Chapter 27 – Spencer's Memory
Spencer was lying in bed with a mask over his eyes, with a pounding headache just as Kevin had predicted. Now that the drug was wearing off, Spencer was able to recall his drunken memory perfectly but was no longer hallucinating. He wished he hadn't taken the drug as even though he felt justified in his anger towards Esme for not telling him beforehand that she had unprotected sex with anyone else, let alone his own father, he knew he handled the situation the wrong way. And now, even though he wasn't hallucinating anymore, the memory kept replaying in his head, and he didn't know how to make it stop.
He wasn't sure exactly when it had happened, but he recalled that he and Esme hadn't been together for several weeks. Esme had been trying to find out who her biological mother was. Spencer and Cameron had worked together to procure fake DNA test results which Spencer was going to use to manipulate Esme into confessing to framing Trina. After getting the results, he came home and told her he had something she had been wanting more than anything in the world, and only he could give it to her. Before he had a chance to say what it was, she told him that he always knew her every desire, and even though Spencer had told her it wasn't what he was talking about, she tried to seduce him by asking if he wanted to be together again, and kissing his neck. He thought that he had rejected her advances, after which they had a heated argument, in which she had mocked Spencer by telling him that he was "an angry, lost, self-centered little boy" when they first met, and the only thing that had changed about him after losing his virginity to her was that he was "an angry, lost, self-centered man." What really happened, however, was that he gave in to her advances only to immediately regret it afterwards.
FLASHBACK (Summer 2022)
Esme and Spencer were lying in bed together, having just made "love" for the first time in weeks. Esme had an expression of smug satisfaction on her face, as if it was the best thing she'd ever experienced. Spencer, however, was absolutely horrified and ashamed at what had just happened.
Esme: Wow, Spence, that was amazing!
Spencer: Well, savor it, because this is the last time we're ever making love, if you can even call what we have love. We're through.
Esme: What do you mean we're through?
Spencer: I mean, our relationship is officially over! And what happened just now shouldn't have happened!
Esme: But it did happen, Spence! You obviously still find me attractive.
Spencer: You are beautiful, Esme, I will give you that. But it's all on the surface. You're beautiful, intelligent, and charming on the outside, but cool and menacing underneath. And I've had enough!
Esme: Okay, fine, if that's what you really want. It doesn't matter to me anyway. I've already moved on.
Spencer: What do you mean?
Esme: I found someone else.
Spencer: Um, alright. When you say you've found someone else, does this mean you've just met this guy and are going on dates?
Esme: Oh I've known him for quite a while now. He is way more of a man than you are. He's given me what I'm not getting from you, because you're not man enough. At least, not until a few minutes ago. But it's too late Spence! Like I've said, I've moved on.
*Spencer sits up in bed and looks at Esme over his shoulder*
Spencer: You're telling me this NOW?! After we just had sex?! Please tell me you were being safe about it.
Esme: Oh don't worry, he didn't give me anything that I would later give to you, if that's what you were wondering.
Spencer: How do you know?
Esme: Oh I know. Like I said, I've known this guy for a while now.
Spencer: Still, you should've told me you were seeing someone else Esme!
Esme: And who gave you permission to tell me who I can and can't see?
*Spencer stands up and looks at Esme, his emotions being a mess of finding her more beautiful than ever, yet never having felt more grossed out in his life*
Spencer: I don't give a damn who you see! I don't care how many guys you've been with! You could've been with a hundred guys and I still wouldn't care! What I care about is my health! Had I known you were seeing someone else, I would've come prepared! In fact, no, forget that, I wouldn't come within a hundred feet of you! Ugh, I can't believe this. The thought of touching you right now physically repulses me!
*He hastily gets dressed and sits back down on the bed, facing away from Esme, and starts putting on his socks*
Esme: But you just did a few minutes ago. Obviously, I'm not that repulsive.
Spencer: Esme, you just told me you were having unprotected sex with this other guy, and that you're "getting what you want" from him! Are you at least still taking the pill?
Esme: Oh that's no longer any of your concern, Spence! As of a couple minutes ago, I am, officially, no longer your girlfriend.
Spencer: Are you taking the pill or not? Answer me! ANSWER ME!
