Chapter 13

Nothing.

She felt nothing.

There had never been a time Spencer could not point out what she was feeling. With a vast understanding of the human psyche, she always knew the clinical term of every sentiment there was and could be — their variations and changes were all committed to her memory. But all she felt was overcome by a gut-wrenching void that took hold of her body. She found herself wishing for the pain she'd felt when Carlisle had first confessed he was a vampire. At least then she had felt something.

She had spent the night at Sam's house, too distraught to go back home. Spencer knew she had fallen asleep on Paul, his warmth the only comfort she could possibly feel in such a confusing situation.

All through the night, her head kept replaying the five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Once the list had ended it would start over again, engraving it in her brain over and over and over again. Her clinical training beat into her the steps she needed to take. But there was no one to take them with.

This kind of grief, she felt, was incomplete. Sure she had not believed Carlisle at first. She'd gone through some type of denial. Yeah, she was enraged at the fact that he left her like she meant less than nothing to him. She'd gone through anger — maybe still stuck there. But who was there to bargain with? He was gone. There was no denial anymore, she was not allowed that much. Spencer wanted at least to feel the overtaking sadness that depression would bring, but she simply felt nothing. And she'd already accepted that he was gone. He'd made sure she understood that much.

No one had taught her how to deal with this. How to deal with the culmination of a relationship with a centuries-old vampire that had promised her eternity together. A vampire that she had fallen completely in love with — her first love, her first kiss, her first... everything. Carlisle had given her everything and just as swiftly taken it away.

"Spence?" Emily's soft whisper rang through the room Spencer had somehow woken up in. "I made some breakfast if you want. I sent a text to your mom to let her know you're okay."

"Yeah, thanks," she responded emotionlessly. "Is Sam back?"

"Yes, honey. He's at the dining table."

"Thanks. I'll be right out."

Emily clicked the door shut, leaving the girl once more to her thoughts. She noticed at the foot of the bed a change of clothes. Probably, Sam's. They were some sweatpants and a T-shirt, a comfortable enough outfit for her. She changed out of the suffocating scrubs she wore, feeling them gripping her body harder than ever before.

Sam's clothes almost hung off her body and she felt like a kid again. After their father had left suddenly, she'd taken to wearing the t-shirts he'd left behind to find some comfort in his absence. But these clothes still had their owner. He had not abandoned her — well, he'd come back.

With dragged feet, she made her way out into the kitchen where hushes were spread around. Spencer knew they'd heard her exiting the room and they had been talking about her. The Cullens leaving was the only thing anyone in the reservation could talk about, and unfortunately, the pack knew that involved her.

"There she is!" Jared exclaimed with a full mouth of food. But his face quickly fell with the burning gaze of everyone else at the table. "What?"

"How do you feel, Spence?" Sam questioned, pulling out a chair for his sister. Somehow, she looked frail. He'd seen her sad before. Hell, he'd been the one to comfort her at six years old when their father left. But even then, she'd been different. Now, she looked fragile enough to break with a simple breath.

"Fine," she responded. Everyone knew there wasn't much more they'd get out of her. "Is there coffee?"

"Of course," Emily smiled. "Sugar? Cream?"

"Two sugars, a bit of cream."

"Alright."

Emily placed a steaming mug in front of Spencer, her signature beaming smile painted on her face. And where the girl would normally return the gesture, she couldn't bring herself to even fake a smile. It was too exhausting to do so. So, she simply nodded.

"Why don't we move to the living room, Spence?" Sam whispered as he placed his hands comfortingly on hers. "The fire is already going, and it'll be a lot warmer there."

Spencer followed her brother, the hot cup between her frozen hands. She didn't feel like talking – she didn't feel much at all. But it was easier to simply follow what others told her. It was easier than doing whatever her brain was telling her to.

She sat next to Sam on the couch, curling into his side as he wrapped an arm around her. It was a strange sense of déjà vu. When they were little and Spencer had been sad, he would make her a cup of hot chocolate, sit her in front of the fire, and tell her stories until she fell asleep in his arms. And this moment was no different. She was sad, she needed comfort, and he would always be by her side.

"How're you feeling, bean?" Sam asked her, using the name he'd called her when she was little. "I'm sorry I wasn't here when you got here. Bella Swan got lost in the woods and the sheriff asked me to help look for her."

"She must be heartbroken as well," Spencer spoke, her voice barely a whisper and so full of pain. "I wonder how Edward ended things with her. It had to be awful if she wound up lost in there."

"What happened yesterday, bean? I thought everything was going well," he said. Worry was evident in his voice, the sound quivering and full of hurt. "I won't lie," he stated. "I am glad that the bloodsuckers are gone, but it pains me to see you like this. I thought he'd at least ask you to go with them."

