The drive from New York to Rosewood was only about three hours, but it felt much shorter than that to Spencer Hastings. She suspected it was her healthy sense of dread that was making the time go faster, the scenery brushing past the windows of her cherry red Mazda at an alarming rate. The dread had been mounting ever since she received the gilded invitation in the mail two months prior. She could still feel the heavy cardstock in her hands, the raised lettering so proudly and mockingly proclaiming that the 10 year reunion of the Rosewood High Class of 2012 was fast approaching. She still wasn't sure why she was going, to be quite honest – she'd sworn never to return to that town as long as she lived. (Well, perhaps that declaration had been a bit melodramatic, but it wasn't entirely undeserved.) And indeed, as she drew closer and closer to her destination, she felt sicker and sicker, her dread spreading through her like a virus and settling in her stomach like concrete, dense and solid. It was pushing things out of whack, and she hated it, hated feeling unbalanced. Rosewood would only make it worse, and at this point in her life, going back was the very last thing she needed to do.
But there she was, on the interstate, heading back anyway. Either she was stupid or she had a deep seeded sense of self-loathing. (She had graduated at the top of her class, but the other option wasn't something she was willing to accept yet, even if it was common sense.) There were a multitude of reasons that she'd left Rosewood in the first place, the same multitude that had kept her from coming returning. Spencer just wasn't sure when she'd learned to disregard them. They, these reasons and memories, once visited her in her nightmares, and during the day, but only as of late. It was always at the most unexpected of times too. The torments, the heartbreaks, the tragedies, they had evolved from mere memories into ghosts with their own free will, able to invade her consciousness at any time they wished. At times, Spencer was convinced she was losing it, but then she remembered that she had every reason to, and she didn't feel so bad about it. No one would blame her. No one would find it outside of reason. No one would deny her an inevitable breakdown. Most of all, no one would even dream that she'd return.
But at this point, she was used to doing things against the approval of others. And if everyone wanted her to shrivel up into herself and fade away, she wouldn't. If they wanted her to hide with her tail between her legs back in New York, she wouldn't. Anyone else would say this was a sign that she'd already lost it, and hell, maybe she had. But she didn't pay any mind to that any more. She had never really been her own person, she knew that now. Every action she'd ever taken had always been prompted or motivated by someone else – approval, either way, didn't matter.
So why fight it now?
Spencer had just slipped out of her car when the loud exclamation of "Aunt Spencer!" echoed from somewhere close by. She had no time to gain her balance before Taylor – nine years old, and incredibly sturdy, apparently – slammed into her chest, knocking the wind out of her and almost taking the both of them down. She managed to brace herself against the car in time, however, before wrapping her arms around the girl, feeling a rare, genuine smile being pulled from her.
"God, when did you get so big?" God, when did I start sounding like my mother? Spencer ignored the mocking voice in her head as she pulled Taylor back to look at her. She looked like Ian, there was no denying it, with the same grin – a little gap toothed, but it was cute – and the same freckles and the same eyes. But there was enough of the Hastings genes in her that, if she looked hard enough, she saw herself at the same age – and not just in her features either. Her tenacity, her enthusiasm, her drive…it all spoke of a younger Spencer, before all of those qualities had compounded on her and crushed her. Looking at Taylor made her hopeful, and yet, also hopeless, for she realized how long her demise had been set in motion. "Ugh, stop growing why don't you?"
Taylor giggled, releasing Spencer entirely, bounding back. "Mom says I'm gonna be as tall as she is in the next couple of years." She said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her forward towards the house. (At the sight of it, he'd had to resist the urge to dig her heels in, but she couldn't ever refuse her niece.) "Everyone's waiting for you, c'mon."
"…everyone?" Spencer asked, trying to keep the devastation out of her tone. "Kiddo, I didn't even know you and your parents and your brothers were going to be here, I – "
"Oh, Daddy's not here, it's just me and mom." She said. "He stayed back in Washington with Todd and Peter." Spencer breathed a sigh of relief. Her ban on Rosewood hadn't included Melissa and her family, not since she'd moved to Washington D.C. with her husband, Todd Haverford Sr., who was the most overbearing, offensive man she'd ever met. Her recent distance from that section of her family had been mostly due to him, and his tendency to offend and undermine every single part of her identity within the first five minutes of any given conversation. But still, Melissa was her sister, one of the only relatives to stick by her, and she did only see them about three times a year in the first place anyway, so she kept her mouth shut. No need to wreck yet another one of Melissa's relationships. (Although those really hadn't been her fault in the first place.)
