Lessons On Understanding [S/A]
Title: Lessons on Understanding
Author: Shazi nosebleed_seats
Rating: PG
Pairing: Jon/Spencer, Spencer/OFC
POV: First; Jon's
Summary: Dreams are not universal and love is not always returned and sometimes you don't need comfort. Sometimes you need understanding.
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone ('cept my original character, of course) and this story is FAKEFAKEFAKE.
Author's Note: This story was very much inspired by the song "Cath..." by Death Cab for Cutie. In fact, it played on repeat the entire time I was writing this. It's been played about forty-five times now. The cut text is also from that song.
It hurt me to see him conform like this.
It was what had been expected - not just by everyone, but by me. I knew that this ending was inevitable (it had been terribly predictable from the start), but that didn’t make it any easier to take. I could have been grateful that I was lucky enough to witness this predictable moment, but it felt more like a funeral than a wedding.
My funeral had already taken place years ago, so I didn’t have much left to mourn. It still hurt all the same. I might have known those five years ago that my relationship with Spencer was doomed from the start, but that didn’t stop me from giving it a shot. Despite how reliable of a friend he was, Spencer didn’t really know what to do in a relationship. He couldn’t handle himself the way he could in platonic friendships. He didn’t truly understand that a romantic relationship could work like a friendship, just with the romance as an added bonus.
We’d been great friends - we still were. It was one of the reasons I’d been invited to his wedding. We could make the most boring of events fun and filled with laughter and whether or not we were with other people or just alone together, I always felt things were so simple with him there. Spencer could light up a room with his smile and alter the mood of a crowd with a simple gesture. He really had a commanding presence.
We balanced each other out, you could say. We pretty much had to, seeing as we lived together. He was the neater of us two and was more often that not stuck with doing the chores around the house. I just kept everything cool and mellow. I was more laid-back than he was and Spencer was better at handling serious situations than I was. I could be responsible, but I sometimes got stressed under pressure and having a stressed out Jon Walker on your hands wasn’t entirely pleasant. I was able to get Spencer out of his moods easily and he was able to tell me when it was time to get down to business. We had a good friendship going. I appreciated him.
Then my appreciation grew into total admiration which made way for adoration. I had convinced myself that I had fallen head over heels in love with Spencer Smith and at the time, that’s what it had felt like. Looking back, I’m not so sure if it wasn’t just infatuation, but I deeply cared for Spencer and that’s what mattered. I tried charming him into my arms, figuring that we could take our relationship to a new level and he rejected and resisted my attempts at first.
Then I became more serious with my intentions and flirtations and Spencer had to start making excuses - ones that I had thought to be silly. He would tell me things like, “I’m worried that you’ll hate me if it doesn’t work out,” and “I’ve never been in a successful relationship.” Sometimes he would just lie and tell me that the chemistry wasn’t there and that I wasn’t really in love with him. Eventually, he gave up this game and just gave in to my advances. Eventually, he became mine.
And then came the ever-so-short, blissful honeymoon period. I’ve still got the pictures to prove that it happened. Pictures of me hugging Spencer from behind while he smiled at the photographer with a wide, eye-crinkling smile. Pictures of starry, dreamy eyed looks shared between us and pictures of shy smiles and tentative touches. Pictures of us together looking like puzzle pieces that just fit. There are even some pictures of us in cuddle puddles with our friends and those may or may not be my favorites. Brendon’s at the start of the puddle in nearly all of them, of course. It had been a great time. We were still all smiles and no fights and no awkward silences and still testing out the boundaries of this new friendship-turned-relationship.
But like all periods of time, no matter how blissful, this one had to end. And what an ending it was. It started, surprisingly, after Spencer told me he thought he loved me. He never directly said the three words and I guess I couldn’t be pleased with that, but then again I should’ve known better. I should’ve been more patient. We were only three months into the relationship, which was a good deal longer than most relationships Spencer had even been in up until that point. It was after that that I began doubting my love for Spencer, blaming it on the things he did or the way he said things or the way he acted.
It was then that the things that made Spencer think he was in love with me - my little quirks and characteristics - became the things that Spencer started to hate about me. He began to get annoyed by the little things that made me who I was and that was when the fighting started. They were trivial things at first - he would shout at me that I needed to remember to cap the toothpaste when I was done because it was really beginning to piss him off - but then they escalated and became totally out of control. Spencer would tell me that I was a lazy, inefficient bastard and that I would never get anywhere or make enough money or be successful in life. I’d tell him that he was too uptight and concerned with materialism and that money wasn’t everything. He would work himself into a great mood that not even I could get him out of and then he’d leave the apartment for hours on end. I never knew where he went or what he did and I never bothered asking because I was too busy being angry with him and pretending like I didn’t care.
