt most of all – he felt ashamed that he had forgotten. That he had been too wrapped up in his own agenda to even realize it had been approaching. Just when he thought he was one step closer to escaping the whirlwind inside his brain, that irritating, pestilent feeling was returning once more. That annoyingly useless guilt…
He turned the truck around immediately, trying not to dwell on this feeling too long, to stop at the Rosewood Florist. From there, he made his way directly to the mausoleum.
And there he sat, for some indiscernible amount of time, his heart aching with every beat. Crypts were typically rather desolate, frightening sorts of places. Most people were terrified of the thought – being in a building that served the single purpose of housing corpses. The most permeating sort of silence was the kind that settled amongst the dead. He had expected to feel far more distraught as he sat there, staring at the marble marker for so long that the words began to swim in and out of focus.
But somehow, he felt inexplicably at peace. For the first time in several months, his mind was completely and eerily quiet. As though he had finally been able to close a heavy door to block out all of the sounds and stresses of the outside world.
The marble was cold to the touch. Much like her lifeless body would probably be. He instantly regretted allowing this thought to creep through, shuddering involuntarily at its implications. The memory of her lying utterly still inside the velvet lining of her casket had always been particularly bothersome to him. He had been so young at the time, peeking over the mahogany edge to get one last look at the woman who had given birth to him.
It was traumatizing. Completely and totally traumatizing. He had vowed from that day forward that he would never let his children look at the corpse of a loved one. It only served to tarnish the more valuable memories – the ones where those people still had color in their cheeks and smiles dancing across their lips. He had resented his dad for so long for letting him look. No. He would never put his children through that.
…If he ever had children. At the rate he was going, that was a very bleak possibility. There was only one girl who had ever loved him, and he had unceremoniously ripped her heart out only days ago. Self sabotage at its finest.
He was shaken from his reverie by the sound of his phone buzzing in his pocket. Exhaling shakily to calm his nerves, he unearthed it from his jeans. Emily was calling him. Again. She was worried about him, for some God-forsaken reason. And he just wished she would leave it be.
Just as the call went to voicemail, his phone vibrated again. A text this time – from Mona. He didn't even bother opening the message, and instead powered his phone down entirely. It felt leaps and bounds above disrespect for him to be fiddling with technology while he sat here, mourning the loss of his mother.
Even so, some instinct deep within told him it was time to go.
He kissed the tips of his fingers and brushed them across the embossment of her name, before standing and making his way back to the truck.
It was nighttime now, and he found himself surprised at how long he had stayed with her. The emotional exhaustion he was feeling was enough to extinguish the flame that had been lit under his ass earlier in the day, and he was in no mood to drive. He had even ignored what he could have sworn was a figure ducking behind a tree nearby, knowing he had nowhere close to the energy it would require to deal with it. With his luck, it was probably Mona. And he didn't want to hear it from her, anyway.
Settling for the Edgewood Motor Court – for which he paid cash – he wandered into his room and collapsed on the bed. He stared at the ceiling for some time, holding back the tears that usually accompanied this day every year. He feared that once he started, he may never stop. The proverbial floodgates would open and everything would pour out. And the magnitude and severity of all the feelings he was suppressing was likely to kill him.
'I've never had a safe place to land, but now I feel like I do.'
"Don't," he growled irritably to no one in particular. Himself, most likely.
There was no time to think about her right now. None.
But that simple statement had resonated so deeply within him, too, that he could never quite get it out of his head. Safety was relative – but when he was with her, he often felt untouchable. Like nothing could reach him as long as she was around. Not even Mona.
The sharp ringing of the motel phone made him jump in surprise. Perplexed and utterly bewildered as to who would be calling him, he slowly reached out to take the receiver. "Hello?"
"I tried calling. And texting."
His free hand curled into a fist, gripping angrily at nothing in particular. Something about her voice these days just made his muscles go rigid.
"How did you find me?"
"Your biggest flaw has always been failing to cover your tracks," Mona muttered peevishly. "No matter. I know you'll be back."
Don't count on it.
"While you're on your little sabbatical, I highly suggest you look at your email," she stated, the tone of her voice lightening with such abruptness that he wondered if he was talking to the same person. She sounded borderline giddy now. "She fell for it."
He furrowed his brow, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed to reach for his duffel. The laptop was still running on battery thankfully, and powered on immediately. She had sent him a video file.
"What is this?" he murmured.
"You'll see." Now she sounded as though she had overdosed on a pound of sugar.
Part of him didn't want to see it. The other part of him feared that his imagination of what it might be was a lot worse than what it actually was. Curiosity took the better of him.
He recognized the setting immediately. It was the dingy, empty apartment that the key belonged to. Mona had always talked about wanting to make something out of it, but nothing had ever come of it. He had always just suspected that she had some sort of rogue motive and thought it better not to ask.
"You put a camera in there?" he asked.
"Just watch."
He could hear the distinct fumbling of the key turning in the lock, and his breath caught in his throat. The door creaked open, and there she stood. Spencer, her appearance in utter disarray. She looked as though she hadn't slept in weeks. The hair that she usually kept so prim and proper was ratty and tangled. Her clothes disheveled and probably worn for days at a time.
But worst of all was her eyes. The eyes that had once been so alight with life and strength were now hollow beyond recognition. There was a darkness there – a despair that he immediately empathized with. She was alone. In every sense of the word.
"Why did you do this?" he whispered in disbelief.
"Several reasons," Mona replied casually. "One, to lead her on a false trail. Two, to show her that you've moved on. You know she has a PI trailing you, right?"
