Chapter 24- Secrets and Lies
The sun was flooding in through the small gap in the curtains causing the entire room to be filled with a blinding light. Spencer was sat on the huge bed that would usually contain her and the man with the beautiful blue eyes; however for the past week it has just been her sleeping alone on the dark nights leading up to Christmas.
Toby had been to talk to her every day since the argument but she continued to stand her ground, she wouldn't let him come back unless he told her absolutely everything she needed to know. He had told her about how Jason was the one that wouldn't let him tell and even he wanted to tell her so badly but it wasn't a good idea.
Spencer was awoken from her daydream by the small wail that was coming from her son's room. She picked herself up and made her way unsteadily towards the noise to comfort the small child.
"Hey honey, what's wrong with you?" She whispered trying to comfort Elijah "are you missing your daddy? Because I am too. We can't let him win though Eli, he has to tell momma the truth." She had spent nearly every day like this for the past week, she would wake up when Eli did and feed him making sure he was clean before he went to sleep again then she too would go to bed; completely on autopilot. If it wasn't for Elijah and the regular visits from her best friends and concerned sister then she would have spent the entire time wallowing in her own self pity because to her that was better than giving in and running back to her boyfriend.
Toby woke up as soon as the light from the sun hit his face, the exact same time that Spencer had got up to see to the crying baby. It was like there was something inside of him that meant he knew exactly when his child was in any pain or discomfort. Every morning for the past week he would wake up at regular intervals during the early hours of the morning at the exact time he would if he were at home so they could feed the bundle of joy.
The thought of Spencer back at the apartment alone with no one to protect her or Elijah scared him every morning; he would wake up in a cold sweat after dreaming the exact same dream every night. It would always start with the argument then him leaving the brown eyed girl completely distraught. In the middle of the night she would wake up due to the incessant screams coming from their little boy so she would get out of bed to go see to him. Then the rest would just be a blur of screams and thrashing on his girlfriends part; every single time he had this dream his heart would break at the idea of losing the girl that meant more to him than anything else in the entire world. She was after all the love of his life.
Quickly adjusting himself and wiping the sweat off his brow he got out of bed and padded into the living room of Jason's two bedroom apartment. Sure enough the sandy haired man was sat at the breakfast bar with his head in his hands as if he had experienced the exact same terror that Toby himself just had. As he took a seat next to Jason they both sighed sorrowfully, knowing that they both felt the exact same pain.
"Listen Toby, I was just thinking that maybe..." he paused as he shifted his head and locking his gaze onto his temporary roommate. "Well maybe..."
"We should tell Spencer" They both said completely in sync.
"I know you said that we should but I can't carry on living here when my girlfriend and son are potentially in danger back there and she won't let me protect her. Wait what?"
"That's exactly what I was thinking. I mean telling them all this could get them into more trouble but it's nothing we can't handle right? Just think about everything we have found out in the past and we've somehow managed to get through it. It just means that there has to be someone with her and Elijah at all times, and I swear I'm not exaggerating." Jason as he tried to justify the decision that they were making.
"Man, do you really think I would let anything happen to her or that boy? They are what I live for and as much as this situation could be worse I don't think I could go any longer than this without her. I miss her far too much and we both know just how stubborn she is and I need her back. I love her Jason and I should be with her right now." There was a pain in his blue eyes that Jason under stood completely after all he was experiencing the exact same feelings.
"Well that's that settled; we'll get ready then head straight round there. I can't carry on having these nightmares every night; I look like a zombie." Jason laughed as he looked into the spoon he had been using to shovel cereal into his mouth with only minutes before.
"I know exactly what you mean. I wasn't getting any sleep before but with these fucking nightmares on top of waking up when Elijah would usually wake up to be fed in the night is taking its toll on me. I miss him, I've only held him for 5 minutes in total this week and that is definitely not sitting well with me."
"You sort your breakfast out while I grab a shower so we can go sort this mess out. I miss my sister and my nephew." He laughed as he pulled himself up from the stool; it was obvious that Jason was finally starting to think there was hope in all of this.
Half an hour later Jason and Toby were stood at the door of Toby's apartment ready to face Spencer together. They both knew she had every right to know what they needed to say and she would be the person to make it all make sense but in order to do that they were putting her in danger.
"You ready?" Toby mumbled as he turned to look at his accomplice stood nervously next to him.
"We best get it over with before I lose my nerve completely" He whispered cautiously in reply. Toby unlocked the door and let them both into the apartment that was a mess of baby toys and dishes all around the living room. It was obvious that Spencer was pretty cut up about all of this because the room was pitch black, proving that she hadn't been in the mood to get out of bed.
