moontide//spencer reid

21

THIS IS THE ONE. all I'm gonna say.

the first thing I do when I get home is uncork a bottle of wine. even after falling asleep on the jet, my mind is far too awake to even consider sleeping. my head swims.

a brown sugar candle from Regina sits abandoned on top of one of my cardboard boxes. I don't know if she forgot it here or left it as a gift, but I just noticed it now. it's not her usual kind of product-- she's a fiend for essential oils and anything that soft science says helps with stress. but she knows how much I enjoy warm smells, and so this feels intentional.

I go into my bedside drawer and grab my lighter, flicking the delicate flame over the wick and watching as it engulfs the string.

the last time I cried was the time I fought with Spencer. Spencer, with his angry expressions and repressed trauma. Spencer, who seems to have given up on himself.

I don't cry now because I feel hollowed out inside. the kind of hurt that doesn't require tears at all. like a dull ache in my chest as memories of how things used to be fill my head. the way his eyes seemed to swallow up the moon when we swam in the lake, his body imposing upon mine.

thoughts of what he said to me, about not seeing my parents as who they are. who is he to say that? I didn't try to incarcerate my dad, at least. didn't assume he would be capable of murdering a kid.

I thought he loved me because I loved him and because he was tender. and now I feel absolutely stupid for it; loving someone doesn't mean they love you. he never even said he felt that way, not even when he was wrapped up in pleasure. so how could I mistake it so easily?

Regina is wrong about many things, but I think she was especially wrong about me being vindictive. I'm the opposite of vindictive. I fell in love with someone too preoccupied to even consider me.

that's what they never tell you about being an adult: sometimes it's not about someone doing something wrong or trying to inflict pain. sometimes there's just not room for love. and that makes me wish he had done something genuinely unforgivable.

my sister was right about one thing, though, and it's that I need to get my shit together. I've been in this apartment for months and haven't unpacked all my things. admittedly, it felt wrong putting down roots in this place that wasn't home. home wasn't here and it wasn't in the house. home started to be Spencer's apartment, and now I've been shut out of there, too.

I take a sip of my wine and set it down on the coffee table while I take in the work that this is going to require. I definitely won't be getting any sleep between now and tomorrow morning, but it's not like I'd be resting anyway. aside from my short doze on the jet, there's been about eight hours of shut-eye between now and the incident.

so the task begins.

prying open the taped top of the first cardboard box, I find stacks of old magazines and some rose quartz bookends. they stare up at me expectantly, waiting for me to take the first step. and there's plenty of room in the apartment for them. there's even a bookshelf set into the wall that's perfect for display.

between the open bottle of wine, some lo-fi music, and the anxiety that has always propelled me forward, all other thoughts about Spencer are forced out of my head.

instead, I wonder about Baltimore and how my mother is doing, if my dad really is going to keep trying. no matter what he does, we'll never have a truly perfect connection. his personality creates inequality in all his relationships-- and I'll never accept that. 

it always feels like I'm fighting against something with my family, some kind of unending tide that threatens to wrap around my ankles and sweep me out into obsolescence. I'm so tired of trying to break away from them. so tired of always separating myself. because if I don't, I worry that I'll become them.