Chapter 27

The longer Spencer remained in the Cullen house, the more she felt the walls closing in on her. For a moment, she couldn't distinguish the difference between dreams and reality. It all seemed like a horrible nightmare she couldn't shock herself awake from.

As soon as the tickets were bought and a plan was laid out, the girl ran outside. The smell of pine and wet dirt filled her nose, and for the first time in hours, she felt like she could breathe. The house taunted her as she leaned against her truck, trying to fill her lungs with air, tears burning the back of her eyes.

Spencer wanted to be strong. She wanted the vampires in the house to believe nothing they had done had affected her. Her heart had been shattered, but she had persevered. In fact, she had come out of the other end better than she had been left.

But she had been strong for long enough. She had swallowed her tears, and she had slipped on a mask. She had been pretending to be strong long before she knew that's what she was doing. Pretending to be okay had become her second nature.

Yet, everything breaks at some point. All the pressure—years and years of suppression—is bound to make even the strongest diamond break.

A tightness spread through Spencer's chest, stopping her lungs from receiving oxygen. It had her gasping for air, taking as many breaths as her body allowed her. But it hazed her sight and numbed her limbs, pulling her to the ground as she tried to regain her composure. Still, try as she might, her body betrayed her. It raced her heart and forced tears to fall from her eyes, making her ache for air like a fish out of water.

"Hey, hey, Spence," she heard distantly. "You need to focus on your breathing, okay?"

"I-I-I c-can't," the girl stammered.

"Yes, you can, Spencer," Theo said as she placed her cold hand on her cheeks, snapping her eyes to the vampire. "Focus on me. Copy what I'm doing."

Though she didn't need it, Theo took in deep breaths through her nose and exhaled through her mouth, keeping her gaze firmly on Spencer. She took her friend's hands in hers and tried her best to keep her focus. She spoke slowly and calmly, instructing the girl's breaths and pulling her attention from the attack.

It was almost a play-by-play of the day the two had met.

Spencer hadn't realized just how scary it would be to find herself alone in a new school with faces she didn't recognize. The moment Sam and her mother moved her into her room, she found herself so alone. Her roommate had not shown up, and she'd been informed moments after that she had been unenrolled from the school. Without a roommate and without her family for the first time, the girl felt truly and completely alone.

She had been able to go on for almost a month. Classes kept her distracted enough during the day, and all students were forced to eat breakfast together, but at night, she still had to go back to an empty room, and she still sat by herself every lunchtime and dinnertime. The only thing that kept her sane was the picture of Sam and Allison on her last birthday by her bed. She didn't want to call and worry them. She'd already written to them every two weeks like she had promised, and even then, she felt she was bothering them too much.

The girl had just finished an English class when suddenly, her books flew everywhere, and her knees scraped against the hardwood floor. People around her laughed at their teenage insensitivity, but it was the words of one particular girl that struck her the hardest.

"I think it's better that you go back where you came from," she had spat. "Although I guess some scholarship girl should be used to being at our feet."

Spencer hadn't been able to look into the girl's eyes before she felt her chest wrenching from lack of air. Students lost interest in her seconds later, leaving her to scramble for her things as she fought against her own body. One more minute, and she was left alone in the seemingly never-ending hallway.

The lockers around inched closer to her as the seconds ticked by, taking over the little air that remained for her. Her eyes blurred, and her skin pebbled with sweat, all while her lungs screamed at her to breathe.

The tingling started at the tops of her fingers, like ants eating at her veins, and spread to her legs. She was numb and oversensitive all at once, yet she had no control over it. Her body was going crazy, and she had no control over it.

"Hey, hey," she heard a voice call out from a distance. "You need to focus on your breathing, okay? You're having a panic attack."

Spencer felt cold hands against her arms, and her eyes snapped back into focus. Before her stood a black-haired girl with striking blue eyes. She wore a burgundy polo, letting her know she was a junior.

"I-I-I c-can't b-breathe."

"I know, honey," the girl said. "Just do what I do, alright? Focus on me."

The older girl took deep breaths through her nose and exhaled through her mouth, telling Spencer to do the same. She didn't let go of her hands at any moment, instead keeping her centered with her touch and soft words. Her voice lulled her into a rare sense of calm she had not felt in a while and helped even out her racing heartbeat.

Spencer couldn't understand how this girl who knew nothing about her had stopped to help her, even after the tardy bell had rung. Unlike the peers she had shared for four weeks who had laughed at her and walked away without sparing her a second glance.

What she hadn't known was that those few minutes had been excruciating for the girl helping her. Spencer's knees had been spilling small droplets of blood and had been testing the vampire's resolve. It had taken everything in her not to pounce on the girl's neck and expose her identity. But for some reason, she hadn't been able to just walk away.

"How're you feeling now?" the girl asked as Spencer's breathing evened out. "Any better?"

