Chapter Fifty-One: Diana Reid
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This is the hardest letter I've ever written. I don't know if there'll be harder in my future, but I imagine so, because I need to atone for my past.
The Starbucks was quiet this early in the morning, the girl behind the counter sleepy-eyed and clearly not ready to be there. Spencer watched her for a moment as she calibrated her milk thermometer, before looking back at his letter. The black ink stared up at him accusingly, the biro tapping against the table.
To stall the moment he had to gather his frantic thoughts together, he watched the small town outside beginning to wake up. Leaves blew down the dry street, the sky cloudy and grim. A few shopfronts were beginning to hang Halloween decorations, pumpkins and black cats and cobwebs in the doorways. It was three days until his twenty-second birthday.
Back to the letter, his pen scratching on the paper: I need you to know why I am who I am.
It would be easier this way. A way to bypass his messy brain and get the words out in a way his mom could read and understand, with him right there to support it. Easier, but not easy.
This was the beginning of him leaving his past behind.
When he drove away from the Starbucks he'd spent his morning in, the sun was rising overhead. The clouds dispelled just slightly. It was still a grim day, but not completely so.
He was alone, as he'd chosen to be, driving to a destination he both dreaded and longed for. The letter was unfinished on the passenger seat beside him.
That was okay. He had plenty of time to get it right.
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I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I'm sorry I never came to you for help. I just couldn't face how hurt you'd be, how angry, how betrayed. We trusted him… I trusted him. And I messed up. Then, and after, when I didn't come to you. I should have. You were always there for me, when I was a child, and you would have been there for me then, when I was still a child but mistakenly thought I could be a man. I couldn't.
I'm no longer ashamed of what he did to me. I don't hide behind forgetting anymore. For so long, I hid behind the mask of the man I thought he'd made of me—a cruel and broken man. That's what this letter is about. I don't need your forgiveness; I don't deserve it. It's not going to give us back the years we've lost now; those years are gone.
I do ask for your love, because I know I can't go on without it.
But, before I ask for the return of your love, I need to tell you who I became. You're not going to like the man I speak about now. He's not the boy you raised. He's not the man I ever thought I would be.
I'm not ashamed of being raped by Ross Connors. Nothing I ever did brought that down upon me; I am and was blameless.
I am ashamed of what I did after.
I'm ashamed of the following:
He had to stop there, to pause and pick at the greasy burger and fries he'd bought from the tired truck-stop employee. It wasn't as festive as the last time he'd been here. Outside, night was falling, but there was no snow. No Aaron's car parked against the railing. No Halcyon to take outside to relieve herself.
Spencer ate the fries that tasted like nothing in particular, staring out the window into the darkened night and thinking about who he had once been. He wondered; what would happen now, if he was to see Aaron again? Would their story be the same?
Was he strong enough yet to put his shameful past behind him?
When he turned his attention back to the garishly lit interior of the stop, it was bustling, bright, real in a way he wasn't sure he was yet. His stomach growled, angry at the grease he was loading it with, his back aching from the endless hours spent driving. He'd nap in the car before he continued on, he decided. It'd be safe to do so here, with plenty of others around.
He abandoned the burger and bought a candy bar instead, finishing it while sitting on the hood of the car he'd bought from Ethan and watching two kids bicker about who got the front seat.
In his pocket, the letter was still unfinished.
Before he left, he bought a hat with fluffy earflaps, blushing when the cashier complimented him on it. He propped it on the dash and drove onwards, refreshed and renewed.
The letter was unfinished, but it wouldn't be for long.
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I'm an addict. I've always been easily fixated, easily obsessed… by knowledge, by Aaron, and, as it turns out, by self-medicating. That part of me comes as no real surprise to myself. To you, perhaps, because you always thought I could be so much more.
But I'm not. I'm just a junkie, the same as any other. Ross built me up and he broke me down and I didn't know how to cope so I found a way I didn't have to. That sounds like an excuse. I promise, I'm not trying to make excuses for myself. I'm just trying to explain what happened.
