Page 80 of Trust Again

Spencer turned on his back and looked up at me. His cheeks were spotted and flushed, his gaze clouded by memories.

“My father hates me. He always has, but it’s gotten worse. I’ve never been good enough for him and he made sure I knew that since I was little. It…” He looked at the ceiling. “It hurt. I was looking for a distraction, something to stop me from feeling.”

I ran my fingers through his hair, and he closed his eyes.

“Olivia was eight at the time. By comparison, Dad worshiped her. She was always his princess. From the day she was born, she was his favorite and he gave her everything she wanted. At family reunions and when friends would visit, he gushed about how wonderful she was. I, however, was a disgrace to the whole family. And… I hated her for it.” He said the last words so quickly that I almost didn’t catch them. His eyes were squeezed shut and a line deepened between his eyebrows.

“I got involved in lots of shit. At some point it wasn’t just smoking pot but dealing, too. I didn’t need the money, I just got a kick out of it. Mom noticed that something was off and tried to draw me in to family activities. She always wanted me to do things with Olivia, but we weren’t really close. She didn’t like how I was acting, how I made our parents unhappy. Sometimes it felt like I was an intruder when I came home at night and saw them eating dinner together at the table. Without me. But it was my own decision. I’d been acting like an ass.”

“Everyone pulls some bullshit during puberty, Spence,” I said, trying to sound comforting.

For a while Spencer was silent. I didn’t want to push him, so I just stroked his hair and waited.

“It’s my fault, what happened to Olivia, Dawn,” Spencer said finally.

I held still. “What happened?”

He opened his eyes and the pain in them stabbed my heart. “I was supposed to be watching her because the babysitter was sick and our parents had an important event to go to. But I also had plans for the evening and had to cancel them to watch her. I was so pissed off. I took Olivia to the playground and smoked a little weed to calm myself.” His eyes had a far away look. “She was such a pain in the ass, always trying to get my attention and wanting me to watch her climb. Instead, I just played with my cell phone. Until she suddenly screamed.”

I gasped, and Spencer’s eyes focused on me again.

“In the movies these kinds of scenes are always in slow motion, but Dawn, I swear it all happened so fast. She screamed, I looked up, and she was already on the ground. I heard her head crack.”

My hand flew to my mouth.

“I thought she was dead. Her body was totally limp. And that cracking sound kept echoing in my mind. The rest of my memories of that day are spotty. I don’t remember running to her, just being on my knees with my hands covered in blood. Then the ambulance arrived. We went to the nearest hospital. My parents came. My father hit me.”

Tears were coming to my eyes. I felt for his hand and laced my fingers together with his. His skin was cold.

“It was the first time he ever raised a hand against me. And when he saw how stoned I was, he slapped me again. He gripped me tightly with both hands and yelled. I could have fought back but I didn’t. I was probably in shock.”

Spencer’s voice was gruff and he cleared his throat. “They operated on her and put her in a medically induced coma. I remember the first time I saw her after the operation. Dad didn’t want me in the room, so I had to wait outside. But through the window in the door, I could see her lying there. She had a tube stuffed down her throat, and IVs were connected to both her little arms. She looked shattered, pale, and lifeless. Because of me.” He covered his eyes with his other arm so I couldn’t see them.

I tightened my grip on his hand.

“It was like someone had thrown a bucket of ice water on me. I woke up suddenly. I mean, really woke up. Olivia would need a long time to recover, and it wasn’t even clear what that recovery would look like. But she was alive. And that was the moment when I completely turned my life around.”

“How was she after the accident?” I whispered.

He paused. “It was the toughest year our family has ever had. Olivia had a severe head trauma that damaged part of her brain. One side of her face was paralyzed after the accident and she had aphasia—she couldn’t speak. My parents found the best doctors money could buy so she’d get the best possible speech therapy. She said nothing for more than a year and had to relearn everything from scratch. Language, writing, most motor skills. She didn’t understand context anymore. It was so frustrating for her because she wanted to tell us things but couldn’t, since her mouth and tongue didn’t work together.”

It must have been horrific. To have a body that didn’t do what you wanted. “How did you handle it?”

His breath became jerky and I saw him trying to find the right words. “Badly. Just badly. I was suffering from traumatic stress, had panic attacks, and sleep problems. Olivia’s scream came back to me whenever I closed my eyes. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I could have prevented this. I’d start sweating and had trouble breathing. Mom sent me for treatment—I got therapy and anxiety meds.”

I remembered that he’d once mentioned his therapist. And suddenly those pills I’d seen in his kitchen cabinet made sense.

“Did it help?” I asked softly.

“Definitely. I could sleep again. You have no idea how wonderful that is, after months of not sleeping through the night. But also, I had to pull myself together. For the sake of the family. I owed them a lot. Including becoming the brother Livvy deserved. Someone who supported his family instead of tearing it apart from the inside.”

“Spence…” I gently took his hand from his eyes. “Listen, I don’t want you to think I’m not taking this seriously. The way you behaved back then was not okay, but what happened to Olivia is not your fault.”

His expression hardened, but I wasn’t finished.

“Even if you hadn’t been high, could you have caught her?” I demanded.

He just snorted.

---