Quiet.

All she could do was remain quiet. That was the least he could have done. But he didn't. He had thrown her away, discarded her like you would a used tissue. Carlisle had taken from her what he wanted and pushed her aside, without a real explanation or reason.

"Talk to me, Spencer. Please," Sam begged. "Tell me how you're feeling – what you're feeling. How can I make it better?"

"You can't," she sighed. A quiet sob escaped her lips and was only perceived by the adept ears of the supernatural. "No one can."

"Spence..."

"Sam, I understand that you're trying to help but you simply can't, okay?!" Spencer didn't know why she was yelling. Her frustrations were misdirected but she couldn't help how it came out. "He's gone, okay?! He took what he wanted and left. I wasn't good enough for him to stay and I wasn't worth taking with him. And I was ready to give it all up. You, my friends, mom... everything. I had made the choice to spend the rest of eternity by his side.

So now I'm stuck here having to figure out who I am and what my future will look like without him in it. I will have to mend my own heart that continues asking when he is coming back. No one can make it better, Sam. Not even myself."

She slammed the coffee mug on the table harder than she intended to, but she needed to get away. Spencer could feel the walls of the house closing in on her, squeezing every ounce of oxygen that was inside. She felt her lungs aching, grasping at any air left for her to breathe. But she simply couldn't. Her eyes had welled up with tears once more and her eyes burned from the liquid.

Spencer was already tired of crying. She was tired of feeling her world collapsing in on itself. Of having to pick up the pieces of her life every few years.  It wasn't fair. She was doing everything right and everything still went wrong.

Somehow, she had stumbled out of the house, Sam's voice distant in her head. He was calling for her but she could not listen. She needed to go somewhere else, anywhere else. She kept stumbling down the road without a real destination in mind. Her vision was blurred from her tears and her breathing was difficult.

But as she came face to face with the chipped white door, she knew where her head wanted to go. So, she knocked.

"I can't believe you forgot your keys," Allison laughed before she opened the door. "Oh, Spence. Honey, what's wrong?"

"He's gone, mom," she blubbered against her mother's neck. "He left. He left me."

Allison had an inkling of who her daughter spoke of but made no move to extract any information. It was clear that Spencer was suffering from a broken heart, and she needed her mother's comfort. She led the girl inside and sat them both on the couch, where she let Spencer cry to her heart's content. She sat there running her hand through her daughter's hair and drew circles on her back to try and console her child as best as she could.

The mother felt her daughter revert to the little girl that had her father walk out on her. The little girl that grew up too quickly, looking for the best education she could get to help out her mother. There in her arms, Spencer was broken. Merely a shell of who her daughter was.

When the girl drifted to sleep, Allison made a move for her phone, calling the only person that could have any idea of who had broken her daughter's heart. And she hoped he would answer this one time. If not for her, for his little sister.

He did.

"Who did this to Spencer?" Her voice spoke softly through the phone, fearing she would wake her daughter. "She just came in here bawling her eyes out, muttering incoherences. She is completely heartbroken."  

"It was that Cullen doctor. Carlisle Cullen," Sam sighed. "How is she, mom?"

"She just fell asleep after crying for a good twenty minutes. She is drained," Allison let out a strangled sob. "Why didn't I know about this?"

"Spencer wanted to keep this a secret for some time. Avoid being the talk of the town until the relationship was more serious."

"This looks very serious to me, Sammy. She's so... sad."

"She's tough," Sam stated. "I know she'll come out stronger after this. She just needs some time."

"I hope so." Allison kept quiet for a few seconds. This was the longest conversation she'd had with her son in a long time that had not transfigured into a fight. It hurt that it took her daughter to have been broken up with to be able to hear his voice. "I miss you, Sammy," her voice was barely a whisper. Almost like a thought that had slipped out. "I miss you a lot."

"I know, mom," he sighed. "I miss you too."

"I just wish we could be a family again. Regardless of whatever happened in the past," Allison said, hopeful. "Spencer needs you... I need you."

"You know I can't, mom."

"Why not, Sam?! What could possibly be more important than being with your family?"

"I can't talk about that, mom. I just can't."

"You always say that, but I am your mother. Whatever it is that you're involved in, I am sure I could help you, son."

"Please, just drop it. I've told you many times that I can't."

"Fine. Goodbye, Sam."

"Bye, mom," he said resignedly. 

"Don't fight with him, mom," Spencer croaked as her eyes fluttered open. "He has enough on his plate."

"I'm sorry, darling," Allison sighed as she ran her hand through her daughter's hair. "Do you want to talk about it?  About the doctor?"