The shadow in the cemetery. Though he now had an explanation, he could not find the effort to care.
"Anyway. This was the best way to show her that you're really gone. I think she was halfway expecting you to leave something behind to give her hope." She giggled mirthlessly. "Oh, how the mighty have fallen…"
He watched as Spencer raised her hands to her face, choking out a gut-wrenching sob that echoed against the bare walls of the abandoned apartment. Mindlessly, he reached out to touch the screen of his computer – to touch the two-dimensional image of her figure – feeling as though a lump had lodged itself in his throat.
"Turn your phone back on. I'll be in touch."
With that, Mona was gone. He had almost forgotten she was there. Slowly lowering the receiver from his face, his eyes did not leave the recording before him. Spencer was crying with reckless abandon now, sliding down the wall into a sitting position. She hugged her legs tightly to her chest and pressed her face into her knees. He swallowed hard, attempting to push the knot in his throat back down. He wanted to tell her not to cry. That he wasn't worth it.
But somehow – to her – he was.
"How could you do this to me?" she cried softly, her words staccatoed by the intensity of her tears. She continued to sit there, each sob ripping into him like claws tearing at his soul. He told himself he should turn it off – knew he should turn it off – but he could not look away. He had never seen her like this before, and some long-buried instinct was telling him that he had to be there for her. Even if it was some time after-the-fact, from a long distance away. It almost felt like some unspoken duty.
She sat there for a while. Longer than he was comfortable with. He had chewed so roughly on his lower lip that he could now taste blood in his mouth. His heart was pounding in his chest like a jackhammer, and he was afraid it was about to burst right out of his ribcage.
When her cries had lessened considerably, she stood, impatiently pushing away her tears, looking accusatorily in the direction of the camera. It was as if she knew it was there. There was a fiery fury in her eyes now – one that he had never seen before.
"You were the one person I trusted never to hurt me," she stated coldly, a residual shaking still apparent in her voice. Nonetheless, the emptiness of her tone chilled him to his core. "You're dead to me."
The feed cut out.
He sat there silently for a moment, trying to catch his breath. Tears that he had not realized were present were now streaming down his face, landing precariously into pools on his mouse pad. What he was feeling was so intense – so outrageously unbearable – that it was starting to push through the numbness he had forced himself to feel for the past several weeks. It was likened to a small chisel finally having chipped away the entirety of the foundational structure upon which he had built his wall. And pieces were now crumbling helplessly to the ground as it began to fall apart.
'We just need to teach them a lesson. Show them what it's like to be manipulated and what it's like to feel alone.'
Mona's words from long ago echoed within his brain, bouncing back and forth like a steady game of pong. Her version of revenge was so much different than his, and it had been from the beginning. He was just too stupid to realize it until he was already in too deep to dig his way back out.
Suddenly, he hated her with ever fiber of his being. He had never wished death upon anybody before – but now, he wanted nothing more than to kill her with his bare hands. Had she been in the room, he certainly would not have been able to contain himself. He would have been in prison by morning.
He leapt quickly to his feet, picking up the laptop and hurling it into the closest wall. It sparked dangerously as the screen shattered, making a desperate buzzing noise as it toppled crudely to the floor. He didn't care. Something inside him was erupting with fury, and he knew he would no longer be able to suppress it. The volcano within had finally reached its boiling point.
He was screaming – some sort of animalistic, raging battle cry – as he ripped the phone out of the wall. He pushed over the nightstand, smashing the lamp against the bedpost, and embedded his fist into the poorly constructed plaster of the wall beside him. He had no idea what was happening. It was as though he had blacked out and lost all control of his own body. Of his own brain.
Nothing. Nothing. NOTHING Spencer had ever done to anybody warranted the amount of heartbreak he had just witnessed. The only person he had ever seen that bruised and broken beyond repair was himself. He knew what it was like to feel helpless and desperate and to just wish it would all end. He had considered it more times than he could count. Had fantasized about traipsing down to the basement to unearth his dad's Remington semi-automatic shotgun and just pop one off into his brain.
It was rock bottom. It was precisely what it felt like to be at the very lowest point in your life, that you hardly think you can survive another day. That even breathing is painful.
That was where Spencer was now. And he had single-handedly put her there.
He collapsed into a piteous heap on the floor, curling into a fetal position much like Spencer had done. He was bawling so heavily that his throat was going raw. He hadn't cried this hard since his mother had died. Maybe even before that.
He didn't know who he hated more: Mona or himself. Mona may have fed him the bullshit that got him involved in this entire mess, but he was the one who bought into it. He was the one who listened. He was the one who chose to play along.
He had been fooling himself. What he had been doing – the person he had become – he was not strong. He was weak. Perhaps at the weakest he had ever been in his entire life. He was sick and vengeful and past the point where he could ever have a prayer of being redeemed.
He didn't even deserve to be redeemed. He deserved to suffer. Just as much as Spencer was suffering. More, even.
He had become the monster he had always hated. Had done things that were beyond the realm of humanity. Had given into anger in such a completely abandoning way that he had surpassed the point of turning back. If Hell was a real place, there was assuredly a seat with his name on it.
He had been manipulated into selling his soul to the devil. And no matter what he did – no matter how hard he tried to find redemption – he was forever destined to be a demon.
His eyes were burning and his throat was sore by the time the sun began to rise. He could not even find the strength to pick himself up and lie down in the bed. His mind was racing far too swiftly for him to rest, anyway.
His mother would have been so disappointed in him. She would have hated the person he had become.
But there was no way that she could possibly hate him more than he already hated himself.
