pretty little liar // brad simpson

twelve

SPENCER

"You two seem happier than you were before." James observed, eyeing Brad humming as he made breakfast, his hips bumping back and forth to the Florence and the Machine song that was blaring through the speakers in the corner. 

I twisted the last bit of my hair back into the braid I was pulling together, and glanced from James over to my phony boyfriend, bobbing his head as Florence Welch sang, and I felt my lips pull up. Brad hadn't danced around for a longer portion of our relationship, but in the six months since we'd settled our little row, he'd changed.

The verge of two years was coming up. Two years of playing a role so frequently that it came as a second nature, it was just as normal as tying my shoes or riding a bike. Brad glanced over his shoulder at the counter where James and I sat, and he twitched his head to flick some overgrown brown curls from his chocolaty eyes.

His pink lips sent a smirk my way, paired with a sultry wink. I giggled, shaking my head at him and turning to face James instead. "We are happier."

James looked thoughtful for a moment before he grinned widely back at me, then diverting his eyes back at the book he had been busy reading for the better part of this week. I looked at the crossword before me, tapping my pencil against my chin as I searched for a solution to the riddle.

The truth was I couldn't seem to keep my mind on the prompt before me. Instead, all I could think about was Brad - and I realized that my mind had been so full of him for almost two years that I couldn't much seem to think of anything else.

First it was my annoyance at the acting role I'd been suffocated into. Then it was the lust and the confusion and the indifference when I'd been with Tristan... and now it was just Brad. If Brad was away recording, I was thinking about him. Was he reading a book? I was watching him read. If I saw a photo of a cute boy on Instagram with a puppy in his arms, I was thinking of what kind of puppy that Brad and I would get.

It was like breathing. You did it without thinking, without realizing. You couldn't stop it from happening. That's what Brad was - I breathed him, without thinking about him or realizing I was doing it, I couldn't seem to stop focusing on him.

"I'm off, Elizabeth should be arriving at the airport from France in an hour. Shall we come back after that?" James asked, closing his book after tagging the corner of the page.

I glanced up at Brad, waiting for him to respond, and found his brown eyes focused on me. "Bradley?" I prompted, watching him shake his head and nod, eyes shifting to his friend.

"Bring her! I'm sure Elizabeth and Spencer would love each other." Brad chimed, beaming at his mate as James got to his feet.

"I can't wait to meet her," I agreed, imagining James' girlfriend he'd been seeing for a few months now. They'd split for a bit, and Brad had come to me after bumping into the girl a month or two back, and then before we knew it, James and Elizabeth were back together.

James departed, leaving the two of us in a silence that had been comfortable and then suddenly felt like it it was suffocating, closing in around us like a tsunami. "I'm going to go to the gym." I said, planting my hands on the bench and using them to push myself up.

"Is everything okay?" Brad asked, suddenly looking concerned as he rounding the counter towards me. "You haven't had any breakfast, and you normally only go workout when you're stressed."

I shrugged, turning away so I wouldn't have to look at his eyes and the way his lips puckered when he was worried. Part of me yearned to cuddle into him, and the other part felt like that was exactly the wrong thing to do when you're not actually dating someone, when your love is only meant to be for the audience.

But every single day I became more and more sure that my love was more than just a mask I wore, and every single day I felt my love like a physical ailment, making me sick and weighing me down - because I shouldn't, I couldn't feel it. Not real, not like this.

"Spencer," Brad repeated my name, his hand resting on my shoulder gently. I wanted to turn, to wrap my arms around him and listen to his heart beat, but I wanted more for him to want that too, to feel that same desire as I did. I couldn't risk that rejection, so I flinched and stepped away, giving him an apologetic look when I saw his hurt face.

"I think I've been ill lately, and I need to take care of myself a bit better." I half-lied, although that was close enough to the truth compared to what the past year and a bit have been.

Brad nodded, but he still looked a bit glum as I climbed the stairs, closing the door to our room and pressing my back against it. My heart was racing like I'd run a mile, and I felt like my body was hot and cold all over. Interacting with him... it hurt, holding in everything like a pressurized can and pretending that a flame wouldn't cause an explosion.

I moved to grab some gym clothes from the closet and suddenly my eyes were spotting with black, so I froze with a hand on the dresser. My whole body felt disconnected, and I held still until the feeling faded. Trembling, I turned instead for the bathroom and turned on the cold water, letting it run over my wrists as I looked into the mirror.

My forehead was beginning to feel damp with sweat, and my cheeks looked rather splotchy. It was like the placebo effect, I reckoned, where I was so convinced that Brad didn't love me back that my own thoughts were poisoning me. My anxiety was getting the best of my physical health, and it was bringing about a tension I felt that I couldn't handle.

I switched off the tap and dried my hands, lifting the towel to my forehead to pat it off. Instead of getting dressed for the gym, I peeled off my jeans and replaced them with some soft pijama shorts, leaving on my sweater and tugging my braid away from my face with a hairband. Sucking in a deep breath, I pulled open the bedroom door and padded down the stairs, rounding the hall to enter the kitchen.

"You're going?" Brad asked, turning away from where he was scraping some eggs onto toast, some sausages on the other side of his plate. He gave me a puzzled look, seeing what I was wearing and the state I was in. "Have you got a fever?"

I nodded, slouching my shoulders slightly as Brad came over and held my cheeks, pressing his forehead against mine to test its temperature. "You're warm, darling."

"I know. Have you got anything to do today?" I asked, as Brad went back to the stove and served up the other half of what he'd fixed and brought it to the coffee table. Padding after him, I sank onto the couch and took my plate, picking at a sausage with my fingers.

"Not anything I have to get done." He shrugged, sitting beside me and sending a concerned look.

"Can you stay in?" I asked after a moment, looking up at him from my ducked head. Brad gave me a soft look and nodded, pushing a bit of hair and tucking it behind my headband.

"Of course, Love." He nodded, tapping my chin so I smiled lightly. "We can watch films and cuddle, and if you'd like I can even make a run for icecream."

"Thank you," I smiled, taking a bite of my eggs and toast, and leaning my forehead against his shoulder as I chewed.

Brad rested his head on top of mine, letting out a low breath. "Anything."

This is thankfully presented to you in pair with my new friend @cosmically who wrote an excellent fake-relationship story with James McVey called "Smile For The Camera." That's where the lovely Elizabeth story comes from, and we are talking about how to include her in the story a little bit!! Check out her story if you've not yet read it, and if you have and got to this story from there, please leave a little comment that says "I love Elizabeth!"