Even so, she couldn't help but worry about Taylor, worry about what growing up in a home like that would do to such a progressive, precocious child. (She knew what had happened to her, and she'd be damned if it happened to her niece.) "Well, good. We'll have to have some girl time with you, me and your mom while I'm here." She ruffled Taylor's light brown hair, almost tripping as Taylor suddenly jerked her forward again. "O-okay, I'm going."
The first thing she saw as she entered the kitchen was the cake. Not a fancy, flawless cake from the bakery in Philly that her parents frequented, but an rectangular cake baked in a glass cake pan that was cloudy from too many years of use, frosted by what looked like a left handed two year old trying to prove to his mother that he was a righty, no matter what she said. She was so focused on the sheer novelty of that kind of cake in her parents' spic and span kitchen that the words written on it – sloppily and in frosting – didn't register, nor did the banner hanging above or the same words printed on it. (Much more carefully than the cake, as she later realized.) "We wanted to surprise you! Nana and Papa said you haven't home in forever." The dramatic emphasis Taylor put on the word almost made her laugh, because ten years was hardly forever, and she had just spent the better part of the drive thinking that it wasn't nearly enough.
"That's…very sweet of you, Taylor." She said, with a tightlipped smile as she glanced at the other members of her family that were present, all with varying looks of expectancy and worry on their features, like they were worried she was going to snap at them, or snap in general. Melissa looked the least worried – she knew she was in good standing with Spencer, but also knew that Spencer wasn't in good standing with herself. Her mother who, except for a few lines around her eyes and mouth, didn't look a day older than she had the last time she'd seen her. "Thank you." She added to her earlier statement before considering her father, slightly curled up in age, hair now fully grey, skin weathered. The muscles in his arm were clearly rigid as he leaned against to the counter – behind him, she spotted a cane, almost laughing a little. His vanity hadn't changed with age, that much was clear. It made him both more intimidating and less intimidating, more in that he looked every inch the strict family patriarch he'd always been groomed to be, and less in that he seemed…weaker. Beyond his stern appearance, there was very little actual sternness, less ice. A bit of longing, really, and it was no secret to her as to what, and the idea made her feel sick to her stomach.
How dare he want absolution for all he had done to her?
There was a long moment of silence before, all at once, they began to talk, the cacophony of their voices drowning out their words. Finally, her mother surged forward, wrapping her in a hug that was so tight and affectionate, she was sure she was getting hives. "We're just so glad you're home!" She gasped, as though breathing a sigh of relief. For an instant, Spencer could see it from her side, the prodigal daughter returning after ten years, a mother's worry becoming infused in every part of her life, only to finally be assuaged. It almost made sense to her, until she remembered that this worry, this concern, was given far too late.
"Hi mom…" She said softly, awkwardly wrapping her arms around her mother, squeezing her with just the barest amount of force that would constitute a hug. She pulled away after only a brief moment of this, fighting the urge to shudder as she looked at her full on. She did appear a bit older up close, which didn't make her feel guilty, or sad or anything it would do to some children with better parents than her. Instead, she realized with a rush of morbidity, she was relieved to see that fracturing in her mother, the aging that made her seem much more human. "I can't stay too long, just for cake or whatever, and then I have to check into the hotel."
"Hotel?" Veronica asked, holding her by the shoulders as Melissa helped Taylor cut the cake. "But we have the barn all set up for you, and you'll be much more comfortable there than in a hotel room for two weeks…"
"No, I won't actually." Spencer leaned in close, lowering her voice for Taylor's sake. "This is the last place in the world I want to be right now. And I will be damned if I have to spend another minute here more than necessary. Just because I'm home doesn't mean I've forgiven you. And it sure as hell doesn't mean I've forgotten either."
She looked away before she could see the inevitable look on her face – she didn't deserve to feel guilty for that. Every word of it was true, and every bit of her mother's pain was deserved. "Alright then. At least stay for cake, Taylor worked very hard on it."
"And I appreciate it." Spencer said, putting on a smile as she ruffled Taylor's hair again. "Thanks, kiddo. That was really nice of you. Do you think I could take some of that back to the hotel with me?" Taylor's vigorous nodding drew a genuine smile from her. "You're a good kid." She hugged her quickly from behind.
"Spencer, there's something waiting for you out in the living room." Melissa said over her shoulder, not straying from Taylor's side as she tried to cut the cake evenly. "Go on and get it."