"Y-yes," Spencer croaked. "Thank you."

"No need to thank me. Some kids here don't understand common decency," she chuckled. "I'm Theo, by the way. Well, Theodora, but my friends call me Theo."

"I'm Spencer," the young girl responded. "I guess I sometimes go by Spence."

"Well, nice to meet you, Spence," Theo smiled. "How are you finding Greenfield?"

"Lonelier than I was expecting," she admitted with a dry chuckle. "I don't even have a roommate, and clearly, I'm not doing good at making friends."

"Then consider me your first official friend."

"Don't take this in a bad way, but why?" Spencer questioned. "I mean, you're a junior. I'm just a freshman."

"Eh, I don't really care about those things," she shrugged. "We all need someone, Spencer. I'm good with being someone for you."

Theo had become the someone Spencer had needed for the next two years. She'd encouraged her to meet new people, she guided her in the direction of a few internships. Theo had even been the one to guide her through a dual-enrollment and started her on her path to medicine. She had been everything she had ever wanted in a friend. Except honest.

As the girl calmed, that realization dawned upon her. The Theo she had met in Greenfield had only been the vampire's mask. The girl that was standing before her was the real one, all golden eyes and perfect skin. She had pretended to be her friend for years, but she had disappeared the moment she needed her the most.

Everyone needs someone. That much she knew was true. However, Theo clearly was not the right person for Spencer.

"How are you feeling?" Theo asked. "Any better?"

"I'm fine," she croaked, pulling her hand from the girl's grasp. "I can handle things by myself."

"I don't doubt that, Spencer," the vampire said. "But we all need someone, Spence."

"Why do you care?" she spat. "After all this time of silence and no contact, why do you care now?"

Theo's expression twisted in confusion, clearly unaware of what the Uley girl spoke of. "What do you mean, Spencer?" she questioned. "Did you not get my letters?"

"What letters?"

"I've been sending letters to your home since I left for New York, Spence. Since I never heard back, I assumed you just didn't want to talk to me anymore," Theo confessed. "I stopped for some time, trying to give you some space. But when I saw what you were going through after... well, you know, I couldn't help but reach out. And yet again, I never got a response."

"I... I've never gotten a letter from you, Theo," the girl muttered. "Are you sure you sent them to the correct address?"

"I didn't break into the school and look at your personal file to get things wrong," she chuckled. "I'm a hundred percent sure I sent them to your mom's house. And I never got a return to sender post, so I just assumed you threw them away."

Suddenly, a thought popped into Spencer's head. "Sam always gets the mail for mom and I," she mumbled under her breath. "And when he didn't, Paul was the one that got it. But... no. They wouldn't..."

"I don't know what they would or wouldn't do, but I did send those letters," Theo said. "I wished there was more that I could have done for you, but I couldn't without revealing what I really am and crossing into enemy territory. I tried to reach out the only way I thought I could."

"I just thought you'd forgotten about me after you left for New York," she muttered. "I even tried to email you, but the school deactivated your school email after you graduated. I felt like an idiot for trying to contact you when I thought you didn't want anything to do with me. I mean, you were a college student, and I was just a junior in high school."

"Well, a junior in high school and college," Theo teased as she bumped her shoulder softly into Spencer's. "I didn't want to lose contact with you, Spence. But I always knew it was something that had to happen at some point—back when you didn't know everything, of course. Humans and vampires, it's just something that isn't meant to last."

"Yeah," Spencer scoffed defeatedly. "That's something I learned the hard way."

Theo remained quiet for a second, pondering over her next words carefully. "Would you have allowed him to turn you, then?" she asked tentatively. "Would you really have become one of us?"

"If he had asked me, I think I would have," Spencer admitted. "Now, I'm not even sure I want to be in the same state as him."

"You still love him, don't you?"

"I don't want to."

"But you do," Theo stated. "Which is why you agreed to get him home. Which is why you're helping him and his family even after all they did. But you must know you don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"W-what?" Spencer questioned in disbelief. "After all that begging, you're telling me there's another way?"

"Not exactly another way, but Esme and I will find a way to get him back," she said. "I didn't want to mention anything in front of her because she's already so distraught from losing her best friend, but you have a choice here, Spence. You don't owe them anything, okay? Not even me."

Spencer took a moment to ruminate on Theo's words. She'd known deep inside that she could deny them help, but she hadn't felt like it was a real option. The guilt alone would have consumed her, taking her body hostage from the inside out. Even if Carlisle couldn't die, he was doing the closest thing to it. "No, I want to help," she replied. "Regardless of everything that has happened, I want to help."

"Only if you're sure, Spence."

"I am," she smiled. "I'll see you tonight, Theo."

"Spencer..."

"I'm okay, Theo," she said. "I'll see you soon."