"You know." It wasn't a question. It was clear that her mother knew who had taken her heart and broken it into a million pieces. "Sam told you?"

"I had my suspicions early on," her mother clarified. "You were spending so much time between the hospital and the Cullen's house; it didn't take long to connect the two dots. But, sweetheart, what happened last night? You seemed so happy these couple of months."

"I was only a distraction it seems," Spencer let out a soft sob. "I thought I had found the person I would share a future with. Instead, he left the second things got hard. History had a way of cruelly repeating itself, huh?"

"Oh, honey. I'm so sorry." Allison hugged her daughter tight, guilt washing over her body. She knew the situation had not been her fault, but she couldn't help but feel that her daughter's taste in men had been hereditary. "Is there anything I can do for you? Anything to make things better."

"I just need to sleep," she sighed. "Yeah, I just need sleep."

No matter that it was still the middle of the day, Spencer disappeared into her room to try and succumb to slumber. She drew the curtains closed, locked the door, and buried herself in a mountain of sheets and comforters. But nothing seemed to warm the cold the emptiness left. She had never felt cold like this before. It was chilling and it dug its way into her bones.

And somehow the coldness came hand in hand with tears. A floodgate that didn't seem to stop and she could not control. Even when she thought her body had surely run out of tears, more came. They stung her eyes and made them swell. They stained her cheeks and burned her throat. They left her breathless and full of pain.

And yet, she still felt the nothingness deep inside her.

Allison couldn't help but feel heartbroken as she heard her younger daughter cry for a man that had the gall to leave her this way. The worst part was that she could only stand and watch as her little girl fell apart. It was a sight that she had never prepared herself to witness, and didn't want to again. If she ever crossed paths with the doctor, she would make sure he knew just how horrible he had treated her daughter.

***

"You could have done things differently, Carlisle," a woman spoke, her eyes glazed over with a red hue. "She is in so much pain."

"I could have but I didn't, Theo," he sighed. "And I didn't come to you for grievances. I came to you for your ability and for the connection you have with her."

"Well, old friend. I apologize if I overstepped in any way, but she is — or rather was, I haven't seen her in some time — my friend," Theo smiled softly as her eyes returned to their amber color. "I spent four years with her, and she is a rather peculiar human. She is as complex as they come and so bright, it simply pains me to see her this way. Especially since it's your fault."

"I had to have her hate me. Spencer had such a bright future ahead of her and I was only going to hold her back." Carlisle did regret the bad decisions he had taken. He had built Spencer up only to have her crash and burn so suddenly. "The more she hates me, the easier it will be for her to move one. She'll have a great life, especially away from me."

"And how many times will you ask the clairvoyant to check in as she moves on as you want her to?"

"Not for much longer, Theo. I'm leaving New York once my family is finally settled here."

"Leaving?" The girl was shocked. He had left the love of his life behind to keep his family together, and he was leaving them behind as well. "And where will you be going then?"

"For penance."

Theo wanted to laugh, but the stoic expression on his face told her how serious he was. "Penance, Carlisle? Isn't that a tad dramatic?"

"Do you think I deserve to go on with my life after all the pain I have caused the only person I have truly loved?" Carlisle was resolute in his punishment. He would do what he had done once when he turned into something he had hunted for most of his life – hide from humanity and deny himself the only thing he needed to survive. "It's a punishment fit for the crime."

"And don't you think that knowing she will continue living without you by her side is punishment enough?" Theo tried to reason with her friend. "Breakups happen every day around the world. Spencer is strong. She will get over it. All she needs is some time, as do you."

"You don't understand, Theo. The things I told her... There's no coming back from that. I used every word I knew would hurt her, deliberately. It's something neither she nor I can forgive."

"Well, I know I won't be able to dissuade you from what you think you must do," she sighed. "You know where I am. So, whenever you need me, you know where to find me."

"The next time I see you, it might be too dangerous for me to be around humans. I'll send you word of where I will be," he smiled sadly. "I do ask for one more favor."

"Sure, anything."

"Don't tell my family where I am going. They'll surely do everything in their power to take me back, and I simply cannot."

"I cannot tattle to someone I do not know, Carlisle," she chuckled. "I have not had the pleasure to meet the rest of your family."

"Better that you do not meet them now. In this situation, my family has been ruptured possibly beyond repair."

"Give it time, Carlisle. Most things with time become clearer."

"Isn't the saying that time heals all wounds?"

"Time does nothing of the sort. If anything, time gives you choices. Time helps you build grudges; it stacks grievances upon grievances. Time doesn't heal, it forces you to either live with your pain or find a way through it. Everyone has to make that choice at some point."

"Then I hope Spencer can find a way through it because I will have to live with it."