The Summer With Spencer

I started to feel better as I walked. I hadn’t been stupid when I left the house, I was wearing shoes and appropriate clothing, and my hair and makeup looked decent. IT sounds shallow, but at that moment, that made me feel a lot better. My cast was becoming hot and itchy, but I couldn’t do anything about that. I had left the house around two, it was three-thirty now. Flashbacks suddenly hit me, this was about the time my abductor would contact the FBI every day. Previously caught up in my thoughts, I hadn’t thought about how the kidnapper might be lurking somewhere. I was willing to take that chance, I wasn’t worth anything anymore anyway, so might as well have some fun while I could, go out with a bang. I had never done anything particularly rebellious before in my life, so I guess this was a first. I had never run away before, never slammed a door.... I guess I already had a start. I walked aimlessly for hours, I must have been at least two towns away. I went into a book store to pass the time. I couldn’t concentrate, I began to get distracted and stare blankly out the window. I wouldn’t admit to myself that this whole time, I wished that Spencer would be my knight in shining whatever, and come to rescue me. I began to be swallowed by my thoughts again. I felt as though I was having a mental breakdown, or a mid-life crisis. I felt like the titanic, supposedly invincible, yet so fragile when it came to hardship. And this ship was going down.

I wondered if anyone was even looking for me, if they had noticed I was gone, if they were even curious to know how I was doing. You’re pathetic, I told myself. I was leaving the book store when someone grabbed my arm. “Hey, you’re that girl from the news ! They said you were missing, again !” The owner of the bookstore told me, leading me to the phone on his desk. It was fate, I couldn’t fight it. He called the number on the paused TV screen. That’s not Eddies number, I thought to myself. My puzzlement was answered when the owner greeted the man on the other end. “Yes, is this Dr. Spencer Reid ? I’ve found the girl that you were looking for. Yeah. Yeah, she’s right next to me. Yep, Grogan’s Bookshop, two miles out of Quantico, little town called Triangle. Alright, see you in five minutes. Buh-bye.” He looked at me sympathetically. “Your friend’s coming to get you now, fun’s over,” he told me. I was spinning around on the little stool beside the cash register when Spencer walked in. He rushed right over to me. I stood on the stool and threw my arms around him, cast and all. He actually hugged me back.

“You’re my knight in shining whatever !” I told him giddily. He led me over to the same fountain I had sat at hours before. I looked at him, looking at me, with those wide, sincere eyes, and I let everything I’d been feeling spill out. “Oh gosh, I’m so sorry. I messed everything up again, didn’t I ? I made you worry again, and I made you come rescue me again. You must be so tired of having to save me, having to protect me…I’m so, so sorry Spencer. I really am. You’ve been so good to me, and your team has been so good to me, and I always mess everything up, and I don’t know what to do, and…I should have died down in that basement, I know I should have, but I thought maybe I could use my second chance to turn things around…” “Don’t ever say that you should have died,” he whispered to me. “It’s not your fault that you needed time away. It was the right thing to do, you didn’t break anything, you didn’t hurt anyone, you didn’t stay there and tear things up. You took control and left. You needed time away, and you took care of it. Eddie was in the wrong, not you. It’s not your fault.” He insisted to me. “You’re nicer to me than I deserve,” I told him, tears filling my eyes. He didn’t say anything, he just hugged me closer to him. I buried my face in his chest, knowing that he was, indeed, the only person on Earth that understood me.

He led me into a small coffee shop after that, and bought me a latte. He sat across from me, drinking a triple-shot espresso. “ So, uh…Morgan was really upset when Eddie told him what happened, and uh.. he kind of…punched Eddie in the face…” he said this to me as though I should feel bad for Eddie. Which I didn’t. “That’s so nice !” I told him honestly. “You guys are truly nicer to me than anyone else. So, you saw my notebook, right ?” I asked him. “Ah, yes, I did. I have to tell you though, I honestly don’t comprehend how you could like me so much. That day at the zoo…I felt like I was annoying you so much, but, I just couldn’t stop. I’m so socially awkward, and you’re so…you make everyone want to be around you, you have like, some inner thing, that attracts people, you have it. That thing that charms people instantly, you turn heads wherever you go, haven’t you noticed ? he looked at his hands as he spoke, twisting his fingers around. “Have you noticed the kind of people I attract, ?”I asked him. “You and the BAU team are the only good people, besides my friends back home, that I attract. I attract kidnapping psycho unsubs for God’s sake ! and for the record, that day at the zoo, I loved everything you said. Haven’t you noticed that I do the same thing ? I love to tell people insane facts that they would never know otherwise. It annoys everyone I know…except for you.” “I never thought of it that way,” he told me honestly. He stood up abruptly, spilling his espresso in the process. I helped him clean it up, and he told me it was time to go. I complied, and we walked out of the small shop together, just two misunderstood nerds on a hot summer night.