Chapter 21

Twin Farms
Outside Woodstock, VT
Day 9

Spencer stood there for a few moments, letting those words hang in the air, and the tears seep down his cheeks.

The door to the balcony was open. He could hear the birds on the lake, the wind in the trees, faint, distant conversation.

After a moment Dr. Walker finally spoke. "The world hasn't ended."

Spencer managed a smile. "I noticed." He replied. "This doesn't make any sense."

"Why not?"

"Maeve. I loved her. I really did." Of course the moment the words came out of his mouth he understood. "Because she was safe to love. Because she was an abstract, I could love her and never have to confront my sexuality at all."

"Which doesn't make those feelings any less real or valid."

"Of course not." He wiped at his cheeks with the heel of his hands.

"Here." There was a small sink over by the coffee pot. Dr. Walker got up and fetched him a damp tea towel. "Do you remember now?"

"I do." He said. "I remember all of it." He wiped off his face and looked up at the board again.

"Start with the first case." She sat to take notes.

"The Gary Michaels case. I blocked it out because on some level I knew...I knew I was gay even then and my Mother was disgusted by that and I couldn't live with the thought of her hating me."

"It's not unusual to know at that age, or even younger, on an abstract level. But hearing your parents condemn that intrinsic part of you, that's huge for a child."

"I know. Children will do anything to keep the love of their parents. We've seen that over and over in different cases. It was a completely normal reaction."

"And you stopped eating?"

"I didn't want to grow up and have her hate me. I didn't want to grow up. It seemed the most efficient way to make that happen, to take control over that process."

"Also a common reaction."

"Yeah." Spencer turned to the next case. "The Libson case. I didn't really have a thing for Alexa Libson. But she was the prettiest girl in school and I wanted to fit in so I said I did. After what happened, happened, Mark Carter came and rescued me."

"Who was Mark Carter?"

"He was the captain of the basketball team. Turns out he hated the football team, I never figured out why. He didn't find out what was going on until it was too late to stop it but he got me down and made sure I wasn't hurt and got me home. I was so relieved I, um, I think I started reacting. I mean, I was raised on the knight in shining armor myth and here he was, saving me. It was a...a first romantic fantasy come true. Thankfully I don't think he noticed."

"But you blanked it out because..."

"Because I was so embarrassed. Of all the times and places to become aroused. The next day he told everyone I was part of the basketball team, the mascot if nothing else. I ended up helping them with some of their plays. It was all statistics." Spencer smiled a little. "He was kind and treated me like a friend and he was amazingly good looking. I couldn't or didn't identify my feelings back then but looking back I had a huge crush on him. How could I have forgotten why he got me on the team?"

"Mom."

"Yeah."

"And you stopped eating because?"

"Because I was growing up. I started having these dreams about Mark, erotic dreams. And Mom would have been so upset if she knew. I had to hide the sheets a couple of times, I was afraid if she found them she'd have an attack. A low enough body fat percentage will shut down puberty. I guess it was a way of trying to take control of the process again."

"It usually is." Dr. Walker smiled. "The Jenkins case."

"I remember her now. She kept flirting with me. She was always around when I got out of the showers, She kept turning up around campus; she kept buying me small things like sodas and candy bars. Looking back now it was grooming behavior and my friends were right to be concerned, but at the time I was just heading in to puberty, out on my own, lonely and I really liked the attention. On the same day that Ethan and Charlie sent me to live with Charlie's parents Margie asked me if I wanted to go get dinner off campus that night."

"Would you have gone?"

"Yeah." Spencer admitted. "Sure she was twenty and I was thirteen but I thought it meant that I was accepted, that I was part of the community this time, not the little freak I was in high school. I wasn't even thinking about sex, I wasn't interested in her at all. But then Ethan said that I was just attracting perverts and I...I thought that somehow I was turning in to what Mom was so afraid of again, as soon as I left home. I needed to shut that down. Even after Margaret got me to start eating again I dissociated for the next decade. I couldn't stop growing so I ignored it."

"So there wasn't anyone?"

"Thinking back I crushed hard a few times. My roommate Ethan for one. I mean, he saved me from the perverts. We even ended up joining the FBI together. He dropped out on the first day. Remarkably painful. And Charlie's brother. He was an athlete, older, just a really nice guy. He ended up in the Bureau as well, that's when I started thinking about joining. Then he got engaged, and, well."

Dr. Walker chuckled. "All these straight boys keep breaking your heart."

"I know. Now." Spencer managed to laugh with her. "I never realized what I was feeling was attraction, I thought it was hero worship. But now, looking back, there wasn't anything abnormal about what I was thinking or feeling. I just buried it all and punished myself because I would disappoint my mother."

"It makes sense. You two were deeply enmeshed for years. Which falls on the adults in your family, not you."

"But..."

"We'll discuss that more later. Okay, we know why you were pushing the girls away. The Hankle case."

Spencer sat quietly on that one for a long moment. "Tobias didn't know that his father was dead, he didn't know that he had split his personality. He honestly believed his father was a separate entity who was punishing us both. And he tried to help me. And when we could talk he was so curious about the world..."

"You fell in love with him a little. I can hear it in your voice"

"Yeah, I did. But then I had to kill him before Charles killed me." Spencer felt the tears start again.

Dr. Walker made a note. "I think we need to talk about that one more in-depth."

"Yeah." Spencer wiped his face again. "Good plan."

"Okay, the Nichols case."

Spencer was deeply quiet as the memory came back. "That was horrible."

"Why."

"They have to scrub down every inch of your skin to remove any potential contamination. I'd never been with anyone. For a moment...being touched like that honestly felt amazing, and then it was horribly painful."

"I'm sorry that happened. It's not normally like that."

"I know that, intellectually. That's how I ended up on Baclofen."

"Intellectually?"

"I've never really...I've never really been in to physical contact. I'm not the hugging type."

"Out of fear or because it might have made you confront your sexuality?"

"I'm not sure."

"Are you willing to try?"

Was he? "Maybe."

"All right. What happened with this last case?"

"She wanted to watch me react, like I was back in puberty and dealing with wet dreams for the first time. She left a vibrator, she kept the remote, it must have been on the wi-fi network somehow. And I had to go along to keep her away from JJ. And she wouldn't stop; she kept it up for hours. At first it felt good but then it became overwhelming." It was so easy to talk about this now, now that he wasn't hiding the truth from himself anymore. Assuming this was the truth, and they weren't just grasping at straws. But then Spencer remembered one last thing. "JJ told me to go inward, to use fantasy to block out the presence of the Unsub. I tried Lila, Austin, even her but it didn't help. And then I pictured a male presence and it did. I was so ashamed of that I blocked it out again." Damn it all to hell. "What do I tell Mom?"

"Whatever you want to tell her." Dr. Walker put down her notes. "Spencer, you are a grown man, completely independent, who lives on the other side of the country from her. She doesn't need to be involved in your sex life at all."

"But I need to know if I'm breaking her heart." He just needed to know. He wouldn't have peace until he did.

"The only way to know is to ask."