Chapter 6: Why?
Hey guys! I know I'm being kind of annoying with all of these A/Ns even before the chapters but there's always something I want to say and that I really want you to read. Maybe you've noticed, I've been trying to involve you into the story a little and I was hoping I could continue with that. So pls could you tell me what sort of song Toby and Spencer should have, like "their song"...I've already come up with 4 options: 1. "When I look at you" and 2. "When you say nothing at all" and 3. "All I need"(within temptation) and 4. "Pieces of me"(ashley simpson) ...Please, listen to all of them and then, if you know a song that would fit them, review to tell me about the song and I'm going to have a little vote some time soon after this with all the possible options as soon as I know how many different options we have! You have until the 31st of August to come up with other options, if you choose to propose another song, please make sure the lyrics match them. And please know, that I'll pick out the ones that I think fit them and I'll give you all possible options to choose sometime soon. Pls review for that but not just for that! Have fun reading!
Layla...
And on we go:
Toby looks at her, just like that. He doesn't say anything. And with every second that passes by, Spencer gets more nervous and worried, one question clouding her mind:
"What's happening?"
Finally, Toby takes a deep breath.
And then he says it:
"I've been thinking. About us. And I don't feel like this is working. Sorry, Spencer, but we're over."
Spencer just stares at him, blankly. She heard what he just said but she doesn't seem to grasp it. Her ears and her brain realize it but her heart really doesn't.
So it takes her almost one minute to be able to speak again. What comes out is a blurr of questions in a shaky voice:
"What? Why? Did I do something wrong?"
The second and third questions she really wants answered. She thinks what she could have done wrong but she doesn't know. She can't think of anything.
"No, you didn't do anything wrong, Spencer.", Toby answers and she notices he isn't really looking into her eyes. Not really.
"Then why?", she asks, "Why are you breaking up with me?" It still hasn't reached her heart. She can hear him and she knows-hypothetically-what his words mean but she doesn't feel it yet.
It's a weird feeling.
Toby looks like he has been expecting that question. And feared it.
"It's...it's not working out for me anymore. I...need to focus on other things.", he says. He's stuttering, that is nothing like him at all.
"Like what?", suddenly Spencer thinks that she knows the reason: "Are you..."-it's hard for her to even say: her voice gets shaky and her heart starts to flutter, tears start to form in her eyes; all that just thinking of that potential reason-"Are you in love with someone else?"
Now, it slowly starts to sink in. Really slowly. Toby's breaking up with her. He doesn't want to be with her anymore.
And the tears start rolling, she starts sobbing so loudly that she almost doesn't understand what he says next:
"No, it's not that."
"Then why? Please, please Toby, tell me! I can handle it!", she sobs, trying to get him to look at her. He doesn't, not really.
"He doesn't even want to look at me anymore. How can he do this? And why? He's...breaking...up...with me. He doesn't love me anymore."
It's like she can feel her heart break even though this is not really technically possible. It hurts so much.
"It's just over. I'm sorry. Goodbye, Spencer!", he says, sounding so cold. No emotion, not even pity. He looks at her one last time and she thinks she sees something in his eyes, but the moment is gone too fast. And he turns and walks away.
Spencer stands there for a few seconds before she follows him out the slide door where she stops.
"No, Toby! Please!", she calls out. But he doesn't turn around and just walks away.
Spencer can feel her knees go limp and she sinks to the floor. It's only now that she really fully realizes.
Toby broke up with her. He doesn't want to be with her anymore, doesn't love her anymore.
He doesn't even care enough to tell her why.
She's never going to fall asleep in his arms again. She's never going to hear him say "I love you."again.
She'll never see him smile at her, never see him look at her with his sparkly, blue eyes again. She's never going to kiss him again.
And he doesn't care enough to tell her that he doesn't love her anymore.
Spencer is sobbing. She's crying like she's never cried because of a boy before.
"How can I love him so much when he doesn't care about me? How can he just lose his feelings?...If they ever were as strong as mine?", these questions come to her.
But the most important one still is:
"WHY?"
After sitting on the floor for minutes, Spencer manages to stand up and stagger to her bed.
She falls onto it.
Pictures of Toby come to her mind, like a diashow:
His smile, him shirtless in the hotelroom, his teasing grin when he beat her in scrabble, his cheeky smile after he kissed her on the parkinglot, him coming into her room through the slide door, him in his black hoodie opening the door of his house, his eyes sparkling, his surprisingly peaceful face when he's asleep...
Spencer closes her eyes, it hurts too much. But now the memories come to her mind and she starts wanting back the pictures: But now, real memories come and go from her mind:
The way he held her in his strong arms, the way he would let her fall asleep leaning against him, the way his lips felt on hers, the way his soft kisses had made her feel.
