The Summer With Spencer

“Maybe we’re not supposed to be happy. Maybe gratitude has nothing to do with joy. Maybe being grateful means recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes simply to be human. Maybe we’re thankful for the familiar things we know. And maybe we’re thankful for the things we’ll never know. At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing is reason enough to celebrate, I guess,” I told him. “So, on a lighter note, did you miss me ?” I asked him, genuinely curious. “More than you know,” he said. “I missed you every minute.” His statement triggered a flashback for me, and suddenly I was back in that dank, brown basement, in searing pain, using my strength to sign “Miss you every minute,” to Eddie. I wondered what had happened to Eddie. I had refused to see him, and he had been committed to the psych ward at the hospital that had treated him. However, I was unsure of what would happen to his house after I was gone, but that wasn’t my decision to make anyway. Since he wasn’t my legal guardian, and as far as the government knew, I was in Michigan, technically I wasn’t even here. CPS would have surely contacted my parents if they had known that I was essentially living alone. Who’s paying the bills ?! I suddenly thought. Maybe all this time, I had been worrying about the wrong things, things that don’t even matter at all.

All of this wasted time, I couldn’t believe it. It was nearing the end of July, I was set to leave in a little over a month, on the last day of August. School started up again on September 7th. I just couldn’t picture going home and carrying on with a normal life. I let my thoughts wander, mentally noting that I would have to teach Spencer how to use Skype….Spencer was looking at me with mild concern. I realized I had been sort of zoned out, lost in my thoughts. I gave him a small smile, which he returned. He looked extremely relieved that things were finally repaired between us. He gave a small sigh, leaning his head on my shoulder, sitting beside me now. It was then that I saw something that I hadn’t noticed before on Spencer’s arm; needle marks.

I was paralyzed. What should I do ? We had so little time left together, should I just leave it so we can be happy ? Hadn’t I caused enough trouble, hadn’t we all had enough hardship ? But what if his health was threatened ? I made a tough decision, if someone else noticed it, then they could call it to attention. Having a happy ending was too important to me to mess it up again, it had already been jeopardized countless times. Besides, if profilers hadn’t noticed it or thought it to be an object of concern, then everything must be alright. It just had to be.

The door flung open. Garcia stomped in, but stopped abruptly when she took in the sight before her; Spencer and I sitting side by side, in the same way, with his head on my shoulder and my arm around his back. “I was all ready to end this once and for all, but it looks like you two have everything worked out already. Carry on.” She turned to leave, but Spencer stopped her. “Garcia ? Can you stay a minute ?” He asked in a timid tone. “Of course my little brainiac !” She lowered herself to the floor in front of us. “You had your angry face on Garcia, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it !” I commented to her. She smiled graciously in response. “I just wanted to say, thank you. Thank you for putting up with me, all of you, and I’m embarrassed at the way I acted.” Spencer told her, looking down and playing with his hands. “Oh, sweetie !” Garcia said, touched. “We weren’t putting up with you, we were taking care of you ! That’s what family does.” She patted his shoulder, winked at me, and left. Spence said nothing, only reached over and squeezed my hand.

After that night, Spencer and I were inseparable. Garcia taught him how to text, so on his lunch break every day, I would get a cute text from him, usually a statistic or fact of the day. After work, every other day I would go to the teams house and just do whatever with them, sometimes just with Spencer. One day in the middle of August, I sat Spencer down and showed him how to work Skype, making sure that he knew exactly how to use it. Every night that he had a nightmare after that, he would Skype me in the middle of the night.

One day I failed to receive a text from Spencer.