I’d forgotten that all Spencer wanted was to live a normal, happy life. He wanted to live the fabled American Dream. He wanted to be that Chairman or that Board Director. He wanted to be the rich, handsome man in the rich, handsome suit with the beautiful wife and the beautiful children in the beautiful home on that safe, preferably suburban street where nothing could touch them. I’d forgotten about all that and I’d forgotten that I couldn’t give him that story tale ending. What I wanted to give him was happiness, which was all that I wanted. But I’d forgotten that that wasn’t all that Spencer wanted.
Happiness and love weren’t the total package for him.
I didn’t understand that about him then and I don’t understand why now, but understanding why someone does something isn’t the same as simply understanding them. Still, my lack of understanding all those years ago caused me to get angry at him and that anger caused the great split. It was possibly the most anger-fueled break up I’d ever been involved in and I do regret some of the ways I went about things, but what’s past is past.
Our breakup caused this great rift between us, one that Spencer had feared would be created before we’d even started going out. Spencer moved out, unable to stand the tension in the apartment anymore and I felt lonely without him there even if a good part of me didn’t want him back. A few good months passed and I got no word from anybody about Spencer or from the man himself. I felt neglected and wronged but I also felt guilty and regretful. I didn’t know what to with myself and for a while, I felt like I should just become the man that Spencer had wanted me to be. In the end, it was Brendon who had talked me out of that.
“Spencer loved you once and that was because of who you are, Jonny. If you change so that he can love you again, it won’t be the same,” he’d wisely told me. I listened and kept on living the way I was meant to live. I figured that wherever he was, Spencer was doing the same. All the months (which turned into years) that he was away, I never forgot Spencer or our relationship and I certainly never forgot our short-lived honeymoon period. Some nights when things got rough, I’d get sentimental and emotional and I’d sleep with one of those old pictures under my pillow. I kept them for reference and so that they never became irrelevant.
In some ways, I never moved on from Spencer. In most ways, he helped me mature. He helped me realize things about myself and things about him. He made me realize that he wanted to become someone I never could and that maturing wasn’t necessarily changing who you were, but growing up and accepting the responsibilities that come with life. I learned from Spencer’s mistakes that you didn’t need to be serious all the time to be responsible though. I learned from him that there were some dreams worth chasing and others that needed to be let go. I learned lessons from Spencer that he’d yet to learn himself.
Spencer also reminded me of things that I had once learned, but easily forgotten. Lessons about love and lessons about life. Lessons like love isn’t always mutual or requited or that nobody is perfect or that things aren’t always as they seem. Lessons like dreams aren’t universal and that not everybody wants the same thing and that people are different and so are their opinions. So, in some ways, I have him to thank for a lot.
After relearning these things, I tried my best not to forget them again.
Almost four years later, Spencer returned to what used to be our home in Chicago. He came to my door with a pretty, young looking girl named Chelsea who he didn’t even have to introduce as his girlfriend because I just knew and he looked nervous. He told me that he was coming back to stay for good and that he hoped we could be friends again and that this was Chelsea, she’s twenty-three, isn’t she nice? I told him that we’d never not been friends and that he should come inside and that it was nice to meet Chelsea. It wasn’t very nice to meet Chelsea then, but I am sure that if it had been different circumstances, I would have found her to be very charming. He declined the invitation (he’d later tell me that the apartment reminded him too much of what he’d left behind), but left me his number and new address and told me that he hoped to see me around. I wished him good luck and reminded myself of my lessons learned and all the lessons Spencer and Chelsea had yet to learn.
On my doorstep, they looked like the picture of perfection, which was just what Spencer was aiming for. Spencer was clean-shaven now, something he hadn’t been very often before he’d walked out on us. It made him look younger and more vulnerable, which I found a little ironic. His brown hair was a still a little long to be truly professional and he’d kept his side bangs, which made me happy. He was wearing a light blue button down shirt that brought out the color of his eyes, but looked anything but casual on him and gray, perfectly pressed slacks with black leather loafers. He looked like a businessman and I only wondered what kind of work he’d gotten into while he’d been away.
Chelsea, on the other hand, fit the image of a young, wannabe housewife almost perfectly. Her straight, auburn colored hair was held off of her face with a plain, black headband and she had simple, “natural” looking makeup on with only a smidgen of pale purple eye shadow on and some red lipstick to tint her lips. She had elegant, small diamond studs in her pierced ears and her peach colored skin was flawless and glowing. She wore a red and white floral dress with a simple thin brown belt around her small waist and a dark gray crop sweater that was left open on top of it. Chelsea wore transparent, sheer tights that admittedly looked great on her long, shapely legs and led right to her classic black pumps. She was a little shorter than Spencer and had a much smaller frame than he. They both looked so perfect it made me ache inside, but I managed to force a smile before we said goodbye. I reminded myself that this was what Spencer had wanted and that if he was happy, I could be happy too.
