Page 63 of The Boyfriend Boycott
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.
CHAPTER 27
GRADY
I scrambleto pack enough food for Spencer and me for a few days, rushing around so she doesn’t have time to change her mind. There was enough hesitation in her eyes when she agreed to let me come with her that I won’t give her a moment longer for her to second guess her decision.
By the time I load up the old cooler I had to dig out of the basement crawl space, Spencer is seated in the passenger side of the van, her feet stretched out and propped up on the windowsill. She looks completely at ease. But I know Spencer now, and it’s when she puts on this mask of aloofness that she’s the most hurt. She did the same thing when she found out about her dad’s wedding, telling me she was fine when I knew she wasn’t.
The van bumps along the gravel backroad, as I drive the van away from Heartwood, and Spencer hasn’t spoken a word in the last twenty minutes. I don’t mind, though. All I feel is relief that I managed to convince her to let me come with her, to give me just a few more days with her. To let me be there for her.
The look on her face as she shouted at her mother in the drive had taken a gouge out of my heart, and all I wanted was to wrap her up in my arms then and there. She stormed awaybefore I could do that, opting for her usual coping mechanism instead. Running away. Spencer has never told me outright that her childhood was traumatic, but based on the snippets I’ve gathered, it’s no wonder Spencer wanted to get away as soon as possible. It’s no wonder she struggles to figure out where she wants to land.
Spencer is staring out her window at the passing trees, the same as she has for the whole drive so far, when I glance over at her. My hand flexes on the steering wheel as I fix my eyes back on the road. The van bumps over a pothole as I turn into a clearing next to the river that’s rushing beside the secluded backroad.
“Here?” Spencer asks.
“Yes, here.”
“This is the middle of nowhere,” she says, still not budging from where she’s sprawled out with her feet up on the dash.
“That’s the point,” I say. “You wanted to get away. This is it. It’s not the middle of nowhere, I know exactly where we are. Used to come here as a kid.” I get out of the van and stretch my arms overhead before wandering over to the bank beside the rushing water to take in the view of the mountains beyond. I hear thethunkof the door as Spencer shuts it and comes to stand next to me.
We stand side by side in silence for a moment. In my peripheral vision, Spencer closes her eyes in the sun, letting it warm her face and dry the last remnants of old tears on her face.
“Okay. It’s pretty nice here,” she says finally.
“Yeah, right?” I pivot on my heel, letting Spencer stand and admire the river while I set up the campsite. I start by pulling out the awning, and root around in the back hatch to find the fairy lights she had strung up around her last campsite.
Spencer is still staring out at the rapids by the time I’ve finished hanging the lights, but there’s a tension in her shouldersthat I’ve seen before, and she’s starting to pace slowly. Just like she did that first day on the lookout when she was talking to her mom. Now, I see her more clearly. Her relationship with Marla has always been a burden, the roles reversed in a way that no child should have to deal with. She had to grow up and be independent before most kids learn to read.
“Are you good?” I ask, although I know the answer. The truthful answer, and the one she’s going to give me.
“Yep,” she answers. I walk over to meet her by the river’s edge and place a hand on her back, motioning for her to turn towards me. She does, and when her eyes meet mine, they’re red-rimmed, new tears forming on her bottom lashes. One of them falls on her cheek, and I lift a hand, cupping her jaw and wiping it away with the pad of my thumb.
“No, you’re not,” I say softly.
“No. I’m not.” She admits with a sniffle, then squares her shoulders and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “What does it matter now anyways? There’s no sense being upset about something that’s already done. Not to mention something that I should have been prepared for in the first place.”
“You’re allowed to feel your feelings about this Spencer.” I reach up to lift her chin, and peer into her shimmering emerald eyes. “What your mom did was really shitty. The way she’s treated you is really shitty, and you’re allowed to say so.”