The night it happened, I called you. I was hysterical. You didn't answer but you returned my calls. Ross waylaid them. I'm sorry I never told you the truth. He told you I was ill. That was true, in a way, I've never been more confused than I was those days. He told you I was safe. That was a lie.
After Ross, they sent me away. To DC. You'll remember—we told you that I was being transferred because of my abilities, to somewhere where they could cater more easily to my interests. That was also a lie.
In DC, I spiralled. You'll remember that too… we told you I was okay. That was one more lie. I drank. A little at first until the days began to bleed together and then I met a woman, a dealer. Her name is Clary. You'll hate her for what she taught me to do. I don't hate her. I pity her. She never had the opportunities that I threw away. I wonder now how much she despised me for that, for seeing how callously I treated everything she'd never had a chance to even have.
She gave me drugs. Free, at first, you know that's how they work. Then the prices go up. But she went off script. I don't know what happened. I began a sexual tryst with her. That's a strange word to use, but it wasn't a relationship and it wasn't kind and I promise—she never knew how old I was. I'm sorry. I let you down.
It wasn't unusual that I slept with her. I was doing the same to anyone who would allow it. I guess it was unusual that it continued. I think she saw something kinder in me than I ever saw in myself. And I just kept getting high and finding strangers to take me home.
Ross took away my right to say no.
I guess I figured all I had left was saying yes.
The farmer's scarecrow wasn't doing a very good job. Spencer sympathized. He watched the crows picking at the dirt below the scarecrow's pole, talons scratching in the dust. Around them, dry corn loomed. Somewhere behind him, the car waited, the final day of his drive already behind him.
His legs ached. He trudged along the beaten path between the lines of corn, hearing a dog bark distantly. The crows scattered. He breathed air that was cool and almost biting.
It was relaxing. He needed that. When he touched his hand to the letter in his pocket, he felt his fingers tremble. It wasn't ready yet. He couldn't give it to her like this… not like this. She needed to see the light at the end of his journey. To see how far he'd come.
He had come far.
He turned and began to walk back to the car.
He had come far.
The crows landed again, already forgetting that he'd frightened them. His mark on this land was passing.
He smiled.
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Someone once told me that I had every opportunity to escape the cage I'd built for myself. They're right. I was so blind, spending so much time flailing around in the dark that I never realized I was surrounded by people holding flashlights and calling my name. Aaron, Ethan, Elle… even Clary, in her own broken way.
You would have been there too, if I'd have let you. Another thing I need to apologise for.
There's one more thing I need to tell you. This… this is the hardest part of the letter.
It's been almost two years now since the night I tried to die. That night I came to you, shortly after, I didn't tell you about this. I told you a little about the drugs. I tried to tell you about Ross. I never mentioned dying.
I didn't. Aaron stopped me. Because he stopped me, I'm still here today. I'm better than I was. I can be better still.
I'll never stop being thankful for that.
On the last night, he slept in the car on the outskirts of Vegas, parked in the desert. The wind was rough, blowing dirt against the car in a patterning whisper of background sound.
The chair dug into his hip. He rolled, grumbled, sleepily covered his eyes as cars passed on the freeway beside him and leaked light into his vehicle. He drifted.
He dreamed of Aaron and woke broken-hearted but determined nonetheless.
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I'm not the boy I was anymore, but I'm not that man either. I opened my eyes. I accepted the help that was offered to me. I moved forward. I hope to continue doing so.
I still fear my future, just as much as I still fear the past. I think I'll carry these fears for the rest of my life, in some way. But I know that Ethan will be there, that you'll be there. I know I won't be alone.
One day, I'll accept the mistakes of my past and use them to create my future. I don't know if I'm ready for that quite yet, but one day. I know I have the potential to do so. I know I have the opportunity.