Spencer can't bear it anymore. She grabs her pillow and clutches it to her face.
"Why, why, why? Why did he do that? What is the reason? Why?" Even asking herself that question and not having an aswers is better than the memories. It hurts less.
Right that moment, her phone starts to ring.
She doesn't want to answer it, she doesn't care. But the phone keeps ringing.
"CAN'T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE?", she crys, grabs her phone and throws it through the room. It hits the wall and falls down with a loud thump but it stops ringing.
"WHY, TOBY?", she screams but noone can hear her because she's holding the pillow in front of her face.
Spencer spends the whole rest of the afternoon in her bed, sometimes she's crying, sometimes she's wondering why and sometimes she is just staring at the ceiling, blankly, and seeing Toby's smile on it.
When it gets dark outside, her phone rings again. She can't even bother getting it. She doesn't want to move.
But her mom calls up:
"Spencer, get your phone! Or do you want me to do it for you?" Her mom really can't come up here with her loosing it every few minutes when a new memorie of her and Toby comes to her mind.
So she gets up and picks up the phone. Surprisingly, it's still working even though she had thrown it against the wall before.
"Hello?", she says. She didn't even bother to check the caller-ID.
"Spencer? It's me.", Emily's voice says, "What's going on? I tried calling a few times but you never picked up. Are you ok?"
"I'm fine.", Spencer answers. She notices how her voice sounds different. Numb, cracking.
"Are you sure? You don't sound like you are.", Emily insists.
"I'm ok.", Spencer whispers. She has to end this call or she'll loose it again, she can already feel the tears run down her cheeks.
"If you say so. I just found Toby's clothes you were wearing this morning and I was wondering if...Spencer?", Emily interrupts herself as she hears Spencer burst out crying at the mention of Toby's clothes, "Spencer? What's wrong?"
Spencer tries to get a hold of herself. She can't lose it because someone mentions Toby's name or anything that has something to do with him! But Emily's worried voice only makes it worse.
"Nothing, I'm ok.", Spencer repeats but she already knows that it makes no sense saying that with her voice cracking twice and her continuing sobs not being quiet.
"Spencer, what?", Emily demands, "You know what, I'll just come by your house! I'll be right there!"
"No, no need to...", Spencer starts but Emily has already hung up. Spencer sighs.
"Well, whatever!", she thinks. It doesn't matter if Emily knows anyway.
She doesn't even bother removing the traces the makeup has left on her cheeks.
Spencer stands in front of her mirror and tells herself:
"Hold it together, Spence! You won't start crying. You can do this. At least as long as Emily's here."
She is staring at her image in the mirror. Everything but her face looks normal, her slim figure, her curly brown hair that's shining slightly in the sunlight coming in from outside.
"Ironic. Doesn't it usually rain when bad things happen? Well, maybe only in movies."
Her face looks different, though. It's pale and it looks grave. Her eyes are swollen and red from all the crying and they look empty.
Spencer's staring at herself trying to keep in control. But now that she does, she thinks that maybe she's just not what he was looking for and he only realized now.
With the way she looks right now, it's not even that hard to understand. Or maybe he didn't like that she was crying so often, was so whiny. Wouldn't be so hard to understand, either.
She's come to the conclusion that it had to do something with her and that's also why he didn't explain it to her.
But what exactly?
"Why did he break up with me?", she asks herself for the millionst time, and-no suprise there-can't think of an answer this time either.
Her eyes fill with tears again.
"Don't start crying again!", she thinks.
The doorbell rings and she can hear her mom, opening the door.
"Hello, Emily. Spencer's in her room. She's been there the whole time.", her mom sighs, as Emily quickly thanks her. Spencer hears her coming up the stairs, takes a deep breath and faces the door.
"Hello, Sp...Oh my god!", Emily exclaims as she sees Spencer's face, "What happend?"
Spencer remains quiet, she just sits down on her bed.
As Emily approaches, she takes a pile of clothes out of her bag. As soon as Spencer sees them, she flashes back on the night he gave them to her and her eyes-once again-fill with tears.
"You won't cry now!", she tells herself.
Emily watches Spencer's reaction to the clothes.
"Did something happen between you and Toby?", she asks and Spencer finally gives in, knowing that the girls will find out anyway.
"He broke up with me.", she says. And starts sobbing again. She wouldn't have thought that saying it out loud would hurt so much. It feels really real now.
"What?", Emily calls out, looking shocked and completly taken by surprise.
"So I'm not the only one to be surprised."