"Jesus Christ, I think we underestimated just how much this hurt her. I have never seen Spencer leave something to untidy since the day I met her." The blue eyes were scanning over the scene in front of him, suddenly feeling a sure of guilt flood through him. "I'll go find her"
As he tiptoed through the familiar surroundings that he had missed so much he took his chances for which room Spencer would currently be in as he pushed open the door to the nursery. There she was; curled up in a ball in the rocking chair Toby had made her when they broke up. Her usual beautiful brown curls were a mess of tangles and she was wearing sweats.
"Spence, Spencer honey wake up. I need to talk to you baby" He stroked her face lovingly as he crouched down to her level; within seconds her eye lids were fluttering open and she was adjusting to the sight in front of her.
"T-Toby" she muttered; her voice still hoarse from sleep and the amount of crying she had done. He looked straight into her eyes and saw the amount of pain she was in although he could have come to that conclusion just by looking at how bloodshot they were. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Baby I'm so sorry, I fucked up didn't I?" Toby whispered as he tried his hardest not to show her just how broken he was without her "I should have told you sooner but I couldn't bear the thought of you getting hurt but I did that on my own didn't I?"
"I'd say you did yeah" She replied her voice laced with hurt and anger. How dare he show up here after a week of refusing to tell her what he was keeping from her and be all sweet with those huge blue eyes that made her melt every time she looked into them.
"Why don't you come out here and we can talk about this? Jason and I decided that it was for the best if we just came clean. You were right, we do have more than one person to think about and I can't protect either of you if I'm not here."
"Wait, Jason's here too?" Her eyes almost doubled in size as she realised that they were here to tell her exactly what she wanted to know. "Shit, the house is a mess"
"Spence don't worry about the house right now, we'll clean it later baby" His smile was so sweet that she was almost feeling bad for kicking him out in the first place. "Just come out there with me so we can explain it all. I promise as soon as you hear what we have to say you'll realise why we kept it from you for so long."
10 minutes later Spencer was showered and dressed ready to face whatever it is they had to tell her. Considering that she had been waiting for a week to find out what they we hiding, there was feeling of worry and uncertainty in the pit of her stomach. What if they were right? What if what they had to say changed everything and not in a way that they had all hoped.
"Let me get coffee before you say anything or I will just get grouchy and snap all the time."
"Here let me make it, Toby is already getting to work on straightening the apartment up and if I know you then you're dying to help him" Jason laughed as he pulled Spencer away from the coffee maker, pushing her in the direction of the living room so she could help Toby make it look relatively presentable in there.
"Oh there you are, I thought you'd got eaten by the shower or something." Toby chuckled "I was about the send out a search party"
"Yeah well, I very nearly locked myself in there. There's a part of me that doesn't want to know everything for my own safety but the rest of me is screaming, telling me not to be so selfish. Toby I hate being here by myself because every single shadow looks like it could be someone out to get me, someone out to get him and it is absolutely terrifying. If anything happened to Elijah I wouldn't be able to carry on; he's my life Toby. I would die if it meant that he was safe" Her huge brown eyes were glistening over as she told him everything that she'd thought about while he was gone. Everything that scared the girl that would never show weakness; but after all Toby was the one person she would completely open up to and everything started to feel better.
"Ahem, sorry to interrupt" Jason coughed from the doorway holding a huge mug of coffee, strong and black just the way she liked it. He handed her the mug containing the piping hot liquid and gestured for her to sit down. "We may as well get started then"
"Yeah sure" She replied before she took the first sip of her morning coffee; to her it was like heaven and she wouldn't have it any other way.
"Right Spence, everything that we have to say here; I want you to promise me that you will look at it with an open mind and try not to get too freaked out. We did when we put all the pieces together but that got us absolutely no where" Jason started, he was nervous at first but his confidence slowly started to build as he thought about his sister and how she needed so desperately to know the truth.
"Do you remember when me and Ali first moved here?"
"Yeah, I came over to your house with cookies that me and Melissa had made with our nanny, why?"
"What you didn't know was that we had another sister; she was called Courtney." He paused and looked at Spencer, her body completely still and he mouth wide open; she was completely in shock. "She was Ali's twin sister but Alison hated the idea of having someone that she always had to battle with to get our parents attention. If you thought yours and Melissa's relationship was bad, Court's and Ali's was even worse. When Courtney was a baby she got really ill with pneumonia and it completely shocked her immune system so she was always ill and Alison hated that because it meant that there was less attention for her. Toby why don't you tell her the next bit?"