The ride back home filled Spencer with anger and uncertainty. She had carried some buried resentment toward Theo since the girl had left the boarding school. The one girl that had gone out of her way to build her up into who she was had disappeared as quickly as she had come to her life. And she never got a reason why.

She had spent years thinking she was disposable, that she had lost the only friend she had made at school to distance and disinterest. Instead, someone had decided to try their hand at playing god and had believed they knew more than the universe's will. The only culprits he could think that would do that were the very ones who had been tasked to keep others like Theo away from their land. But she couldn't believe they would do something like that for years. Not to her.

Still, she had no time to ponder over the betrayal as she searched her room for a duffel bag to fill with the first clothes she could find. The girl ran from corner to corner, packing essentials and some non-essentials as well. It was her first time flying across the country to save her vampire ex-boyfriend from eternal hunger and punishment after he had shattered her heart—she didn't know what to pack.

All she knew was that she had very little time before she had to drive all the way back to the Cullen's land.

"What are you doing?" Paul's voice suddenly filled her room. "You smell like them."

"I'm going to New York with Esme and a friend to save Carlisle," she responded without taking her gaze off the clothes she was folding. "We leave as soon as I'm done here."

"So you decided to help," Sam interjected. "I thought seeing the bloodsuckers again would make you hate them. Serves me right for believing their charms wouldn't work again on my sister."

The spite in her brother's voice pierced her heart with calculated precision. He had only spoken with kind and supportive words while the vampires were away, and there was no sign they would come back. He had stood by his sister's side and told her what she wanted to hear, except when she needed him the most—except when she had finally made a decision he did not like. "You always knew there was a possibility I would go," she said through gritted teeth. "And they didn't work any charms on me. My mind had been made up before I even got there."

"We have enough with the ones that came back," Sam said. "Why do you have to bring another one?"

"Because his family deserves to have him here. He's not just your enemy, Sam. He's also a father and a friend, and they miss him. It is not my place to keep him away."

"After all we did to keep them from you," Paul mumbled under his breath, thinking she couldn't hear him.

But she did. "Oh, I know all about what you've done," Spencer spat. "Like keeping letters from me sent by the only friend I had in school. Where are they, huh, Sam? Did you chase the mailman until you got them?"

"How did you...?"

"That friend I'm going to New York with? Turns out she's a vampire, and she's the one that had sent those letters," she said. "Letters I didn't even catch a glance of since you and Paul had always been so kind to bring our mail in."

"I was trying to protect you, Spencer," her brother argued. "Those things have no place here."

"They are your enemies, Sam! Not mine," she exclaimed. "I thought she hated me. I thought the one friend I had made outside of the reservation hated me because she hadn't reached out. Come to find out, it was you that had been keeping her away."

"Those letters reeked of leech," he scoffed. "I was doing you a favor. Those things are poison, Spencer."

"That should be my decision to make! You took that from me, Sam. Both of you," she fumed. "People have always looked down on me. Whether it be for where I was born, how much money I have, or who my father is. I can count on one hand the people who wanted to be my friends without you intervening. Theo was the only person in that school who saw me as a person. I wasn't Sam's little sister or the smartest person in class. I was simply a person. And you made me think all of that had been a lie. You made me feel unlovable, replaceable."

"She's a vampire."

"She's my friend!" Spencer yelled. "Look, I don't need to explain why or why those letters mattered to me. What I care about is that you took away my choice to decide on the matter. I'm not a child anymore, Sam. I do not need you to make decisions for me."

"Are you sure about that, Spencer?" Sam fumed. "You fall for one leech, he breaks your heart, and you turn into a depressed alcoholic. I missed one delivery from those bloodsuckers on your birthday, and it sent you down a spiral that had you in bed for days. From where I'm standing, I did you a favor by burning those letters."

Tears threatened to spill from the girl's eyes as anger bubbled inside her. She wanted to believe her brother's ire was misdirected, that his poignant words were jabbing at marble skin. But it was her he was speaking them to, and she wasn't made of impenetrable skin. "If that's what you believe," she said in a scary and calm tone. "But we'll need to table discussion for later. I can't be late."

Spencer walked past her brother and her friend, her bag in tow and her anger boiling in her veins. She knew the longer she stayed, the more likely she'd say something she regretted. Unlike the wolves, she couldn't let her ire consume her—there was no telling when she'd come out once she allowed the darkness to take over.

She was in her truck and ready to go when a knock at her side startled her. "What do you want, Paul?"

"Don't go, Spence," he said. "He's not good for you."

"No one will ever be. Not to you. Not to Sam," she scoffed. "But it doesn't matter because I'm not getting back together with him. I'm only returning him where he belongs—to his family."

"We have enough leeches across the pond. We don't need one more."

"This is not about you or the wolves, Paul," she argued. "This is about a family that is shattered."

"They didn't care when you were the one that was broken."

"Lucky I'm not them," she said. "Now, go away unless you want me to run you over."