"Yeah, you heard it right.", Spencer says, finally pulling it together a little.
"But why?", Emily asks, sits down next to Spencer and grabs her hand, "Tell me about it if you want to."
So Spencer tells her. Everything. Sometimes she can feel that she's losing it again and she stops to take a few deep breaths, then continues.
When she's finally done, Emily seems at a loss for words. She just hugs her friend tightly.
"Could you do me a favour, Emily? Two favours actually?"
Emily nods: "Anything."
"Could you return those-", Spencer nods at his clothes, "-to him. I can't do that. And secondly, please, can you tell the girls? I don't want to go through it all over again?"
Emily nods: "Sure."
"Thanks, Em. For everything."
"Anytime.", Emily smiles, "Just tell me if you need anything else, ok?"
Spencer nods, glad that she has such good friends.
"I'll have to go, my mum wants me home. Unless,...do you want me to stay here for some more time?"
"I'm fine...Or at least I will be, soon. But thank you, Em.", Spencer replies and tries smiling like she wants to say: "I'm fine."
Apparently, it isn't really convincing, since Emely asks worriedly:
"Are you sure? I could stay..."
"No, I'm fine.", Spencer says. Maybe if she repeats it often enough, she'll actually believe it herself one day.
"Ok. Call me if you need anything! Bye Spencer!", Emily says, hugs her friend and walks out the door.
Alone again, Spencer feels the sadness and lonelyness hit her again, like a punch in the face.
"Spencer, want to have dinner with us?", she hears her mom call from downstairs.
"No, I'm not hungry.", she calls back, turns over and crys some more. And after everything she had been through that day, Spencer falls asleep and with that the tears dry on her cheeks.
The next morning, just after she wakes up, for a few seconds she thinks everything is fine. But then the memories kick in.
Spencer groans and looks out her window, all she sees is dim, grey light.
She doesn't want to go school.
She really doesn't feel like it. She doesn't feel like doing anything exept stare at her ceiling and wonder why her boyfriend broke up with her. She just wants to stay in bed.
"Spencer Hastings! You spent yesterday crying, crying, wondering and crying. Not today!
You're going to go to school and focus on your classes! You need to keep your grades up!"
Finally, not wanting to but still doing it, she rises from her bed and gets ready. She's determined not to cry or show any emotion even if someone mentions the T-word.
She has decided to just focus on school. And maybe finding A, but nothing else. And for the first time in weeks, she's actually really glad that the T-word-person doesn't go to her highschool anymore.
She's not happy, no. She's really, really sad. And she still doesn't know why it happend, but she's just going to focus on other things. Her mom wouldn't let her stay home anyway. And she can do this!
When Spencer arrives at school that day the girls already wait at the parkinglot. Judging by their faces, Emily has already told them. Spencer takes a deep breath, reminds herself that she can do it and finally gets out of the car.
As she approaches the girls, she looks at them more carefully. They look really simular today, not only because of the worried and pitying looks plastered on all of their faces.
Aria, Emily and Hanna all wear their hair in ponytails, just like Spencer. They all wear a skirt too, like Spencer.
Hanna's is a short jeans skirt, Emily's is long and floating and Aria's looks a bit like the one Spencer's wearing: a waist skirt that goes down to her knees.
Spencer raises an eyebrow but she doesn't say anything. Instead she just hopes that none of her friends will mention the T-word any time soon and takes a tighter grip on her handbag.
After they all said hello, they start walking to class together. It's an akward silence and Spencer tries hard to think of something she could say to get rid of it.
"Hanna, did you talk to Caleb yet?", she asks and looks at the blonde girl walking next to her.
Seeming relieved that someone interrupted the silence, Hanna smiles, nods and smooths back a strand of her beautiful, long hair:
"Yes. I called him right after I got home from school yesterday."
"So, are you guys together again?", Spencer asks. Hanna suddenly looks wary.
"It's ok, I don't mind, honestly.", Spencer adds. And it's true. Hearing about any other, happy couples doesn't affect her like that.
"Ok. So, yes, we are!"
Spencer is sure that normally-if her boyfriend hadn't just dumped her-everyone would be far more exited about this. But she also doesn't know how to phrase that (without sounding strange) and so all she ends up saying is:
"Happy for you, Hanna!"
*A/N: So no cliffhanger this time! :) I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I hope I didn't exaggerate, her being lovesick and all. I don't like it that they broke up, it makes me so sad! But at least I know why. :) And just so you know, "Boyfriend" still doesn't seem like the right word but I really don't have any other ideas. So if you have one, please tell me about it. Pls keep reading and, please review!
XO
Layla*