Funnily enough, all his smiles during that short meeting were awkward and looked forced, but I tricked myself to see otherwise. Spencer wasn’t my issue anymore. Not in that way, at least.
Spencer got in touch with all our old mutual friends and funnily, they all contacted me as soon as they’d heard from him, asking me if I was okay. A few of them had even heard about Chelsea and I got to describe the lovely girl to them and then they asked me if I was okay a few more times. I was fine though. I was perfectly fine. I told them all so and I doubted any of them believed me, but that was okay. Brendon told me that he had snapped at Spencer over the phone and that Spencer sounded a little guilty and sad, but that didn’t make me feel any better about my situation. I wasn’t trying to get revenge or anything; I just wanted Spencer to be happy.
I wanted to understand him, because when we were together, I hadn’t. I realized that. I had admired him and all and I thought I’d loved him, but I didn’t get him. I didn’t understand him the way he needed someone to. I didn’t believe that Chelsea understood him either and I liked to think that I understood him more than she did, but there was nothing I could appropriately do or say about that. I was just beginning to understand Spencer and a part of me believed - or at least wanted to - that I understood bits of Spencer that he didn’t understand about himself.
I understood that he wanted to live the “perfect” life, the American Dream. I understood that he couldn’t live out that life with me. I understood that he didn’t want happiness, he wanted success. I understood that he didn’t really want love, he wanted a companion. I understood that he didn’t need friends, he needed company and contacts. I understood that he wouldn’t change who he was not because he was happy with who he was but because he was afraid of change and that he needed some steady structure in his life. I understood that he couldn’t have successful relationships because he didn’t know how to give and receive and how to accept other people and how to adjust. I understood that Spencer needed to achieve everything now because he was afraid of The End and he was afraid of not making it before Time decided to stop. I understood that Spencer was just going through the motions and that he didn’t really live his days to live them and that he was only living the way he’d been taught. I understood now that we never would have worked out.
I was okay with that.
He and Chelsea stayed in Chicago for the rest of the year and old friendships were rekindled and new ones were started, but things were never the same way they’d been before Spencer had walked out. It wasn’t as if I’d expected them to go back to the past - I understood that that was impossible now - but it would have been nice to be able to chill and take pictures and be in half-drunk cuddle puddles with Brendon again. This time around, Spencer was always a wallflower with Chelsea and they gave everyone who passed them eye-crinkling smiles, but they weren’t the kind of eye-crinkling smiles Spencer used to give. The genuine ones that were contagious. These new ones were forced and made you give fleeting smiles in return and want to turn away from the ugly, fake scene before you. This time around, Spencer stayed away from the actual parties and he wouldn’t even take pictures of anyone else and he’d constantly be checking his Rolex watch. Because of Time. Time meant everything now.
The year passed quickly and Spencer worked in some icy, corporate building for some company or other. They all sounded the same. When he asked me if I still worked at Starbucks, I smiled yes and laughed and he gave me this kind of perplexed, bemused look as if I should be ashamed of it. My job kept me well and alive and I liked it, so what was there to be ashamed of? I never voiced this because it wasn’t something Spencer would understand and I wondered if there would ever come a day when he would understand. I wasn’t holding my breath for it.
Chelsea was the daughter of a wealthy salesman and didn’t work, although she once had a dream to be a nurse when she was younger. I wondered what had happened to that dream, but it wasn’t my place to ask about it. Spencer was her third boyfriend and according to what she’d told me one night, he was meant to be her last. I could tell by the way she so openly talked to me that she didn’t know about Spencer and I and I didn’t plan on telling her. That was another lesson she’d yet to learn and if Spencer was so ashamed of his past, I had no right to enlighten Chelsea about it. It stung a little to know that Spencer had never talked about us or about any of his old friends it seemed. It stung to realize how little we’d meant to Spencer and how replaceable we’d all been. I wanted to be angry and unforgiving about it, but my time with Spencer had passed. I understood that.
