A/N: You can't even imagine how proud of myself I am right now that I've managed to finish this in less than a month :D Anyway. I'll try to finally answer your reviews tomorrow or today's evening but I can't promise anything, I was procrastinating and now I have shitload of things to do :( But I'm really thankful for all of them and I'm happy you like the story so far!

With a certain doze of hesitation, Spencer knocked to the large, wooden door in front of her, feeling her heart beat at its triple rate. Her palms were getting more and more sweaty as she waited for him to invite her in. The shortest seconds felt like hours, and she couldn't stop the whirlwind of thoughts from spinning. In her mind he was still an unsolved mystery. These various, entirely different versions of him that she came to know over the last year left her only more confused, for she couldn't tell which one of them was true. She tried so hard to fill him under a category, to figure him out as if he was the hardest mathematical equation known to the mankind. But, every time she thought she was one step away from the answer, he always did the unexpected, leaving her with no clue yet again.

She was waiting with growing anticipation, tapping her foot to the rhythm as she was studying her deformed image reflected by the golden doorknob. One thing that scared her more than her own thoughts, was what he thought of her. The last time he saw her, she was being cold and distant towards him, and with her illogical actions and unintelligible words she was worried he might've come to the conclusion that she was simply nuts.

Overcome by fear, she was close to run away but, being a confident person she was, she only clenched her fists tighter and loudly swallowed, hearing the door creak open.

Much to her surprise, the person standing in front of her looked nothing like a teenage boy.

"Oh, hello Spencer", greeted Jenna, arching her eyebrows. She could tell that the girl was as confused as herself, and that odd similarity filled her with some sort of courage which she really needed right now.

"Hi, Jenna", she smiled, trying for it to appear as convincing as she could. "Is Toby home?"

Jenna ran her fingers through her hair, lightly pouting her full, crimson lips. "Yeah, he's upstairs, doing God-knows-what in his room. Shall I call him for you?"

"That'd be great. Thanks."

The girl smiled a toothless smile and was just about to head upstairs, when she suddenly turned around and, with her hands clung to the door frame, faced Spencer yet again.

"Wait, Spencer", she began, catching her attention. "I just wanted to say thank you. I never had a chance to, I tried to contact you right after everything had happened, but your parents wouldn't let me."

Spencer eyed her suspiciously. She could count the times when Jenna was actually nice to her: that was the first.

Noticing the girl's reaction, Jenna bit her lower lip and slightly tilted her head, her voice becoming a little lower and more silent, almost soothing.

"I know were never friends... neither are we now, and I don't get your motives at all, but it doesn't lessen anything. Actually, I can only imagine how much did it have to cost, to stand up to Alison the Queen Bee.", said Jenna, rolling her eyes ironically as the last words escaped her mouth. "I really admire that, you know? I never thought you'd be capable of doing so. But! I'll call Toby", she snapped her fingers and fled before Spencer had a chance to say anything.

Within few seconds, she spotted his silhouette across the hall. He seemed to have recognized her too, as his movements suddenly became slower, more cautious, a little hesitant even. Finally, h stood by the door, his darting eyes examining her from head to toe in pure confusion.

Her gaze was stuck to him too, devouring the sight. Toby wasn't your typical handsome guy, with olive skin, mischievous smile and an elaborately constructed hairdo, shiny with gel. No, that was nothing like Toby Cavanaugh. Yet there was something about him, and Spencer couldn't put her finger on whatever it was - maybe the depth of his sagacious, crystal blue yes or the way his body swung gracefully as he moved, or maybe even how his soft, pale pink lips curved in a coy smile when he got lost in his thoughts or talked about his interests, with such rare, catching passion that only a five-year-old would have. She could never tell, but one thing she knew for sure - the effect he had on her was all but paralyzing, leaving her breathless and craving for more.

She blinked, breaking out of the intense eye contact they had, and forcing herself to face the reality in which she, Spencer Hastings, a straight A's student and an overachiever, came over to the boy she was supposed to tutor, which was nowhere near to undressing her ex-boyfriend in her thoughts while gazing at him longingly.

"Hi", she said, fighting to keep her tone warm but neutral.

He also seemed to have broken from this strange state of temporary numbness as he slightly shook his head from left to right, collecting his thoughts.

"Uhm, hi", replied he, "What are you doing here?"

"I came to tutor you.", she explained, taking a weighty student's book with some complicated graph on the cover out of her bag and waving it at Toby's face. "Mr. Smiths sent me."

A small grimace appeared on Toby's face as he saw a subject of his hatred in her hand. "Whoa. Maths. You've just brightened my day.", he commented sarcastically, scratching the back of his head. She couldn't help but grin at these words.

"Ha, that's what I hoped for! What is better than trigonometry on a sunny, Friday afternoon?", teased Spencer playfully, causing Toby to chuckle in return.

"Okay, then", he said, "Come in, my room is upstairs."

"Ah, I know. Jenna's already spilled the beans." Plus, I've been a visitor quite a lot, she added in her thoughts.

The spark in his eyes suddenly faded away and his whole body tensed at the sound of the name. He lowered his gaze for a second and Spencer immediately regretted what she'd said. Knowing everything that'd happened between these two, she shouldn't have mentioned Jenna. His wounds were too fresh and probably still bleeding.

"Sounds like her", muttered Toby. "Anyway, do you want something to drink? Tea, coffee maybe?", he offered, turning his gaze to the kitchen.

Spencer shook her head lightly and answered: "No, thanks. I've just had dinner".

"You sure?", he asked again, "Because I can-"

"God, Toby, seriously, no, I'm good.", she cut off, a wide smile on her face. "You don't have to turn into a housewife just for me. Anyways, if I really wasn't full, I would've fallen for coffee. Always. And I would've made sure you made it just the way I like it."

