Trust Again_Dawn and Spencer's Story

by Mona Kasten

  I went into Spencer’s room and saw that he’d stopped in front of his desk. Standing in the middle of it was the sculpture.

  It took my breath away.

  There was one large, massive shape with strong arms and broad shoulders. And in front of it a smaller shape with more delicate arms. They fit together like two parts of a puzzle.

  I swallowed hard and looked up at Spencer.

  “I made them for you. Actually, I wanted to paint them together with you, because I thought that something changed between us the other night,” he said.

  My throat tightened. Of course something had changed between us. In fact, everything had changed. I couldn’t bear the distance between us for one second longer. Rushing forward, I flung my arms around him. I pulled him close, grabbed his shoulders and held him tightly.

  He stiffened. A moment later, he removed my arms from around him.

  “Be angry at me. Yell at me. Tell me I was acting like an idiot, and fight with me. But don’t push me away. Please,” I said breathlessly.

  He shook his head. “I’m not angry, Dawn. I just think this is the universe punishing me for my mistake. That the girl I’m head over heels in love with wants to vomit the moment I show her my feelings.”

  The fog in my head started to lift.

  Why do you want to make it so hard for me to love you?

  He’d told me he loved me. We hadn’t merely fought—he had laid everything out for me and I had walked all over it like it meant nothing.

  “Spence…” I struggled for words but none came.

  “That night… it meant everything to me, Dawn. I told you everything. It’s okay if you can’t do the same with me. Really. But I just don’t think I can take it any more.”

  “That night meant a lot to me too,” I said, lamely. God, I could have slapped myself silly. There was a wall inside me that stopped me from opening myself to him. And I’d been so close. It wasn’t fair that Nate could still destroy everything with one call. That he could make me ruin everything with Spencer.

  “Maybe you were right.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  He returned my gaze firmly. “About Nate having destroyed you. He pushed you down, but you stayed there. You don’t want to get up.”

  “That’s not true!” I said, louder than I intended.

  “You’re using me, Dawn!” he retorted just as loudly.

  “That’s nonsense!” My words tumbled out. Everything was blurry. “You said you wanted me however I’d let you have me. That it would be okay.”

  “I know. But then you…” His voice became gruff. “You stayed with me. That meant something, didn’t it?”

  I swallowed. “Yes. But…”

  He stopped me. “Yes, but. You always have some excuse to keep things from getting serious, so you can keep your distance. And that’s bullshit.”

  “We decided together to keep things casual, Spence. You and I. Don’t act like I forced you to do anything you didn’t want to do.”

  He winced. “You can’t seriously be trying to tell me that what’s between us is purely physical, Dawn. We both know there’s more to it. You’re just too much of a coward to admit it.”

  “Don’t call me a coward!” I shouted.

  “But it’s true, isn’t it? I want you, you want me, it could be so simple. But ‘simple’ doesn’t work with you.”

  Spencer tapped his fingers on the box for Olivia. “I wanted to introduce you. But it would be unfair to Olivia to introduce her to someone who won’t be in my life for the long run.”

  Blood rushed in my ears. “What do you mean by that?”

  He lifted the box and handed it back to me. Dumbstruck, I took it.

  “I never had the chance to prove to you that love, real love, is different from what you had. You didn’t let me get close enough. And I don’t have any strength left to convince you. Especially if you’re determined to never leave the past behind you.”

  “But I don’t want to lose you,” I said, my voice cracking.

  “It’s too late for that,” he replied coolly.

  To hell with the gift. I dropped it and gripped the fabric of his shirt. I had to hold on to him, touch him, so he wouldn’t slip away forever. “It’s not. It’s not too late,” I said, desperate.

  He shook his head. “In the beginning… you were always saying you couldn’t. Couldn’t be with me, couldn’t care for me. Now I can’t. Do you understand?”

  My throat was dry. “What we had was… It was good, just as it was.”

  “But it’s not enough for me any more,” he whispered. He didn’t try to push me away but he didn’t touch me, either. He just looked down at me, darkly, sadly.

  I uncurled my fingers and touched his cheek. He had to understand that he was more to me than just a means to an end. That he meant something to me.

  “Spence…” I whispered.

  Something softened in his eyes. And then I kissed him. I pressed my lips urgently against his and let my body speak for me. A moan vibrated in his chest and returned my kiss. He was devastating and fierce. I dug my hands into his damp hair and held him to me, so close, as close as humanly possible. He needed to understand. He just had to.

  Spencer grabbed me and lifted me up; I wrapped my legs around him and my back met the wall. It knocked the air out of me, but then he took my lower lip between his teeth, and lava poured through me. He branded me, his tongue met mine and I melted into his body. Spencer’s hands slid under my shirt, and the familiarity of his rough fingers made me whimper. Our kiss tasted like my tears. I clutched at his shoulders and he groaned. His lips were on my neck, and I let my head fall to the side.

  “I’m so fucking in love with you,” he said hoarsely.

  It felt like my heart would leap out of my chest.

  But then Nate’s voice came back, as if through my cell phone speaker, direct into my ear.