Esme: Wow Spence! Such aggression! Now you're finally becoming a man! Maybe you've finally given me what I've been wanting from you all this time.
Spencer: So I was right, wasn't I? You're not taking the pill anymore, are you?
Esme: That's no longer any of your concern, Spence! In fact, it never was your concern in the first place. This is my body, and I can do what I want to with it!
Spencer: ESME FOR THE LAST TIME, I DON'T CARE!
*He stands up, turns around, and looks at Esme, who, for the first time, looks startled at how angry he is.*
Esme: You obviously care, Spence, because if you didn't, you wouldn't be yelling at me!
Spencer: I don't want to yell at you Esme, but you're being infuriating! I don't care what you do with your own damn body, okay? But at the same time, I'm not ready to start a family, which is why, after we talked about it when we first got together, you went on the pill! I'm guessing you stopped with the pill when we broke up, and that would've been fine with me if you had told me prior to what happened just now!
Esme: Had you asked me before what happened just now, I would've told you! But you didn't!
Spencer: You should've told me regardless of whether or not I asked! This is important stuff Esme, and when couples-
Esme: Excuse me, but we are not a couple anymore! You told me we're "officially over" a few minutes ago, but we already have been "over" for weeks now! So I can do whatever the hell I want to, with whomever I want to, and I don't have to tell you a damn thing!
*Spencer is silent for several seconds. He breathes heavily.*
Spencer: *Sigh* Get dressed, get your stuff, and get out of my house.
Esme: Excuse me, your house?!
Spencer: Yes, my house! I want you out of here! I don't want to see or speak to you ever again!
Esme: I'm sorry, Spence, but this is not your house!
Spencer: Okay, you're right, it's technically my father's house, but it doesn't matter. I want you out! NOW!
Esme: That's not what your father wants though. He told me I'm welcome to stay here for as long as I want to, and to make myself comfortable. Sorry Spence, but I'm not going anywhere!
*It takes Spencer several seconds for what Esme just told him to sink in.*
Spencer: Oh my god, you slept with my father, didn't you?!
*Esme smiles smugly. Spencer finds himself shaking with anger.*
Spencer: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?! YOU SLEPT WITH MY FATHER?! ESME, HOW COULD YOU?!
Esme: What the hell is wrong with you?! You left me for Trina!
Spencer: Yeah, you know why I left you? Because you were having me do increasingly extreme things, cruel things, in order to break up my father and Ava! I never asked you to burn Ava's car, and I certainly never asked you to taunt her by leaving her deceased daughter's ID badge nearby! How the hell did you manage to find that badge anyway? You know what, don't answer that, I don't want to know how you do your dirty tricks!
I may not have the "authority" to kick you out of this house, but you stay the hell away from me! Stay as far away as possible! I don't want you anywhere near my personal space!
Esme: Okay fine. Get out of my room then.
Spencer: What?!
Esme: This is my room, and it's been my room ever since I moved in. If you want me to stay our of your personal space, then you can stay out of mine! And by the way, you were the one who I walked in on going through my shoeboxes in the closet, so I don't think you're in any position to lecture me on personal space!
Spencer: If those boxes actually contained shoes-
Esme: Which they do!
Spencer: Not all of them! There was that one box which we both know was filled with letters from your old nanny, Maggie. You said you'd lost touch with her years ago, yet the letter I found contradicted everything you told me! You obviously had been in contact with her quite recently, and I wouldn't really have cared if it weren't for the fact that she knew everything about who I was! Not only that but she was warning you to not have contact with your biological father!
And by the way, I am not buying the explanation you gave me when you said that you had contacted her because you saw a future with me and realized you might need answers about your biological parents, and you told her all about me hoping she would tell you about them, and when she refused, you cut her out of your life, and it was "God's honest truth!" I don't believe that, because otherwise you wouldn't have kept the letters!
Esme: Spence, I already told you, I-
Spencer: I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT! I don't want to hear another word out of your mouth! I can't believe I ever once had feelings for you, because all I'm feeling right now for you is hatred!
*He angrily leaves the room and stomps down the hall*
Esme (yelling after him): Well, thanks for the hate sex, Spence! It was honestly the best we've ever had!
*She smiles to herself and lies back down in the bed.*
Spencer (yelling back at her from down the hall): OH SHUT UP!