"Alright…" Spencer said, swallowing hard as she met Melissa's gaze, her stomach lurching as all of her red flags went up. She knew this was part of a scheme – her family had never been that subtle, even at their subtlest. But Melissa wasn't lying…there was a long, slim box addressed to her sitting on the coffee table. She had just picked it up when she heard a sound behind her, turning quickly. "…Dad." She said, upon lying eyes on the older man, who had adopted his cane to move out into the living room.
"Spencer." His voice hadn't changed. The same solid, strict tone was still there, and somewhere inside of her, she was suddenly a small, eight year old girl, sitting on the beach and shivering after having almost drowned and getting a stern lecture. "It's really, really good to see you."
"I…I wish I could say the same." She said, her voice wavering. God, she was still so intimidated by him, she couldn't even stand up to him in the way he deserved, in the way she deserved to do.
"Spencer, haven't we gotten past all that?" Peter asked, and she wasn't sure what it was about his tone, so presumptuous, so confident that this was the case that she just snapped.
"All that?" Spencer said sharply. "I'm sorry, did your brain get stolen by the body snatchers, who replaced it with an alien who can't read your memories? Do you honestly think you can get away with a vague apology and…and a massive show of brushing it under the rug? I have tried for years, years, Dad, to get over everything you have ever done to me. And look at me! I'm still a huge fucking mess, and while that may be partially my fault, we all know where I learned how to be dysfunctional from. No, I am not over all that. And I am insulted, and in fact, worried about you and your intelligence that you can just reduce it into nothing like that. This is my life, Dad. I'm not a statistic or someone on a Lifetime movie. This is my life. I am your irreparable mistake. And if you think you can just argue your way out of me, you are very, very wrong." With the box in hand, and tears in her eyes, she pushed past her father before he could say a word, no longer interested in staying a second longer. "Hey kiddo?" She said, taking a deep breath, ignoring the looks of her mother and sister, who moved out of the room to check on their father, she assumed. "I have to go, but I promise, we'll hang out before you go back to DC okay?"
Taylor frowned, but Spencer hadn't really been expecting to hide her emotions from her – she was unusually perceptive. "Alright…" She said, leaping forward, wrapping her arms around Spencer's neck as she hugged her tightly. "I miss you though."
"I miss you too, Taylor." Spencer sighed, hugging her back. "But I can't stay here."
The words 'borderline alcoholic' had been tossed at her a few times back in New York, but it had never really resonated until she drove past the Grille on the way back to the hotel, and found herself craving a drink. Yet another thing to add to her laundry list of emotional malfunctions, but by the time she had finished her third whiskey, she didn't much care about that. All she cared about was trying to forget that her father was the man that he was, and that she couldn't escape that legacy.
"Well, well, well…I didn't believe my ears when Parker called me, but look at you." Spencer turned, the drink almost falling out of her hand as she locked eyes with Toby Cavanaugh, her ex-flame. He looked just as good as ever, from a purely visual standpoint. His eyes were still the same vibrant blue, although a little less intense since his youth, and her youth, had started fleeing. He looked as well built as he had the last time she'd seen him, a chance meeting in New York, to secure a marriage license for him and his then-fiancé, Parker. (This turn of events had surprised her, but then again, life had hardly turned out the way she'd expected it. This was just another surprise, and a welcome one at that.) He was clean shaven, his hair neat…he looked every inch the respectable business man Spencer knew he hadn't been years ago, and she could only look at him with a strange sort of smile on her face. "Can you tell the flying pig to make another pass by the window? I seem to have missed it."
"Oh, shut up." She hugged him, sighing as she felt the same warm sense of safety flood through her at his embrace. If she closed her eyes, it was ten years earlier, and things were so much simpler. He even smelled the same, God. "I missed you."
"I'm guessing I'm about one of five people in this town that you can say that to." Toby said, finally releasing her after a moment, hands on her shoulders. "You look great."
"Yeah, right, I look like shit. You don't have to lie to spare my feelings." Spencer said, turning slightly to pick up her drink. "How's married life?"
"First of all, you look as gorgeous as ever." Toby said, at which Spencer snorted. She hadn't slept well in days, she was wearing a man's shirt and leggings, and she'd forgone her contacts for glasses, something she'd hardly ever done. She was hardly the poster child for preppy perfection. "And second…" There was a sad sort of hesitation and she knew before Toby could even speak. "He moved out last week." Toby finally concluded as he moved behind the bar. "Not really sure where it's going now, but…probably nowhere good."