  I love you. I love you, Dawny.

  I stiffened.

  Spencer stopped. He pulled his head back and looked me in the eyes.

  What had just been between us seconds ago shattered into pieces when he saw the panic in my expression. I saw it in the deep blue of his eyes. Something had broken inside me, too. The pieces lay at our feet.

  Spencer let me slip to the floor and turned away from me.

  “Go.”

  His voice was hollow.

  “I didn’t want…”

  He grabbed his sculpture off the desk and threw it against the opposite wall. It burst into fragments. I flinched.

  Horrified, I stared at him.

  His face was twisted in pain and anger. “What was that supposed to be, Dawn? A goodbye quickie?”

  I sobbed and held my hands to my heart. His words were like knives. My breath was caught in my chest. Spencer realized what he had just done. His eyes widened and he stepped toward me. But this time it was me who pulled back. One step, then another. Until I had reached the bedroom door. Then I turned on my heel and ran out of the house as fast as I could.

  Chapter 33

  There are so many kinds of pain, and I felt them all.

  It should have been impossible, but they hit me all at once: I couldn’t breathe; it felt like my skin was tight and my body was too small to contain the storm raging inside me. My chest stung and throbbed and my limbs felt numb, like pieces of wood.

  It was horrible.

  It took every ounce of strength I had to get on the bus to Portland. It was the most difficult trip I’d ever taken. And the walk from the bus stop to Dad’s workshop seemed to take twice as long as it had in the past.

  I squeezed between the small tool carts to the narrow staircase that led to the second story. Mixed with the noise of the wood mill was the sound of music coming from an old radio. Dad raised his head and turned ashen when he saw me. He turned off
the wood mill and crossed the room. He asked me something, held my face in his hands, and peered intently into my eyes. Then he wrapped me in his arms. I buried my face in his overalls, breathed in the comfortingly familiar scent of glue and wood shavings, and then I gave up.

  I just gave up.

  Days passed. I felt and acted like a robot. There were no more tears.

  There was a jagged hole in my chest and there was nothing I could do about it because nothing could fix what Spencer and I had done to each other.

  In the middle of the week, Dad came home early with a huge, family-sized pizza that we shared while watching the Blackhawks game. When Dad offered me a beer, I flinched.

  “No, thanks,” I mumbled and looked back at the TV, a slice of pizza drooping in my hand.

  “Do you think you’re ready to tell me what happened, honey?”

  “Nothing. I just need a break.”

  Two full sentences in a row. It was more than I’d said for an entire week.

  “What do you need a break from?” Dad probed. My silence had him worried.

  I took a deep breath and blew it out, not ready to put words to my feelings just yet.

  “I screwed up, Dad,” I whispered.

  “Whatever happened, we’ll fix it. We always manage.”

  His eyes were on me but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.

  “I’m sure it’s not as bad as you might think right now,” Dad continued.

  “It’s even worse, Dad. Believe me,” I croaked.

  “Should I be worried?” he asked, alarmed.

  I turned to face him. “No. It’s… something personal. I hurt someone pretty badly and now I have to live with the consequences.”

  In other words, Spencer never wanted to see me again.

  “Then say you’re sorry, Dawny. If an Edwards screws things up, they take responsibility. They don’t crawl into a hole in the ground,” Dad said sharply.

  I stiffened. “I did apologize, and it wasn’t enough.”

  He snorted and set his beer can on the coffee table. “That’s not how I raised you.”

  Stunned, I dropped my slice of pizza in my lap. “Excuse me?”

  His gaze hardened. “When you ended things with Nathaniel, I was worried about you, honey. Oh, you tried to make me think everything was fine, but I knew things were not okay.”

  A lump formed in my throat and I blinked to hold back tears. Farewell, Robo-Dawn.

  “It took months—and a move to a new city, a new life—for you to be happy again. To laugh again. And now you’re here with swollen eyes that you don’t want to talk about, even though we agreed we were going to be honest with each other from now on.”

  “Dad…”

  “I’m not finished,” he said softly, but firmly. “What Nate did to you was terrible, and it threw you off track. But you can’t just give up every time you face a difficult situation. That won’t work.”

  I closed my mouth again.

  “How do you think things would have gone for us if I’d just given up when your mom left us?” he asked insistently. “It was damn hard. But that just brought you and me closer together. It brought us here.” He took my hand and squeezed it gently. “What I’m saying, honey, is… you can’t just give up. You’re twenty years old. Twenty. You’re allowed to make mistakes, hell, you’re even supposed to make them. That’s what your twenties are for. But you can’t just stand still and let life carry on without you. Because I guarantee you this: if you do this every time things get hard, you’ll never really live.”

  I let his words soak in, every single one of them, like a dry sponge. Something clicked. I got it: slowly but surely, I was wasting my life.

  My move to Woodshill had started out as an escape, but the life I’d built there was much more than that. More than I’d ever dreamed it could be. I was going to a great college and had the best part-time job, but had still managed to spend the year hidden behind my laptop, never telling anyone about my writing because I was ashamed of it. How crazy was that? To be ashamed of something that made me so happy. Just because I was afraid people would criticize me. And in fact, when I finally told them about it, all my friends were happy for me—even proud of me!

