a/n: This is a doozy, but also one of my favorite things I've written in a very long time. The title comes from the song "Demons," by Imagine Dragons and the song is really relevant to Spencer in this chapter. (Further listening: Dark Side - Kelly Clarkson).

Trigger warning for self-harm.

Thank you all for your support and all your reviews! I am so flattered and you all make me so so so happy. Fluffy chapters to come soon, just bear with me. :-) I won't be posting as quickly (probably) in the next few weeks as I wrap up the first part in this story. The reason I've been posting so quickly is that the chapters I'm writing keep ending up way too long for one chapter, so they get split up, but I want to post them close together. Have you all been liking the sneak peek thing? I will keep up with it if so, but let me know in reviews!

Also, I LOVE how you're all starting to leave predictions and trying to figure out the ending of this story in the reviews! Only time will tell who is right ;)

HAPPY PLL DAY! I never get to post during the day on Tuesdays. Yeeee!

"This was fun," she smiled a little at him. Her drunk smile was much more honest than her sober one. He loved the doofy look her in eyes when she smiled this way. He loved how genuinely happy she looked in moments like these with her and her doofy, unstressed smiles: when she'd been drinking, when she was too sleepy to keep her eyes all the way open but tried forcing herself awake to snuggle and talk in little whispers on the nights they'd slept in each other's beds or naps after all-nighters spent in separate houses but somehow still feeling as if there wasn't an inch between them, and the clumsiness of rose-red blushing cheeks and wanderings eyes in the moments just before or after being intimate. He lived on edge for these beautiful moments, even if they conjured up a paranoia in him that she was only happy in these brief moments. He always settled again when he saw that cute little doofiness come back, happier each time it returned.

He smiled at her, wanting to pinch her cheeks from her cuteness and make out with her all at once. She was a host of paradoxes; her innate innocence and cuteness versus her complex and mysterious sexiness was overwhelming in the moment. "I'm glad you had a good evening, Spence. I had fun too. You're quite the hostess." He said while leaning forward and kissing her head before going to take the garbage bag of bottles and cans and the other bag of trash out to the cans on the side of her house.

When he came back, she was moving the chairs and trying to put her backyard back together.

"We can do this in the morning," he said as he gently touching her elbow, trying to pull her inside. He hoped to talk to her now that everyone was gone and they'd had some time to settle.

"I want to get it done now." She said, kind of pushing him off. Her breath still stunk of alcohol.

"You can do better than that." He said, holding his arms out so his torso was left unprotected, as if he was surrendering. "I've seen you work out. I know you've got some muscle on you."

"What are you talking about?" She made a face at him.

"Come on, I know you're still mad at me. Show it." He said, encouraging her to push him again. Let her anger out.

"Get out of the way, Toby. I wanna put the chairs back." He was standing in front of her like a human blockade.

"No. You're mad at me for what I said before, but you're pretending you're not. Let yourself be mad. You can't bottle up everything." He said calmly.

"Toby, move." Her voice got lower. She wasn't liking his game.

"You're mad at your parents and the way they treat you. Mad at your sister for being the favorite. Show it. Come on. Show me. I can take it." He pushed her further.

"Toby, I'm serious," she said, pushing him backward just slightly. It was almost playful.

"That's all you've got? You don't have to keep carrying all that stuff around. It's too heavy and you need a break. You're pissed off at me and your family and at your whole damn life. Let me take the brunt of it. Don't disappear in there on me. Not anymore." He meant inside of herself, which he could never quite read or reach her.

"Screw you, Toby," she said pushing past him swiftly, her shoulder getting him hard in the arm. He rebalanced himself and got behind her so she was between him and the picnic table.

"Better, keep going. Don't stop now. Get it all out so it doesn't keep you weighed down anymore. I know you've got years and years of shit bottled up in there. A whole freakin' lifetime. It's time for it to come out." He said, still speaking calmly as he could while still getting a bit of a rise out of her.

She shoved him again, this time harder. He kept encouraging her, egging her on with all of the things she expressed sadness about at various points. The things that fueled her fire. Soon she wasn't shoving him anymore; she was pounding away at his chest with her small, balled up fists. Her knuckles were turning white but she just kept pounding. She was making noises as she hit and hit, tears falling from her eyes. He just took it, feet planted firmly as she went at it.

Finally, she stopped, and fell to the ground covering her face. "You don't know how it is." She said, still covering her face, sobbing with her knees pulled in towards her chest, her head buried in her knees.

He crouched down next to her. He wanted to hold her and kiss her and tell her he loved her, but he didn't know how she would react. This was turning into a full-blown meltdown. He just sat next to her, letting her cry it out for a bit.