"If you're back there to get me a refill, you should pour yourself one." Spencer said, sighing, crossing her arms on top of the bar. "You know what you do? You fight like hell, Toby. I mean, you love him, that's…that's worth fighting for." Even as she said it, her words felt hollow – she meant them, of course. But that strategy had backfired on her long ago.
"No offense, Spencer, but you're not exactly the person I want relationship advice from." Toby said, as he handed her another drink. "I'd be afraid to say that to anyone else, but you're smart and you have the distinct ability to recognize how much of a trainwreck you are."
"True." Spencer sighed. He was right, she couldn't even be mad at him. He was just being frighteningly honest. "I don't even know where I went wrong anymore, toby, to tell you the truth. I look back and all I see is wreckage. I can't even figure out where it started." She didn't normal like to talk about this stuff, but alcohol loosened her resolve, and she hadn't seen Toby in five years. It was time to talk.
"You gonna be okay tomorrow?" Toby asked, leaning on the bar in front of her.
"No." Spencer said instantly, shaking her head. "I'm not. In all honesty, I'm not even sure why I came back for it, I just…I guess I just love torturing myself or something." She shook her head, looking down at the bar. "Seeing Han – her again, it's going hurt, and I know that…so why did I come back?"
"You're asking the wrong person, Spencer." Toby sighed heavily. "I can't help you out there." He paused, looking pained. "You're not going to…you know, go back, right?"
"No." Spencer said, although it did take her a minute to answer. The thought of it, of being with her again, elicited a strange reaction, an odd combination between a shiver of desire and a shiver of imagined regret. "No, I don't think so. I don't hate myself that much…do I really strike you as that weak?"
Toby reached out, tucking an errant curl behind Spencer's ear. "You're the strongest person I know." He said softly. "Except when it comes to her."
"It is disgusting how well you know me, Mr. Cavanaugh." Spencer sighed, tracing an idle pattern against the grain of the bar. He was right. He was absolutely right. It didn't matter how strong she stood for something, she always bowed and broke for Hanna. It had gotten to the point where she no longer knew exactly what she stood for; only that Hanna had broken her. Only that she had bowed so much that she couldn't stand any longer. And maybe it was the same for Hanna too, she didn't know. Maybe she was just as bad for her, and they had achieved mutual destruction.
She could only hope.
"Well, we did date, Spencer. Or have you forgotten?" Toby teased, tipping up her chin with his fingertips. This pulled a genuine smile from her, and she laughed a little.
"I wish I could forget." She joked back, reaching forward and slapping his hand playfully. "It totally robs me of my cred when it comes to the ladies."
"Okay, I'm cutting you off after this." Toby said, shaking his head. "So are there any other ladies?"
"No one serious." Spencer said, shrugging. That was a whole other can of worms to open. (And the fact that she was comparing her love life to a can of worms only made her feel more depressed. "I was…well, I was kind of hoping to meet someone not so special here to give a tour of my hotel room to, if you know what I mean."
"You know, we have a strict 'no pick up artists' rule here." Toby said, raising an eyebrow.
"Mmm, you overestimate my talents." Spencer sighed. "I'm not kidding anyone, I should probably just go back to my room and drink alone. Then the outside will match the inside."
"You're too pretty to drink alone." Toby said. "Seriously. Spencer, you have the whole package…you know, minus the Hanna-shaped baggage, and that, I don't blame you for…you're smart, and you're funny in a morbidly sarcastic kind of way, and you have a good heart. There plenty of other women out there that will like you."
"Two things, Toby." Spencer sighed, spinning around on the barstool. "You're hardly an expert on women, and you're talking about me ten years ago. Not me now."
"The point is, it's still you. And you can have it back if you let it." Toby reasoned.
"The old me is the one that got hurt." Spencer glanced up at him from under her long eyelashes. "Why would I ever want that back?"
Toby had eventually pointed her in the direction of a group of women in the corner who gathered at the bar every Friday night without fail, and most definitely shared her taste in women. (There had been incidents of sex in the bathroom, he had said, but she wasn't interested in that sort of hook-up. She wanted to at least make it back to her room, in the interest of feeling only marginally worse about herself, rather than ending up slumped against the bathroom stall, feeling like a slut.)