"Sure. Well when I was 9 so you guys would have all been like 8 or something and Jason obviously older; I was walking to the park so I could meet my mom once she finished work. When I walked to the park I would always have to walk down your street and take a cutting through the DiLaurentis' garden. One day when I was walking down there I looked into the garden and saw that they had gotten that huge wendy house for outside and I found it absolutely beautiful. The way the wood was carved in such intricate details yet it was so wonderfully simple. I went over to look at it more closely and heard someone inside so being the curious 9 year old that I was, looked through the window. Inside there was like a huge bed on the ground with loads of pillows on it, the walls were covered with pictures of Alison and another girl I only recognised as someone that looked like Ali. The voices carried on and I saw Ali with this mystery girl. She was threatening her, telling her that she could easily kill her and pass it off as it just being natural. The girl, well Courtney told her that she would tell their parents which made Ali angry so she flipped out and pushed her sister down onto the mattress covering her face with a pillow. I stood there and watched as this girls body thrashed about until it looked like she went limp." He stopped to look deep into his girlfriend's eyes, maybe she could give him some sort of reassurance that would urge him to carry on. That was exactly what she had done, the love that he had missed so much had come rushing straight back and she looked at him in complete admiration as he recounted the obviously painful encounter.
"I thought she was dead because I never saw anything of Courtney after that, I would look for her every time I walked past the house but I would only see Alison or Jason. Then the day you found out about me being –A and broke up with me I went to Ali's grave because I was angry and quite frankly wasted; Jason showed up as I was ranting about seeing Ali kill someone and he listened making sure that I didn't see him. As soon as I shut up talking he came out and scared the living shit out of me" Toby laughed at the bittersweet memory "He asked me about what I'd seen and told me all about Courtney and Alison, about their relationship and how difficult it all was. He should probably tell you the next bit."
"Wait before you start, I have one question." She looked deep into the eyes of her brother practically begging him for the truth and nothing less "why did Alison never tell any of us that she had a twin? We were meant to be her best friends."
"That was because she absolutely despised Courtney, I had always gotten along with Court better because she treated me like her brother. I had a relationship with her that was better than anything I ever had with Alison because Courtney let me in, on the nights when we could hear our parents arguing she would come into my room and fall asleep with me because I was practically her comfort blanket. Alison was always the one that was left out because she seemed to think she was better than all of this, she didn't need us. All she needed was the attention." There was a slight hint of bitterness in his voice as he spoke about both his sisters.
"I thought for hours and hours about everything I had heard Toby say that night, I thought about how my parents had told me and Alison that she had to go away to a place for sick people because she was dying. They sent her to one of the best hospitals in the country hoping that it would save her, she had never been so ill in her life. While she was away Alison made a big deal about how Courtney had abused her when she was still at home, she had threatened to set fire to the wendy house with Alison still in it according to her lies. I tried to tell them that she was lying but it was too late."
"What do you mean it was too late?" Her voice was hoarse, like her mouth and throat had just dried up and she was struggling to breathe.
"About a week later my mom and step-dad came home to tell me and Alison that Courtney had passed away after she caught the flu which killed her. Considering that I was 14 at the time I was still pretty messed up just from being a pubescent teenage boy but that just pushed me over the edge. I spent about a year after getting into trouble that a boy of that age shouldn't be getting into, it pushed me into a downward spiral of stealing things and eventually the drugs by the time I was 17. But when I heard Toby talking about how he thought she'd died, I finally plucked up the courage to ask them about her." He paused, the pain of his past came flooding back as he tried his hardest not to cry in front of his sister.
"And... What did they say?" Spencer was just like him, curious; the type of curious that people could consider rude but it was the only way either of them would get answers and if that's what they wanted then they would get them.
"My mom decided that it would be best to tell me everything, especially after I found out about my dad being my sister's best friend's dad too; I think she figured that things couldn't get any worse. Apparently Courtney never died, they put their sick 8 year old daughter up for adoption because of the lies Alison had told about her. I asked around at a few adoption agencies and it turns out she came back to Rosewood with her adoptive mother when she got remarried."
"What?!" The cogs in Spencer's brain were moving faster than she had ever experienced as she tried her best to figure out her brother's predicament. "So you're telling me that your sister, that no one knew about because she was incredibly sick; fake died because your parents believed everything that Ali told them. Then you heard Toby and asked then about her and it turns out she wasn't dead and is living back here? In Rosewood?"
"Yup, and you haven't heard the best of it yet" The green eyed man added.
"How can this get any better?" She questioned as she tried to get to grips with what her brother had been telling her.
"We think it's my step-sister." Toby blurted, the tension in the room was proving too much for him.
"JENNA, YOUR SISTER IS JENNA?!"
"Yup, Jenna Marshall is Courtney DiLaurentis."
AN: Please please please tell me what you think about this chapter :-) either PM me or review, I don't bite I promise! -Chloe :-)xx