Commissions

Spencer/Ava #4

(Commission for @/flowerhound on Tumblr)

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There are some decisions that change the course of entire lives. A careless word, a heedless infraction, can alter someone's entire future. A doctor knows that better than anyone. 

Decisions had to be weighed carefully. The smallest miscalculation could set off a firestorm. And Ava had miscalculated. 

Sobbing, she clutched the phone to her chest, desperately trying to calm her breathing enough to answer Spencer's question: "Are you okay?" 

Was she okay? Of course she wasn't. But how did you tell someone that your entire world was falling apart? How did you tell someone that in a matter of hours, you had lost everything, had lost even the will to live? 

"Just...come over. Please," she finally managed to choke out. "I need you." Her breath felt like sharp knives, cutting what was left of her heart to ribbons. 

"I'm on the way." 

At the click of the receiver, she curled up on the floor, the phone forgotten, and held herself in a hopeless embrace that offered no comfort. Where had it all gone wrong? How could she--how could Connor--have let this happen? 

Her solitary pain didn't last long. There was a quiet knock at the front door to her apartment, hesitant but insistent. Spencer. Always reliable, always there--but surely not for long. Surely not when he saw what she'd become. Wavering as she got to her feet, she stumbled to the door and shakily opened it, knowing she looked a disaster but far past caring. 

"Ava..." He didn't get far before she collapsed into his arms, and he caught her, steady as always. She clutched him tightly, a tenuous lifeline in a raging sea of despair--a line that could be cut at any moment, leaving her adrift in a cold and lonely ocean. 

"It's over," she croaked hoarsely, her voice barely making a sound against his chest. "Everything's over." 

"What? Ava, what happened?" 

She told him. She told him everything. And when she had finished, she braced herself for the feeling of weightlessness as she fell away from his support, as he took a step back away from the monster that was her, as the last reason she had to live disappeared like so much dust in the wind. 

But Spencer didn't disappear. 

Instead, he held her tighter, his grip strong and sure. "You're not a monster, Ava. Connor is wrong." His voice sounded so certain. 

Wrong? How could he be wrong? The thought had never occurred to her. It had never crossed her mind to take his accusations as anything but fact--surely she had messed up. Surely she had committed this gravest of sins. 

But what if--? 

"Ava," Spencer continued, and she felt his hand stroking through her hair, comforting. How could he stand to comfort her? "You are not what he says. You are a good person, Ava." He sounded so sure of himself, as if he actually believed his own inconceivable words. "You are worthy of so much. Please believe that." 

Slowly, she felt her breathing calm. Ava relaxed into him, allowing his strength to hold her upright, transferring her weakness into him and letting him purify it. Maybe he was right. Could he be right? Is that possible? 

"Everything's going to be okay," he whispered, running a hand down her back. "You're going to be okay. And until you are, I'll stay right here. I won't go anywhere." 

She was surprised to hear her own hopeful voice. "You really won't leave?" But everyone leaves. 

"I won't leave. I promise." He hugged her tightly, a solemn vow. "I promise you, Ava. You're going to be okay. I'm here for you." 

Skeptically, uncertainly, she let herself begin to believe. "Spencer...but why?" I am nothing. I am less than nothing. Connor said so. 

"Because you mean so much to me, Ava. More than you know." 

She burrowed deeper into his warmth, her sobs subsiding. 

Maybe she hadn't miscalculated. Maybe this was another one of those life-changing decisions--one that would change her future for the better. Maybe there was something on the other side of this darkness she'd found herself in--something bright, and something beautiful. 

Maybe she had a reason to live, after all.