As the night went on, she got more drunk, and felt worse and the better and then worse again in some sick cycle of highs and lows, and found herself, at one in the morning, in bed with a blonde stranger – they were always blondes. (When their heads were between her legs, she could always pretend, which would always ultimately lead to a later period of self-loathing, but she was always beyond the point of caring.) She always made it a point not to call out the wrong name, but she was so drunk and so lost in the fantasy that she couldn't help it. "Hanna…" Her voice was hoarse, and her nails scraped scalp, and she didn't even know she'd done it until the blonde, (she still couldn't remember her damn name,) was halfway out the door.
She managed to catch up to her, taking her wrist and pulling her back and kissing her, trying to feel something more than just regret, than just baseline attraction, anything other than what she was feeling at the moment. But she didn't find it in the kiss, or the lines of her neck, the swell of her breasts, the curve of her hips. She didn't find it in the noises she made, or the nails digging into her shoulders, or the way her hips cantered upward when she flicked her tongue a certain way. Her cry at the end seemed hollow to Spencer, (they almost always did,) and even as she made a show of slowly sliding her tongue up this girl's stomach, dragging her fingertips along her lower back, the void in her chest only widened. The loneliness only felt more toxic, even as she laid next to her, watching her as she caught her breath.
She closed her eyes before the door shut, knowing that seeing her leave would only make her feel worse, it would only make her remember. But the dull sound of the door gliding shut was too sharp, too piercing for her to ignore. As much as she couldn't bear to admit it, she missed Hanna. For that, she didn't know who she could blame anymore, but as she laid there, she could only think that the reason she was alone right then and there was because she didn't have the courage to swallow her pride and make a simple phone call. (Although part of her knew that it was much more complicated than that.)
She cried herself to sleep.
The next morning came with a wave of nausea and a slew of "Oh shit did I really do that's" crashing down on her. It wasn't until that afternoon that she managed to coax herself downstairs to nurse her hangover and her shame with a cup of coffee. It was a routine that she was mildly used to at this point, although not surrounded by hotel staff and the continental breakfast crowd, or in an uncomfortable chair with a lukewarm, mediocre cup of coffee. She would have made a Starbucks run, but decided against it – today was the big day of the class reunion, and her old classmates would be out in full force today. As much as she liked to believe she wouldn't give a damn about what she had become, she knew she did. And she wasn't about to go out there, into the minefield, hungover and looking and feeling like she'd just been hit by a truck.
Being back in Rosewood threw into stark contrast how much, and yet how little had changed. She had a master's degree in Political Science. She had a job that would lead her to a position in the Mayor's office in New York City if her candidate won. She had a nice apartment, she had friends, she had a tank of fish, she paid bills…she was no longer a teenager, that was for sure.
But the instant she'd driven past the city limits, the instant she'd stepped foot into her parents' house, the instant that she had cried out for Hanna even though she wasn't there, she had felt like one. Felt like the same insecure, emotionally stunted, terrified and traumatized teenager that she had once been. And, really, only her situation had changed, not her. She still slept on the left side of the bed. She still took her coffee the same way. She was still terrified of thunderstorms when she was alone. (That was what the tank of fish had been for, although it hadn't helped much.)
And she had still managed to lose Hanna, somehow, like she had so many times years ago.
She sighed heavily, letting her aching head thunk back against the wall, closing her eyes to the sounds of the lobby. She shouldn't have come to begin with. She had known how bad it would be for her, she just hadn't expected it all to hit her this soon and this fast, and she could only imagine what the next two weeks of her stay in Rosewood would do to her psyche. It wouldn't leave it intact, that was for sure, and she was starting to wonder if she should risk it. There was so much damage up there, after everything, after A, after her parents, after Hanna, that she wasn't sure she could afford any more metaphorical hits.
"Hey, lady!" The sudden explosion of sound near her head made her jump, spilling coffee all down her front. (Thank God it wasn't hot, or she'd have been sporting a serious burn.) She swore somewhat loudly, shaking off her shirt before glancing around for the sound of the noise, regretting her outburst when she saw it was only a small boy, standing in front of her.
"I…sorry." She said, righting herself in the chair, setting the now empty coffee cup aside.
"I lost my mom." He said. He didn't seem all that upset, which led her to wonder of he was just an exceptionally brave little boy, or lying. "Can you help me find her?" He had dark hair and eyes, and was short – he looked to be about six, or maybe seven, and was dressed in a starched polo shirt and jeans, not exactly what she would have expected to see a young boy in, especially on a weekend.
