Maybe It's A Hastings Thing • Sparia [DISCONTINUED]

Goodbye

Spencer's POV

"Spencer, please," Aria pleaded through the phone. "Do anything. I... I just need to see you before you go away."

"Aria, babe, I'm going to be fine," I reassured for the fifth time. "But I don't know what to do. We're supposed to be leaving in an hour and I still have a bit of packing to do."

"I only need a few minutes," she said. "School is a fifteen minute walk, right? Look, I know it seems stupid, but a week is going to feel like a long time without you. And who knows when I'll get to talk to you? You'll be five hours ahead -"

"Ar, listen to me," I said firmly. "I'll come and see you at school. I'm leaving in ten minutes."

She sighed with relief. "Thank you, thank you so much."

--

I waited impatiently for Aria. I didn't have much time to see her, and time was precious. I'd only been at school for a minute, but my stomach was twisting in nervous knots, anxious that she wouldn't make it in time. I tapped my foot on the ground, clenching my teeth.

"Spencey?" I whipped my head around to a puffy-eyed Aria, cheeks red and out of breath.

"Come here," I said, opening my arms as she ran to me.

"I-I'm gonna miss you," she sniffed.

I stroked her hair and sniffed too, but I had to keep in my tears, or else we were both going to be sobbing messes.

"I'm gonna miss you too," I said and pulled her closer to me. She reached up and looked me in the eyes before gently pressing her lips to mine. I placed my hands on her waist as she stood up on her tiptoes, and I smiled at how comical she must've looked. I was going to definitely miss this over the next week. There was so much about Aria that I loved that I'd be standing at the school forever naming them all, and I had to keep this moment short.

She broke away and rested back on her feet. "Can you call me when you get to London?" she asked quietly.

I nodded. "I'll call you as soon as I get the chance."

She looked down and took my hands into hers. Her grip tightened around my fingers as she kept her vision away from me, probably trying her best to not show her tears. I ran my thumbs over her knuckles, doing my best to calm her, but it wasn't really getting me anywhere.

"Spencer, I'm scared," Aria said.

"I know," I replied. "But I have Melissa, and she will stand up to my parents; she'll stick up for me and I'll be okay, and it's only a week." I glanced at the wrist watch on my right arm and saw the hand ticking threateningly at me, and I was reminded that I needed to leave soon.

Aria must've noticed me looking, and she looked up at me with glassy eyes. "Please don't go," she pleaded. "Not yet."

"I'll be back as quick as anything," I assured.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and held on as if her life depended on it. "I love you," she said, planting a gentle kiss on the side of my neck.

"I love you too," I replied, kissing her forehead. "I'll see you in a week."

--

Opening the door to my house, their was an eerie coldness, the type you felt when something was out of place. It didn't feel right leaving so suddenly after everything that had happened, and leaving Aria in that state. My stomach twisted nervously as I thought about how she was going to cope without me for a week, and it wouldn't end well, considering how she'd reacted, but I understood where she was coming from. If it was Aria going away for a week after being assaulted by her parents, I'd be freaking out just as much as she was.

I stepped through the door. A cool breeze hit me from the back door that was open, which was shut when I left. I ignored the weird situation and called out for my parents.

"Mom? Dad?" I called up the stairs. No answer.

Panicking slightly, I jogged outside to the barn, wondering if they'd gone in there to find some of Melissa's old stuff. That would explain the open back door, right?

The barn door opened with a creak, but nothing was in there apart from a collection of furniture and old curtains that must've been decades old, but everything was just as it normally was. Cobwebs flew about with the gusts of wind that blew through the door, creating a creepy feeling around me. It was just like the night Ali went missing; we were all cosied up on the chairs and couches that still littered the room and the curtains flapped about in the wind. Memories were so evident here, and it made me feel slightly uncomfortable.

Shaking my head, I slammed the barn door shut and walked back up to the house. I decided checking upstairs would be a good idea, since they might not have heard me. The first room I checked was their bedroom, and everything seemed to be just as it always was. Bed made, curtains open, and the familiar smell of my mom's perfume and my dad's aftershave mixed in together in some weird scent that somehow made the room smell nice. The next room I checked was the bathroom, just in case. The only thing that was different was that our toothbrushes and other toiletries were gone, understandably, as they were packed in our cases. I passed the guest bedroom, since it was very unlikely they were in there. Finally, I entered my room. Everything was in order: suitcase on the bed, wardrobe almost empty, and my bed made neatly. So where were my parents?

As I made my way downstairs again, the wind was still blowing through the open door, casting a chill over my skin. The blinds flapped against the glass, and with another swoop of air, a scraggly slip of paper fluttered over from the kitchen table that I hadn't noticed earlier. It cast itself over to the couch and landed face down, concealing the message that had engraved itself backwards in to the other side. I walked over to it and picked it up, wondering why the hell I had this random note with my parents nowhere to be seen. Turning it over, my eyes scanned the message that was written in my mom's cursive handwriting, and I stopped dead in my tracks. I stopped breathing, blinking, and even thinking for a second. All I could do was drop the note on the carpet and hear it over and over again in my mind:

Dear Spencer,

Goodbye.
-Mom and Dad.

--

A/N

I said you guys would hate me when I posted this (also I'm sorry it's late so that'll make you hate me even more).