"Thatta girl," he said, finally rubbing her leg after a while. When she didn't freak out, he moved his arm upward to rub circles on her back and pull her body in towards his. She leaned in as he pulled, her head landing on his shoulder. He leaned sideways and kissed her hair, taking in a big whiff of that faint coconut smell that always lingered around her from her hair products.

"So tell me." He kept rubbing her back. "Tell me what I don't know…Your story is my favorite one," he added after a moment of silence, remembering a time when she was at a similarly low point and he had convinced her to share with him the story of her life. The things that made her Spencer, for better or for worse. He remembered how afraid she was to speak, how afraid she was to ask him for anything, and how desperate she was to have someone listen once she started to talk. How all he wanted from that moment forward was to keep her in a bubble to protect her. It was quite a bit before they'd started dating, but it was the day he realized Spencer Hastings was a girl that he could love one day. And he did, more than he could even wrap his head around.

She exhaled loudly, catching her breath from her sobs. She was crying so hard she was hiccuping for air. When she'd calmed down, she looked at him, tears staining her cheeks. She hadn't even bothered to wipe her face off. He reached around with his other hand and used him thumb to wipe her tears.

"Huh? Come on, baby. Please? Help me understand. I'm ready to listen. I won't argue with you."

"I'm not stupid," she said blatantly. "I know you're trying to help me, I do, okay? But it's not that simple. This isn't some stupid young adult novel where you get to save me by just telling me to stop doing all the things that aren't good or healthy or right. It's not like that. You don't get to be that guy." She pushed his chest once more with just one finger, as if to emphasize the point that she was talking at him. She wasn't drunk enough that she didn't know what she was saying, but drunk enough that she'd lost any filter she might have and all her words spilled out soaked in honesty.

"I just want to help you." He thumbed at her thigh. "I don't want to lose you."

"I don't want to lose you either." She wiped her own face this time and sniffled in loudly. "But it's not like you can fix me…everything is happening so fast…one minute I'm Freak Hastings and the next minute you're saying all words out of a Nicholas Sparks movie and you want me to be all of these things and… I'm just not there. And I might never be. I might not be something you can ever fix. Even if I want to be something fixable and… Even if you try your hardest. It's just me. This is who I am, Toby. And if you don't want to have a toxic depressing girlfriend then I can understand that. But I can't be the person you want me to be overnight. Maybe not in a lot of nights." She stopped to catch her breath, and to try and stop her yard from spinning. She leaned into him more, trying to make everything stop feeling like it was moving around her much faster than she could keep up. He adjusted his arms to hold her, practically in his lap like a little girl. He didn't dare interrupt.

She continued when she felt like the world had stabilized. "At first I liked how you made me feel like I could be better than I am, it made me feel special. It made me feel like I could be someone better. I really really believed I could be whoever it was you saw when you looked at me… But I know that I was being silly and it wasn't possible. And one day you'd realize i wasn't that girl…and I know that you know that by now and so now you want to help me be the girl you thought I was before but it's not as easy as just wanting me to be better…believe me i've wanted it my whole life and my parents have too yet here I am…poor messy broken Spencer who cries too much and…sniffles all over her boyfriend's shirt." She said kind of laughing at herself in the exasperated kind of way one does when there's not much else to say, wiping his shirt and feeling all the dampness she'd left. She was rambling and talking fast, and some of her words came out a bit slurred. She was looking right at him though. She wasn't always good at making eye contact during the risky, important conversations. But she was doing it now. "It's still weird to say…like when I just heard myself say it," she still held onto his shirt, looking up into his eyes, the corners of her lips curling up into that doofy smile again. "That you're my boyfriend. I don't think I'll ever get used to how good that feels in my mouth." She leaned forward a bit. It was seductive and entrancing how she moved so effortlessly and left her lips so close to his but not even slightly acknowledging their closeness.

She took a deep breath, her smile starting to fade. "You deserve the kind of girl you thought I could be. A good, normal girl. No messes; no freaks." She had let go of his shirt somehow. "If you like being with Aria better, I won't be upset…" She trailed off, fixing his collar again. "I just want you to be happy."

"Spence…look. I'm sorry I made you feel like you needed to change. But let me be clear." he said making eye contact back, as he had the whole time she was talking. He was very intentional in making her know he was looking at her and hearing everything she was saying. He didn't dare make a peep. Her eyes flickered down and he lifted her chin to get their eye contact back.