  I had wonderful, honest, loyal friends and… I had Spencer.

  Spencer, who always believed in me and told me everything. Spencer, who said each day was a new beginning, and who—despite his burdens—was one of the happiest people I’d ever met.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” I mumbled. “I’m a fool.”

  Dad grunted. It sounded like he agreed. “You’ll pull it together, Dawny.”

  I really hoped he was right.

  Chapter 34

  Friday morning, Allie came to Portland with some of my things. The door was barely open before she hugged me while juggling my bags.

  “I miss you, girl, but I’m pissed off at you, too,” she said, squeezing me so hard that I could barely breathe.

  “I know,” I responded and hugged her back just as tightly.

  “You can’t just take off and only send me an email. What’s that all about?”

  “I destroyed my cell phone,” I said, hanging my head.

  “Yeah, I found the pieces and brought them with me.” She waved one of the bags at me. “I was so worried about you. Sawyer, too. She even called Kaden.”

  Damn. I’d completely forgotten to let my roommate know what was going on. My list of things I had to apologize for was getting longer by the minute. “Oh, no.”

  “She asked if you were at our place. I told her you were spending a few days with your dad ‘cause you needed a break.”

  Sighing, I took Watson off Allie’s shoulder. “Thanks. I’d completely forgotten to let her know I’d be gone.”

  Allie’s looked at me searchingly with her gray-green eyes. “So how are you?”

  I shrugged and took the second bag that she’d filled with my stuff. Then I led her into the living room. I was going through writing withdrawal, so I’d called Allie to ask if she’d bring my laptop. She’d been wanting to visit me anyway, since I’d been holed up here for a week already, hiding.

  But I was done hiding.

  Dad’s words had woken me up.

  I mustered all my courage. “How’s Spencer?”

  “Fine. At least that’s what he wants us all to believe.”

  This was no surprise.

  “I take it something happened between you two that made you want to get away…” Allie probed carefully.

  “I wanted to apologize to him. He said it was too late. But I kissed him and he told me how in love he is with me, and I… froze. He didn’t want to see me any more after that.” It was the shortest summary I could manage.

  My friend put her hand on my arm. “Is the thought that he loves you so frightening?”

  I swallowed hard. “That night, before I came over to your place, Nate had called me and told me that he loved me. It set me back. And to hear those words again, from Spencer, didn’t feel right. Not because I don’t want Spencer…” I shook my head and looked down at my hands in my lap. “I am completely crazy about him, Allie.”

  “I can tell.”

  “Nate just took me by surprise. I… I didn’t mean to freeze on Spencer.”

  “Don’t feel bad about that, Dawn. Anyone within 100 miles can see that you’re in love with Spencer. You’re just being extra careful with your heart because it was broken before. There’s nothing mysterious about it; it’s just a defense mechanism,” Allie said.

  I caught my breath.

  In a flash I realized Allie was speaking the truth.

  I really had fallen head over heels in love with Spencer.

  “Since you’ve been living with Kaden, you’ve become pretty good at this kind of thing,” I replied after a pause.

  “Kaden’s a
nd my story is a perfect example. Sometimes things need more time. I have a feeling Spencer can wait a little while longer, if he’s really serious about you. But he also didn’t know about Nate’s call, did he?” Allie bit the corner of her lip thoughtfully.

  “No. I wanted to explain it to him but he had had enough of me and my excuses. I raised his hopes and played with his emotions—for months—only to let him fall. It’s totally understandable that he’s fed up,” I murmured.

  “It was just bad timing. That’s nothing that can’t be fixed,” she said firmly.

  I growled in response.

  “I mean it, Dawn. If we could wipe all evidence of Nate from your mind and even erase the time you had with him, what would the story be now?”

  There was only one answer to Allie’s question. It didn’t take long for me to say it. “If I hadn’t spent years with Nate, I wouldn’t have been afraid to let Spencer get close to me. I believe… we’d be together.”

  “You see? That tells you what you want. So what do we do now?”

  I sighed. “There’s one thing I have to take care of.”

  “Whatever it is, I’ll help you.”

  I could have gone alone… but I was glad to have my friend with me. So glad.

  The Maynard House rose up in front of us again. We’d already driven around the block twice. It was more difficult to find my courage than I expected.

  “I can do this,” I murmured.

  “Of course you can.”

  Turning to look at Allie, I smiled gratefully.

  “Want me to come with you?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “No, this is something I’ve got to do alone. But knowing that you’ll be waiting for me out here is already a big help. Thanks.”

  “Should I drive around the block one more time?”

  “No. I’m ready.”

  “If you’re not out in a half hour, I’m coming in,” Allie said.

  As if on autopilot, I nodded and got out, gently closing the door of Allie’s car behind me. I walked to the small wooden gate that led to the property and opened it. Stiffly, and with my chin held high, I walked up the path to the door. I had once dreamed that this house would be my home.