GUN IN MY HAND

CHAPTER 54: DOROTHY & SPENCER

'There's a boy, lost his way, looking for someone to play

There's a girl in the window tears rolling down her face

We're only lost children, trying to find a friend

Trying to find our way back home'

*SPENCER'S POV*

There was no one to judge or accuse. Though I wasn't alone, and I quickly felt that gaze stronger than any sensation burning through my body.

My head lifted automatically to the window, and here she was, exactly like all these times before, like ten years before. 

It was the same thin and blurry silhouette behind the next-door window, the same wild and bright red curls, the same attentive eyes, except she was wearing black instead of a baby pink dress. But nothing had changed as the scared boy walked up to his window, the erratic thumps of his heart settling in a new rhythm when their gazes met, and if today, I had no teddy bear in my hands, it only made it easier to climb down my window.

Just a bob of her head, and I was clinging to that large branch of the oak tree, jumping on my unsteady legs without even taking a second to wipe my tears. Dorothy had seen me at my worst, and she was still the best part as she welcomed me into her room again.

She was really there, her big eyes catching mine, her fingers twisting in front of her skirt, and her soft scent of cherry and wildflowers clearing out the thought that it could be just a dream. Yet if this part was true... the rest was too, and the scene with my dad was fogging my mind like the haze of a nightmare.

"Did... did you hear everything?" I peered up at her from under my brows, the croaky sound of my question making me wince.

"Only the part you screamed about your mom..."

Screamed?! Had I been that loud? From the half-smile tensing her lips before she looked down, I feared it had been louder than I'd imagined. Though no matter how strong, it couldn't be more deafening than the silence in that instant, as it echoed all those words screamed, whispered, and unsaid.

We still hadn't talked, and I didn't know where we were standing. Even literally, I was standing at a 'comfortable' distance, awkwardly, in a room that was unrecognizable, and it was the greatest reminder of everything that had happened in a month.

Her bed was still wearing pale sheets, and her desk, dressing table, and full-length mirror were exactly in the same state, but it was as if they had been moved into another world, where there was no picture of us. I would have surely been left crippled at this sight, if I hadn't already glimpsed those changes from my window a few weeks before, while here, I took unsure steps around to admire what was replacing them: constellations and planet drawings, and what couldn't be seen from the outside: the starry ceiling in a Milky Way gradation.

Even if it was in a painful way, it was breathtaking and... so Dorothy. This room had never resembled her more than in that instant, without any trace of me.

"Spencer..." Her soft voice pulled me back down, and I realized there was still something of me, over her heart: the moon pendant I'd offered her for her birthday. 

There was still hope, and it filled my chest more than oxygen as she turned to me.

"I'm sorry..."

Here we were with those three words. They weren't the ones I wished for, but they still hit straight to my heart, making it skip a beat.