26. Spencer
CHAPTER 26
SPENCER
My mother is in the drive when we pull the car up, standing with her arms crossed while a man loads her suitcase into a yellow cab. Grady has just enough time to put the car in park before I fling the door open and stride over to where she’s standing. Her eyes go wide with shock at seeing me here.
“Spencer—” she starts, but I immediately cut her off, unable to control the volume of my voice.
“You thought you could just leave?” I ask, but it’s not really a question. Of course she did. Of course she thought that whatever is going on in her life is more important than what’s going on in mine. I’m so stupid. Here I was thinking that this time Marla had really changed. How many times do I have to learn this lesson? That it’s only a matter of time before the other shoe drops. “What, did Roy call? Or is it a new guy this time?”
Marla just stares back at me, not wanting to answer. So, one of my assumptions is correct then.
“Roy and I are married , Spencer.” She’s using the same voice she used on me as a child, as if I don’t know what it means to be married. Part of me, though, feels like I really don’t. I hardly even know what it means to be in a relationship at all, let alone committed to someone for life. That doesn’t excuse the fact that she’s just up and leaving the way she always has. The way everyone else in my life has, too. “I’ve had some time to reflect, and I think I need to go home and try to fix things with Roy.”
“So, you’re just crawling back to him after he treats you like shit. You’re the same as you’ve always been, Marla. Here I was thinking that you were healing, finally. Seeing that you can have a fulfilling life on your own. That maybe, you’re learning that you don’t need a man to make you feel better about yourself.” There’s a bitterness in my tone that I don’t recognize, but that feels as if it’s making up for all the years I sat quietly and didn’t say anything. “I know I never mattered to Dad, but have I ever really mattered to you?”
“Of course, Spencer. Of course you matter to me. More than anything.” Her voice is pleading, and my heart is threatening to crack. Maybe the story she told at Ally’s had been a lie. How could she say that she wanted me so badly, that we got through the worst moments of her life together, and then do this? “Being married to someone means that you don’t walk away when things get hard.”
“No, it means that if you walk away, you lose half of what you own. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You’re afraid that if you lose Roy, he’ll take the lake house.” Realization dawns on me and settles deep into my bones. Marla is afraid of the same thing I am. To lose what she’s worked for, the life she’s built for herself. Except in her case, rather than taking a safe approach and going it alone, she’s going back, continuing to rely on someone else for what she needs.
“He would find a way to get it,” she admits. “But that’s not why I’m going back. Relationships take work.”
“Sure. You keep telling yourself that,” I spit back at her. “Look at yourself, Marla. Look at how you allow men to continue hurting you, look at how you allow them to have control over you. Aren’t you tired of it?”
“You don’t have to tell me what I’m like, Spencer. I’m not an idiot. It may not be what you would choose, but it’s better than closing yourself off to love entirely.” Her words land somewhere visceral within me, stirring a question I haven’t let myself ask. Have I closed myself off to love entirely? Is there something fundamental that I’m missing out on? The wise part of my brain answers back, No. That’s what keeps you safe.
“Have you ever stopped to think about what that does to me? How I’ve always had to be the adult in this relationship?” My voice cracks as emotions surge up my throat. Years and years of hurt and pain come barrelling out of me like a runaway train. I’m aware of Grady standing behind me, and I realize I don’t care if he witnesses this, no matter how personal this moment is. It needs to be said, and Grady has already seen the most broken parts of me anyway. “You were never there for me when I needed you, Mom. You say that it was you and me against the world, but it never was. It was always about you. I paid your fucking rent. I found us that apartment when I was in grade eleven. I had to convince the landlord to let me see it because I wasn’t of legal age yet. I did that with my minimum wage job in high school, Mom. Fucking high school.” Tears sting my eyes. I try, and fail, to blink them back, as all of the years of struggle and uncertainty come spilling down my cheeks.She’s the reason I never went to university, the reason I have to fight tooth and nail every single day of my life to earn a living. She’s the reason I’m in the situation I’m in now.
The cab driver stands up out the driver’s-side door now, looking at us over the roof of the sedan.
“The meter is still going ma’am,” he says, as if he’s completely oblivious to the tension in the air.
Grady holds up a hand to him and shakes his head as if to say, not the time , before he digs his wallet out of his back pocket and hands him his credit card to cover the extra time.
“I need to go, Spencer. I’ll miss my flight.” Right there, Marla has made it clear that I will never be a priority for her. No matter what she says, her actions speak a million times louder. My breath wooshes out of my lungs, and my heart would be breaking if it hadn’t gone completely numb.
Marla glances back at me as she climbs into the cab, like she wants to say one last thing but decides against it. I don’t bother watching the cab as it pulls away, down the long drive. Instead, I turn towards the house, marching inside and up to the bedroom.I have to get away from here. I have to collect my thoughts, reprioritize, centre myself. What was I thinking, falling for Grady? What was I thinking ever letting myself entertain the idea of prioritizing a relationship over my well-being? Here is my mother, once again afraid to lose everything she worked for on her own, because her marriage is falling apart.
I feel Grady close on my heels, and he halts at the bedroom door, leaning on the frame as I pick up my duffel bag off the floor and start packing. His energy is oddly calm, his tone even calmer.
“Where are you going, Spencer?” he asks, his voice even and steady, while inside my internal world is spinning. I’m spiralling, headfirst, towards the ground.
“I just need to get out of here for a few days. Go somewhere with no cell service, to be alone,” I say, pausing because lying to Grady right now is like adding insult to injury, but I let him believe that I’m just going to go camping for a few days. A few days is an understatement when what I’m really planning is to drive the van back down to the coast and do what I originally intended. I don’t know if I’ll have a job when I go back, I don’t know if I’ll still have an apartment, but I have to live life on my own terms. I have to go because one more day spent here, loving Grady, will make me question my priorities. It will fucking destroy me.
“Then I’m coming with you,” Grady says, and the surety in his tone stops me in my tracks. This is supposed to be a clean break.
“No. You’re not,” I say, turning to go into the ensuite to collect the rest of my belongings. Grady steps in front of me, gripping my shoulders firmly, holding me in place. His gaze pins me, and his hazel eyes darken.
“I go where you go, Spencer.” He reiterates his words from the council meeting with more sincerity than before. “I mean it. If you need to get away from here, fine. But I will not let you go off into the wilderness to have an emotional breakdown alone. Or, whatever else you were going to do.” He says as if he can see through my eyes and into my tattered soul.
“You don’t want to be around me right now. Not when I’m like this,” I say, trying to convince him that he’d be better off staying far away from the trainwreck that is my life. To let me go off the rails in peace, the way I always have. But even I can hear that the fight has left my voice.
“Like what? Sad and hurt? Spencer, this is exactly what I’m here for. This is what people who love you are supposed to do. People who love you support you and comfort you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” Grady’s brows knit together with concern, and I realize that he isn’t going to budge. My shoulders slump in his hands and I feel like I might completely crumple on the ground if it weren’t for him holding me up. I can’t help but feel like maybe it would be a welcome change not to be alone to process my feelings.
“Fine,” I give in. If anything, letting Grady come with me will buy me some time to figure out how I need to proceed with whatever this is at this point. We’ll go for a few days, and I’ll try to find a way to end things with Grady. I’ll figure out how to break this off in the least devastating way possible. Although, even as the thought crosses my mind, I know that such a way doesn’t exist.