"Aria is just my friend. I'm sorry I didn't tell you myself that she and I hooked up that time. But that was it. One time. I was so drunk I don't even really remember it. It was before you. And I hope you can trust me that she is just my friend. And she's your friend, too. She loves hanging out with you, and she's always asking about you. And Spencer, I never wanted you to change for my sake. Or really at all. I just wanted you to, ya know, be happy. Just like you want me to be happy. You make me happy. Especially when you're happy. I just want you to stop letting things get you so…down. So upset. To start living for you. I wanted you to know that you could be whatever made you happy because you're perfect how you are… your parents want you to change. And they're assholes for wanting you to be anyone else. I just want you to know that I love you and you don't have to be afraid of that because I'm not going to change my mind. I love the Spencer Hastings you are when you aren't trying, even when you're not happy about being Spencer Hastings. If I could change anything about you…well, I just wish you wouldn't hurt yourself anymore. I… I really couldn't handle it if you disappeared on me."

He held her hand, his thumb rubbing the side of hers. "And I didn't mean what I said earlier. Not the way it came out. I just meant that they'll never love you the way you want them to or need them to. They aren't ever going to be affectionate. But you're right sweetie, they're your mom and dad. They love you. They just want what's best for you. It just comes out—"

"Stop talking." She said, wiggling out of his arms and jumping up to her feet.

"What, Spence? Come on." He said as she stood, shaking her head no, shoving her hands in her pockets. He didn't understand why she was upset. He hadn't even realized he said the "L" word. It just came out so naturally. He thought it all the time, he just kept it in to keep from riling her up.

"I can't do this anymore." She said storming off into the house and running up to her room.

He followed her, taking the steps two at a time to catch up before she could close the door in his face. She was crying again, standing against her dresser, leaning against it for support, crying.

He let himself in. "You can trust me, Spencer. I just wanna talk."

"You don't think I know that?!" She turned around quickly and they were so close they'd almost crashed right into one another. "How dare you! How dare you think that I don't know I can trust you. I've given you everything, Toby! I gave you my first kiss, I told you about my family and I admitted I'd cut myself, before we were even dating! I told you you were my only friend. My first best friend. You don't think I know how fucking pathetic that is?!" She never really cursed at him. Or at all. "I gave you my damn virginity before we were even together. If you don't know I trust you by now you're the one that needs to be fixed." She spat out. How could he not know how she felt safe when she was with him?

"Then why won't you talk to me?"

"I am talking! I talked! I told you why I was upset and how I wish I could change for you but I can't! But I don't want to anymore because you broke your promise. You promised you wouldn't say those words. I don't want you to say those words."

"But I do. I love you." He pressed. He needed her to know she was loved. That was the most important piece of this in his mind.

"I said STOP." She started to rip open her drawers to change her clothes, ripping through her drawers. She was tearing up again, throwing aside pairs of pajamas before going over to the laundry basket of folded clothes in the corner.

"What are you doing?!" He followed her over.

"I don't like sleeping in any of those." She said in an annoyed tone.

She finally pulled out a large, dark gray t-shirt with the Circa Survive band logo on the front and tour dates lining the back. She pulled off her top and pulled the oversized t-shirt over her head and pulled down her shorts from under it, stepping out of them, leaving them on the floor.

"Hey, I've been looking for that." He made a face. It was from a concert he went to Freshman year with Caleb and one of his favorite shirts. He couldn't be mad or continue yelling and fighting with her when she tore apart her room just so she could sleep in his shirt.

"It's the only thing that's really comfortable." She blushed. "And looks better on me." She shrugged with the little bit of boozy confidence she had. She reached around her back to unhook her bra under the shirt and pulled it out the sleeve.

"Okay, well that was way sexier than anything I've ever done in that shirt." He laughed as she climbed onto the bed while he undressed to his undershirt and boxers.

"Lay with me," she wined before his pants were even all the way off.

He smiled that she was lightening up. "So you're talking to me now." he said as he climbed into bed with her, pulling her towards him and laying a kiss on her head.

"Don't do this, Toby," she said as she let her hands wander his sides under his shirt. "This was such a good night. I don't want to ruin it anymore than I already have. We can fight again tomorrow." The words rolled off her tongue easier when she was drunk, as if they all danced into one another on their way out.

"You didn't ruin anything. And I don't want to fight at all." He said, rubbing her legs gently as he talked since she already had one draped over his hip from the second he settled on the mattress.

"So just kiss me so we can go to sleep." She furrowed her eyebrows.

"Spencer…" He started, and she crept her hand farther up his shirt, her lips locking to his neck. "Spencer, stop, I want to finish our talk."