"Tell you what, kid." Spencer said. "I'll sit right here with you until she comes looking, because I'm sure she's going out of her mind trying to find you, and I don't want to miss her."
"Okay." He said, sitting down in the chair across from her, his attitude and posture so chipper, she was afraid she was going to throw up, and not just from her hangover either. "My name's Liam."
"Liam…I'm Spencer." She sighed, sitting forward in her chair, pausing at a rush of dizziness.
"Spencer's a boy's name." Liam said, frowning. "Isn't it?"
"No, it's not." God, if she had a nickel for every time she'd heard that. "I'm a girl, and it's my name. So it's not just a boy's name…where was the last place you were with your mom?" She asked, wanting to get him out of her hair as soon as possible, even if he was cute – she was too hungover to play babysitter to some irresponsible woman's kid.
"Up at her room." Liam said, kicking his legs back and forth, his feet hitting her shins multiple times, although she didn't say anything. It required too much effort. "She said she'd be right there, and that I could go push the elevator button, and then the doors opened, so I got in, but they opened too soon or Mommy was late, so now I'm here and she's still upstairs."
"…don't you need to breathe, kid?" Spencer asked, taking in the entirety of his sentence.
Liam's brow furrowed, the entendre in her sentence clearly lost on him. He looked so familiar to her, with that expression especially, leading her to wonder which one of her former classmates was his parent. The thought of running into one of them before she was prepared made her stomach lurch, made her want to leave. But she couldn't very well abandon him. "Never mind." She sighed, trying to brush more of the spilled coffee off her shirt. "I'm sure she'll be down here soon, if she was just upstairs."
"Sorry about your shirt." He did sound genuinely sorry, and it was impossible to be mad at something that cute – she couldn't imagine being a mother, let alone being his mother, and responsible for punishing something that adorable. "Mommy hates it when I spill stuff on her clothes."
"Well…this isn't an important shirt anyway." She said. It wasn't. It was just one of the plaid shirts she slept in, although it had been her favorite. "Don't worry about it." She glanced down at Liam's small backpack, overflowing with action figures, and spotted the small Harry Potter logo emblazoned on the side. "You like Harry Potter, Liam?"
He nodded vigorously. "He's my favorite." He said dramatically, waving his hands in childish excitement, something that made Spencer smile. "You like Harry Potter too?"
Spencer nodded. "Yeah, I…I felt like he was my best friend when I was your age. Well, a little older than that, but…you get the point. I saw the movies when they were in theatres and everything. My parents didn't much like the books, though, but…" She shrugged. "I loved them anyway."
"My mommy reads them to me all the time." He got up off of his chair, bounding towards her. "I bet you like Hermione. You're a lot like her."
Spencer laughed a little. "Kiddo, you don't know the half of it." As much of an annoyance as his intrusion had seemed a little while ago, he was doing a lot to lift her spirits. "You remind me of Harry. You look a lot like him, in a way. Just give you some glasses and a little lightening scar, and you'll be his little doppelganger."
"Really?" He asked, lighting up. "I can't wait until I'm eleven and I can get my Hogwarts letter." He said, bouncing on his feet. "Sometimes kids at school make fun of me, but I know that I'll be able to hex them when I get back, so it's okay."
"Liam…you know that you'd get in huge trouble for hexing them right?" Even with the lightheartedness of the conversation, Spencer felt for the boy. She knew what it was like to have someone come after her, and to keep coming after her – she still felt that pain, even today, and although it was different what Liam was going through, it didn't make her any less sympathetic. "The Ministry of Magic would have them expelled. So when people make fun of you, just imagine yourself hexing them, okay? Think about how silly they'll look. And then you can just smile and ignore it because you're better than them."
"I was right." Liam said after a moment, beaming. "You are like Hermione, you're super smart."
Before Spencer could respond, the lobby was suddenly full with the echo of heels against the marble floor, footsteps panicked and fraught. "Liam?! Liam! Oh thank God, there you are…"
"Mommy!" Liam bounded forward clumsily, tripping over his feet as he ran past Spencer to get to his mother. She smiled as she watched him, the expression suddenly falling from her features as she turned and laid eyes on Liam's mother.
"…Hanna?"
A/N: Look out for Hourglass, coming soon! Also an as of yet unnamed story detailing this new Toby development~ also, if you have any questions, submit them to my tumblr .com and I'll post them on here as a new chapter. (likewise if you want to rage at me, haha.) I am proud to finally mark this story complete :)