I'm in communication with a man smoothing my pathway into a new career. He's intrigued by my work, fascinated by my mind, and—despite knowing about the sins of my past—utterly sure that I have a future. It's been a long time since I've trusted someone to lead me into a new life, but I feel like I can trust him. Elle believes so. I have to take a considerable amount of training and I'm not sure yet if I'm ready to face it.
But I know I have to try.
There was one place he wanted to go first.
He drove home.
They still owned the house. Spencer had been meaning to come here, to sort through his mother's belongings, to… organize their affairs. He'd known since he'd turned eighteen that he'd have to sell the house one day; he'd never felt right thinking about it while he was under the thrall of his own addictions.
But he wasn't anymore.
The key was cool in his hand and slipped easily into the well-maintained lock. One final gift from William that Spencer had refused to acknowledge had been given: the house was looked after. The lawn was mowed, the swing Spencer had hung for himself when he was eleven still hung from the tree out the back. No windows were broken. The inside of the house, when he stepped into the cool interior, was only somewhat closed in.
But it was a stranger's home now. The furniture was unfamiliar, hidden beneath dust-covers. A stranger's hand kept the mantle dusted, swept the floors, wiped the bannister of the staircase. He looked around and felt out of place.
His mom's room was empty now. Her favourite books had gone to join her, the others boxed away. The bed was unmade, covered with yet another white sheet. He left that place quickly.
His room was very much how he'd left it the day he'd packed for college. The books were still on their shelves, a dusty model of the solar system hung overhead. The blinds were open but, when he closed them, overhead, the ceiling was alive with glow-in-the-dark stickers he'd carefully matched to the sky outside. He studied it and smiled. It was a harvest sky, the constellations of Halloween above.
His desk was neat, mostly bare. He'd taken almost everything with him when he'd left. Almost everything.
There was a box with notepaper in it, a box of pens beside it. He picked it up, recognising it and tracing his thumb over the stickers he'd plastered all over it. Aaron had given him these stickers, a strange variety of sports teams and movie references, whatever had caught the then eleven-year-old boy's eye. Behind the desk, the wall was exactly the same.
Exactly the same.
Drawings pinned up of a fort looming above a quarry, guarded by two wizards with long hats and flowing pencil-scratched robes. Another of a great wave of spiders. Yet another: the wizards turning back the Armies of Fear. Between the pictures, there were postcards, movie tickets, the torn off edge of a poster Aaron had sent him. The newspaper clipping declaring that their story had placed in the New York Times.
A photo: Spencer almost cried out with surprise when he saw it. He'd… he'd forgotten it existed, this dusty polaroid snapped by Sean on the single timeless holiday Spencer had spent with them. He'd hidden it and brought it here, unwilling to leave something so treasured in his dorm room, perhaps already suspecting Ross, even then.
It was him and Aaron, looking at the camera. A fake grin plastered on his face, a real one on Aaron's.
They were so young.
They were holding hands.
When he left that place, he did so with the paperwork he'd need to fill out to organize the sale of the house, the number of a moving company who'd take his mother's and his belongings to a storage container in DC until he had time to sort through them, and the photo in his pocket.
He was finally ready to finish the letter.
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I wrote you this letter not because I'm too scared to face you. I am, in some ways, because I never wanted to hurt you, and I know this will. I'm writing it because I should have told you sooner. Because I've waited so long to tell you that I can't find the words without first writing them down. Because you deserve to know.
I love you and I always have. I've always been proud to be your son, but I'm only just relearning that maybe you're proud to be my mom.
I'm sorry I ever doubted that.
I'm sitting outside Bennington now. In half an hour, I'll be with you. I'll hand you this letter. I'll watch you read it. I wonder if you'll be able to finish it. If you can't, that's fine. I'll be right there for you.
And, this time, I'm not going anywhere.
Love, Spencer
October, 28th, 2003
And, with that, Spencer stepped from the car, locked it behind him, and walked up the path to Bennington.
Moving forward.