"You don't want to be with me?" She made a puppy dog face. "Please," her eyes looked desperate. Though their touching was sensual, her desperation wasn't to be confused with lust. She was looking for him to make her feel better, and to feel safe with him. And to show her he still cared. She kept kissing.

"Of course I do… but I want to know you're going to be okay and you understand where I was coming from…and that I understand all your stuff too."

"I do." She bit her lip flirtatiously. "I just don't like those words." She basically cringed. She leaned in and was kissing his lips and his neck. "But when you kiss me I feel better. Please?" She begged again, continuing to lay kisses anywhere she could reach from her position glued to his side. She didn't like hearing that he loved her for a various assortment of reasons, but she had these moments where she so intensely needed his hands all over her body and his lips locked on hers. It was like a compromise, where she could feel loved and feel lovely without having to really think about the "L" word. Like it was a string of little secrets between them living in their most intimate moments. It wasn't lust, it was her most accepted way of feeling, and of feeling accepted herself.

His hands were at her hips, caressing her lower half as he kissed her. He kissed her slowly and tenderly, as if he could transfer her thoughts and sadness out with his own slow motions where their mouths connected.

As his hands passionately danced around her hips and tugged teasingly at the hem of her t-shirt, he felt them again: the scratchy scabs on the tops of both thighs. He pulled away from her lips for a moment and caressed the spot again. Her eyes immediately started to well up. The shirt had covered that part of her legs, but his hand was up there. He could feel the scabs, but couldn't see them.

He looked in her eyes the whole time, leaning his forehead against hers as he dared to explore, keeping his touch light against her injured skin. He moved slow enough that she could definitely stop him if she wanted to. He slowly slid his hands out of her shirt and started to push up the fabric around her hips so he could look at the cuts, shifting their positioning as he did so so she was flat on her back and he lingered over her. She swallowed hard, her eyes darting around in the dark not sure of where to look. But didn't stop him.

She watched him look at her legs, and he locked their eye contact again as he ever so gently traced over the lines with his pointer finger and thumb, criss crossing in different directions. They were almost perfectly straight, as if she'd had a lot of practice. Because she had. Years of it. More than she'd like to admit.

"Spencer…" he finally let out, leaning in his face towards her lap, leaning his head against her one thigh as he caressed the other, and then she felt his tears on her lap. He sat there crying and she had no idea what to do, except start crying herself, and after a few moments, pull her legs in towards her chest, forcing him to move as she wrapped her arms around her legs and cried into them.

"I'm sorry…" she finally said through tears, looking up. "This is why…I warned you." She started. "I warned you this wasn't good… for you to be with me." She was crying so hard she was hiccuping for air. He wasn't far behind.

"Why didn't you call me?" Why didn't you let me help you?

"I said I was sorry, Toby…" she rubbed her face hard to wipe away the tears, leaving her face pink and blotchy.

"I can't watch you do this…you can't do this anymore." He came up to her to hold her face, kissing her head and her nose and her cheeks, consuming the saltiness of her tears.

"Nobody said you had to stay." She said quietly. "This is who I am. You already knew I was a mess."

"No, you're not." He flicked away her new tears with his thumb.

"You're the one who said it." She made a face. She thought about it a lot more than she meant to, about hearing those words come out of his mouth. Usually, when she was upset, thinking about him made her feel better. It made her think of the reasons she had to persevere. But when it got really bad, and when she was feeling extra pathetic, she remembered the times even the person who saw the best in the worst parts of her could see the truth: she was a mess.

"Because I wanted them to know you deserved more." He cried out. "Is that why you're doing this?!" Suddenly he panicked, jolting back. He couldn't accept knowing that he could be the reason she was self-harming. "Spencer, you might think if you killed yourself everything would somehow be easier…that it wouldn't make a difference or somehow everything might be less messy…but I can't be without you. Even saying those words…" he lifted his hands, which were shaking heavily. "Please don't…you make the world a better place…for a lot of people, not just me…but if you don't want to stay for you…can't you stay for me? I know it's hard but it will get better. We'll get you out of this house and it will get better. I promise." He was full on ugly crying, and it was breaking her heart in two.

"I don't want to kill myself." She said, wiping his eyes. "Please stop crying. I don't like seeing you like this. Please…I didn't mean to do this to you…please stop crying."

He caught his breath and started to calm down, but he was still a wreck inside. "If you aren't trying to…then why are you hurting yourself?" His hand stayed on the scars.