Toby chuckled yet again, and, running his fingers through his hair in embarrassment at how easygoing she was.

"Haha, okay... I'll remember that", he laughed.

Spencer winked at him and giggled softly. She could hardly believe he was really there, that she was in his house talking to him with such ease as if she could tell him all his secrets and he'd understand. As if their relationship was so simple, built on mutual trust and friendship, and the day of their anniversary had never happened.

Because it hadn't. Because where she was now, there was nothing to celebrate.

As soon as this drastically true thought popped up in her mind, her smile faded away and she felt the sudden urge to close her eyes for a second, just to escape this madness she was in. Those days, the darkness that overwhelmed her every time once she did this, felt more soothing and relaxing than ever. It felt as if her eyelids were separating her from the world like a curtain in a theatre, which goes down every time the play ends. And that was true; her mind was the only place where she didn't have to play pretend that everything was normal and she was fine, while she clearly wasn't, not at all.

Biting her lower lip, she opened her eyes widely just to see Toby's blue eyes gaze at her questioningly, with concern written all over his strong features.

"Are you okay...?", he asked.

She took a deep breath and nodded. "Yup. Sorry about that, just got lost in my thoughts. Anyway, what are we waiting for? Maths won't solve itself!"

Toby rolled his eyes. "Would be nice if it did", he joked.

"Then what would our teachers torture us with?", replied she, following him upstairs as the echo of their laughter filled the hall.

The room looked just as she remembered it. Soft, golden sunshine rays refracted by the window were carelessly falling into the room, illuminating the heather walls decorated with photos of landscapes printed in sepia and fancily framed. To the left stood a sofa covered in the checked blanket in which they would always wrap their bodies every time they were cold, and Spencer could still feel the mellowness of the fabric on her skin.

She took a step in and moved to his desk, tracing the contour of its wooden frame with the back of her thumb. She spotted an unfinished drawing and took it in her hands, her lips forming in a perfectly round circle as she noticed that the sketch looked like an exact replica of their favourite hangout spot outside the town - a single, lone hill with a magical view of Rosewood at night.

Toby noticed her amazement and flushed with abashment. "I was just... playing around with the pencil...", he muttered.

Spencer tilted her head to face him. "You're kidding, right? When I play around with the pencil I sketch some doodles on a page margin. And this", she said, pointing at the drawing which she was holding in her hand, "This is pure art."

Running his fingers through his ash brown hair, he sent a shy smile in her direction. It felt so weird to him to get complimented that he didn't know how to react. Most of his life he'd been an outsider, and he got used to being ignored. He'd never been in the centre of attention before, it's not like he cared anyway. And now someone was raving over his sketch, and that someone was a girl, a beautiful, intelligent and popular girl even. He had to admit, it felt good.

"Uhm... thanks.", he mumbled. God, how he wished he could form a funny, witty response like she always did, but social interactions were never his forte, and social interactions with people he barely knew were even worse, even thought he could say he felt pretty much at ease talking to her.

"I'm serious, Toby. You're really talented, and I know what I'm talking about. My parents' favourite place, well, second favourite place, next to their workplace, is probably the art gallery, so you could basically say I've been raised in the world of Dali and Monet. And I rarely see such beautiful drawings as yours.", she assured. She knew he used to draw but she could never imagine how good he was at it. He ditched it for no reason before they started dating, explaining it with a lack of inspiration and time, and when Spencer once asked him to show her his works, he said that he had them stored somewhere in the basement, and he doesn't even remember where. Emily was the only one who got the chance to take a look at them and told her how breathtaking they were, but she underestimated her opinion, remembering how Emily was in awe of her surrealist painting for the art class in 8th grade, which she got a B on. And a B was for bad.

He thanked her yet again and they sat on the memorable sofa, getting their notebooks and their brains ready for such a longed-for few hours in the land of trigonometric identities and function translations.

They spent the whole afternoon alternately laughing and swearing at some of the hardest examples, that even Spencer had a little problem in solving. After two hours of intense thinking she finally gave in to his repeatable insistences and let him make her coffee, of course having instructed him before on everything and crying a little about the lack of caramel syrup in his house. He, of course, had to tease about her sophisticated taste, lecturing on how better is a traditional latte from this crazy invention that she'd forced him to make, which she commented with a nudge and laughed at the top of her lungs when her favourite drink turned out to be too strong for him to swallow.

When the clock struck 10pm and she realized that she'd spent at Toby's way too much time than she intended to, she quickly packed her things and, complaining about how she'd totally get grounded tomorrow, rushed to the front door. They exchanged quick goodbyes and just as she was about to leave his place, he stopped her and said: "Why are you doing this?"

"Do what? I've already told you Mrs. Smiths asked me to tutor you", she replied, taken aback by this sudden question.

"Not this. Why are you being so nice to me? I mean, we barely know each other and you're friends with Alison DiLaurentis...", he explained in a low voice and she knew that this confession cost him a lot of courage.

"Is this a reason why I should be mean to you? Because I don't think so. I've decided that I don't want to be scared of what she may think of me. Not anymore."

"And where did it come from?"

"Well. As one wise man once told me, I believe we always have a choice. And so I've made mine.", she said, a half-smile on her face.

He was examining her for a moment, when lips curled up in that bright, warm smile of his that she adored so much. "Do I know him by any chance?"

"Maybe... Goodbye, Toby", she answered mysteriously and winked at him.

He watched as her shadow disappeared in the dark alley before he closed the door and came back to his room. He was more than sure that before their next meeting the copper-eyed beauty will visit him once again, as the image of her was the last thing that popped up in his mind before falling asleep.