*Spencer makes his way down the stairs to the living room. He sees the round table in the corner of the room. Next to the table is a cabinet, on top of which sits a tray with a decanter of Scotch whisky and a set of tumblers. He looks at the drinkware, wishing that he could forget about everything that just happened.*
LATER
Esme came down to the living room to see Spencer sitting at the table with a tumbler of Scotch in front of him, with the nearly empty decanter off to the side. Spencer appeared more wasted than she'd ever seen him.
Spencer: Go away Esme!
Esme: Relax, Spence, I'm just getting a drink.
*She takes a tumbler from the tray on top of the cabinet*
Spencer: Well get it from somewhere else.
*Esme looks at the nearly empty decanter next to Spencer*
Esme: Geez, Spence! Haven't you had enough to drink already? Besides, I'm just getting some water.
*She fills the tumbler with water from an ornate glass water crock in the opposite corner of the room.*
Spencer: There are a gazillion other places in this house to get water. I happen to be here. And I have a feeling that you came down here to antagonize me more. I have nothing more to say to you. Go away.
*He takes a sip from his tumbler.*
Esme: If only your father could see you like this. You really haven't changed much from the angry, lost, self-centered little boy you were when we first met. The only difference is that now you're an angry, lost, self-centered man who resorts to getting drunk in order to escape your problems. You're pathetic.
Spencer: I don't care.
Esme: I helped you when you were trying to get back at your father for making you believe he had died, and this is how you repay me?
Spencer: Honestly I wish my father had died!
Esme: Spence!
Spencer: He hurt me in ways that are unforgivable, and so have you!
*He takes another sip*
Esme: Spence, please, stop it! You're going to make yourself sick!
Spencer: Esme, if anyone makes me sick, it's YOU!
*He can feel his stomach churning and his head throbbing*
Esme: Spence, please, just listen.
Spencer: What more do you have to say about this that you haven't already said?!
Esme: Well, for one thing, that night when I stepped out onto the parapet at that party you were throwing and saw you with Trina, it really hurt me! I was about to tell you how I set Ava's car on fire for you at the hospital while you were here partying. I thought you'd be grateful to me! We made the perfect team!
Spencer: Is that really how you saw us Esme? A team?!
Esme: Well, what were we?
Spencer: Towards the end it didn't really seem like we were even a couple, let alone a team! You were wanting to do increasingly extreme things to my father and Ava, and stringing me along for the ride. As angry and betrayed I had felt from what my father did, I nonetheless was hoping he would one day realize just how much he'd hurt me, and genuinely change for the better, rather than just saying he was going to "try". You know, there comes a time when one needs to do more than just "try". They need to actually DO what they're saying they're going to do! And I thought my father would eventually do that. But he didn't. He failed me Esme, just like you did!
*He takes another sip*
Spencer: God this stuff tastes awful!
Esme: Well then why don't you stop?
Spencer: Because it's not nearly as awful as what you and my father have done to me. My father made me believe he was dead when I needed him the most. Then he came back and gave me some lame excuse why he had to stay away from me. It was so he could plot revenge against Valentin for stealing the Cassadine family fortune. My birthright. He could at least have let his own son know that he wasn't really dead, and maybe I could've even helped him take back what was rightfully ours all along, thanks to that codicil in Mikkos's will specifically disinheriting Valentin! It's true that in the beginning I was wanting to make him pay for what he did to me, but it was beginning to go too far! And now you're telling me that you slept with my father after I began spending more time with Trina, largely because I was growing tired of the things that you were making me do!
Esme: Exactly, Spence! I wasn't getting what I wanted…what I needed…from you! It's true I was your first but you were hardly my first. You were, however, the one who I, at the time, thought that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Maybe you couldn't satisfy me in certain ways but in others you were exactly what…exactly who…I wanted, Spence!
Spencer: I don't believe that for a second. I don't think you wanted anything from me other than my family fortune! Was that jewelry I gave you along with my snow globe not enough for you?!