"It's not about suicide. It's…about a lot of things." She admitted. "You wouldn't understand…" She said, but he kept looking at her like he was waiting for more. "Sometimes, it's about control. Other times, I feel like it's a release of all the bad stuff boiling up inside of me. I picture like all these dark, black little evil things swirling around in my veins and I need to let them out before they take over…" She shook her head, knowing she sounded like a mental case. "The physical pain is easier to get used to than the mental stuff that trips up my head and makes me feel like I'm not Spencer. I know it doesn't sound…it sounds dumb. But it helps me sometimes. Like by the time the cut heals the thing that made me upset should be better, too…"

It had been hard to admit everything she had to him, but the alcohol made her loose-lipped and, in turn, just a little bit easier to say all of those secret, dirty things. She felt sick, and it wasn't all the alcohol. It was the sour taste the last of her secrets spilling out to him. The ugly stuff. The stuff she knew made her sound crazy and would push him away. The things she let rip her apart inside and liked to keep hidden away for not just her own sake, but for everybody else's.

"Spencer, there are better ways to cope with all of that than leaving scars everywhere." He twitched when he thought about how it probably happened, how quietly she probably sat in her room, barely flinching as the blade sliced her skin. Just as she'd barely flinched when the knife cut her hand earlier.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," she swung her legs over the bed, sitting on the edge. "I've said too much already." She groaned.

"I still do…you know, love you. None of what you just said changes that. Thank you, for sharing. Really. I'm sorry that you don't like it when I say how much I care about you and that you're still scared and I wish I could change that…but this doesn't change anything. I might even feel it more…" he leaned forward to rub her back and pull her back into bed. To kiss her and make her feel the love he was expressing. But when he was barely halfway through his sentence she ran into the bathroom and lifted the toilet seat, her word vomit turning into actual vomit as she emptied her stomach and gagged even after her stomach was empty, stomach acid burning her throat. He sat next to her on the floor and rubbed her back.

"Shhh…you're okay." He held back her hair and rubbed her back. She mumbled a "thank you," before standing and wiping her mouth with a tissue and flushing everything down. She insisted he go back to bed while she brushed her teeth.

She waited in the bathroom for a while after, embarrassed to go back. Because of the words she knew she'd shared, because of how he'd seen her puke her guts out. For letting him see the ugliest parts of her, inside and out. For saying things that made her sound crazy and making him feel even worse for her. She felt more sobered up now. And alarmingly awake, even way past midnight. She wanted to take back the whole night. She wanted him to take back his words. Her thoughts and the things she remembered of her drunken ramblings swirled with his loving words and she felt sick all over again. She didn't want to break up with him. She knew it wasn't fair to string him along and dump all of this emotional shit onto him and then tell him how to feel. She wasn't being a good girlfriend. She felt selfish for wanting to keep him all to herself instead of setting him free. For burdening him with too many secrets. She didn't want to be loved, she just didn't want to be alone. But then again, a little part of her hoped that he knew she really did think about it a lot. And for what it was worth, she loved him too. She wasn't sure what that meant for a long time, but she knew now. She was hopelessly in love with Toby Cavanaugh. He's probably going to break me apart. Completely and totally shatter me and my heart. This is a risk. And he'll probably leave my heart in more pieces than I'll probably be able to even count. And I am most definitely going to let him.

xx

His mind was going a hundred miles a minute. How can I help her? I have to get her help. I hope she wasn't lying. About not wanting to kill herself. I feel a little better, but this still isn't good. This isn't healthy. If I tell her parents it will make it worse. If I tell someone at school, she'll be mortified. Maybe her brother in law? He's a doctor. Maybe her sister? Is she nicer than her mom and dad? Maybe I can ask Aria. Maybe Aria was right…some normalcy will help undo all of this. He still felt like crying.

When she came out, she was hoping he'd be asleep. But he was waiting for her. He didn't say a word after that, deciding he'd pushed her enough for one night. He was feeling badly about that, too. He just spooned her when she got into bed, holding her and kissing her hair and nipping at the back of her neck, which he knew usually calmed her down, until he felt her drift off.

He didn't remember falling asleep, but he rolled over and startled himself with one of those dreams he was falling. He looked over: 5:45 on the dot. He exhaled and rubbed his eyes. It was then he realized he was alone in the middle of her bed. He looked in the bathroom and the hallway and even the living room. But she was gone, and so was her car.

Fuck.

What did you all think?! I love when you guys message me to talk about what's going on with Spoby, in the show and in this story!

I won't address predictions because I don't want to spoil anything, and I also am not 100% locked in to anything anyway. Things change all the time! But keep it up it's so interesting to read! (And sometimes they influence my writing!)