Esme: That's not true Spence! I was looking forward to coming back to Port Charles with you, meeting your family, your friends, going to all the places you had told me about. You had mentioned that at one point, you and Joss had a bit of a thing, and you and Cam were fighting over some other girl, but that was back when you were kids! It was, as they say, "puppy love!" I didn't feel any sort of jealousy towards Josslyn at all, and, while I don't deny that I think Cam is kind of cute, he's even less of a man than you've proven yourself to be these past several months.
Spencer: You mean to tell me you had sex with Cam too?! Joss is going to be thrilled when she finds out!
Esme: Relax, Spence, we did not have sex. I just thought he was cute. Unlike you when you first saw Trina, and it was love at first sight! You became distant from me, and I no longer was getting what I needed from you, so I had no choice but to turn to someone else!
Spencer: And you could've turned to ANYONE ELSE! You could've turned to anyone else and I wouldn't have cared. But you chose my father. How could you? HOW COULD HE?!
Esme: Spence!
*Spencer can start to feel a gurgling sensation in his stomach. He knew what was likely going to happen soon.*
Spencer: God you make me sick!
Esme: SPENCE!
Spencer: GO AWAY!
Esme: No, Spence, this has gone too far!
Spencer: I SAID GO AW-
*He feels queasy, leans over the edge of the chair and vomits everything he had drank onto the floor. He then gets up from the chair and wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve.*
Spencer: See what you just made me do, Esme?!
*Esme looks at Spencer with a horrified expression.*
Esme: I didn't make you do a damn thing, Spence! You chose to have sex with your ex-girlfriend, who's moved on!
Spencer: YEAH BUT OUT OF EVERYONE, YOU MOVED ON TO MY FATHER!
Esme: You moved on to Trina first, SPENCE! I was jealous when I heard you talking to her, and how happy you sounded! You sounded like the Spence I fell in love with in France! And yes, I screwed your father! I had to make you jealous and clearly it worked!
Spencer: I don't believe that for a second!
*He walks over to Esme, who backs away from him. His speech is so slurred to the point where she can barely understand what he's saying.*
Spencer: I know my father has more experience than I do but I don't wanna hear how much better he is at pleasing you than I am, okay? But I know that's not why you screwed him. You don't wanna make me jealous, nor do you wanna be back with me. You just wanna get your hands on the Cassadine fortune! Well lemme tell you something. It's not gonna happen! Even if you were trying to make me jealous it isn't gonna work, okay? God you make me sick!
Esme: I'm not making you sick at all! You're making yourself sick! And get to the bathroom before you throw up on me!
Spencer: Oh I wanna do that Esme but yeah let's go to the bathroom. Where's the bathroom?
Esme: Oh, so you've forgotten where the bathroom is in your own house? Even though this house has like a hundred bathrooms?
Spencer: It's not my house it's my father's house! You said that earlier! Just get me to the bathroom okay?
*Spencer walks over to the doorway that leads into the hall from the living room. Esme follows and watches him with her arms crossed. He is so drunk he can barely walk and keeps bumping into the wall.*
Spencer: Come on Esme don't play games! Get me to the bathroom.
Esme: Oh get yourself to the bathroom! I'm not your mother! Your mother is dead!
Spencer: WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!
*Esme realizes what she just said and knew she'd just made a huge mistake.*
Esme: I-I'll help you get to the bathroom, but you're going the wrong way.
*Spencer bumps into the wall again. Esme worries he's going to seriously hurt himself should he fall. She walks over to him.*
Esme: *Sigh* Come on, I'll walk you to the bathroom. It's this way.
*She leads him to a small, seldom-used powder room and opens the toilet bowl. She tries to help Spencer lean over the bowl, but Spencer passes out and falls backwards. Esme catches him before he hits his head on the hard marble floor, then, not wanting anything to happen to him, rolls him over into the recovery position. She sits with him for several minutes, making sure he's breathing. In a rare moment of genuine fear and remorse for her actions, which "Old Esme" hardly ever felt, she begins crying.*
Esme: I'm so sorry Spence! Please be okay!
PRESENT DAY
Spencer suddenly sat up and removed the mask from his eyes. Though it was still daytime, the room was mostly dark as he had closed the blinds. His head was still quite achy. He somewhat wished he hadn't taken the pill and instead had asked Kevin to help him, but it at least helped him make a very important decision. He most definitely was NOT going to give Esme another chance, and would instead try to make things work with Trina.