Instead, I was a good boy and I patiently listened to everything Chelsea told me. She told me about Spencer’s equally uptight, businessmen friends from where they’d lived (I learned that he’d been living in New York while he’d been away) and how they’d met when Chelsea had taken Spencer’s favorite spot in his favorite restaurant that he went to on most of his lunch breaks. The scene sounded so cutesy and film-ready that I wasn’t surprised by it very much and I made sure to smile and nod at all the appropriate parts. Chelsea seemed to be very proud of her life so far, but I didn’t ask her any questions about herself. In fact, I barely asked any questions at all; she liked to talk a lot.
I couldn’t see how two people like Chelsea and Spencer had come to love each other, but I could see that Chelsea was desperate to fall in love and get married and have kids. She was desperate to have a real home to call hers and a life to call hers and things she could show off and claim. Spencer was just as desperate for all of this and that’s how the attraction started, I suppose. Still, that was all they seemed to have between them and it seemed like enough for them both. I didn’t understand how or why, but I understood it.
“They’ll never last,” Brendon told me over the phone one lazy afternoon. I could hear the eye-roll in his voice. “None of Spencer’s relationships ever do.” Brendon was talking from first and secondhand experience, but he sounded a little bitter and I already knew how Spencer and Chelsea’s relationship would end. So when Spencer popped the question the very day after Brendon had called me, I wasn’t surprised in the least. Still, nobody really celebrated it. We threw Spencer a practically required congratulatory party and everyone congratulated him with stale handshakes and awkward claps on the back, but no one really celebrated it. It was a very somber party, but the bride-to-be and Spencer looked very pleased with themselves.
Spencer came to my apartment alone the day after the party. He looked just as stonily professional as ever and he even cleared his throat once I’d opened the door as if he was getting ready to present some kind of business offer to me. Which, looking back on it, he probably thought the event was.
“Jon, I just came over here to offer my sincere apologies for everything that’s happened between us in the past few years. I know you’ve already told me that there is nothing to forgive me for and I am grateful that we are still friends, but I feel like I still owe you this apology,” he said, sounding anything but sincere. I tilted my head to the side a bit, wondering if Spencer had always been this wordy or if he had changed some. If he’d always been this way, I wondered how I hadn’t seen all these blatantly obvious flaws in him before or if I’d been too infatuated with him to see it before.
“All’s forgiven, Spence,” I replied, his old nickname sounding weird and foreign on my tongue. Spencer seemed to wince a little when I said it. I kind of hated him for that. “What’s past is past.”
“Too true,” he eagerly agreed, nodding fervently. “After all, we are men, aren’t we? Surely we can handle such a small issue like this maturely? We are nearing our thirties.” Spencer laughed nervously and I gave him some kind of weird smile in return. I was sure that he never forgot how old he was and possibly reminded himself of how Time was getting the best of him everyday. I didn’t remember when our breakup and his walking out on Chicago became a small issue, but I didn’t pester him about it. I understood that there would never be an appropriate time for that.
“That we are,” I said, sighing a little.
“Well. I came here today to tell you that I haven’t forgotten the wonderful friendship we shared and the great years I’ve spent with you by my side,” Spencer told me, clearing his throat again. It didn’t go unnoticed by me how he very much avoided the word relationship or that he never again mentioned the four years he’d spent away from me. “I realize that the way I left was not at all well or proper, and I apologize for that once more. Still, I would like for you to not only forgive me, but to do me a right honor and be my best man at my wedding.”
My eyes widened and I blinked at Spencer in disbelief once the words had left his mouth. I certainly hadn’t been expecting him to ask me to be his best man, but when I mulled it over in my head, everything made sense. Spencer had basically burned all his bridges when he’d left all those years ago and hardly any of our friends were willing to be as forgiving and understanding as I had been. But I had learned as much about Spencer as I could have and I understood him very well. He had no best friend to be his best man and I was the closest thing to a real friend he had in this town. I realized that he wasn’t asking me because he cared or respected me that much, but because I was the only person he could turn to and the only one who wouldn’t turn him away. I was the only person who wouldn’t tell him no.
“I will.”
Watching Chelsea walk painfully slow down the aisle towards Spencer’s not-quite beaming face was like watching someone slowly burn alive for me. I thought I’d gotten over the pain, but it still hurt to see that Spencer was really following through with his self-fulfilled prophecy and that he really was going to try to live that life. Just because I understood it didn’t meant I condoned it. I did anything but, in fact. Brendon kept shooting me glares from the pews, as if I had personally betrayed him by agreeing to be Spencer’s best man. I guess in some ways I had and if he was hurting even half as much as I was at that moment, then I owed him a serious apology. But a part of me - the part of me that still loved Spencer and the part of me that made these “understanding” excuses for him - couldn’t let Spencer down like that. I couldn’t cut him out of my life completely.
I wasn’t ready for that.
I might have learned a lot from and about him, but I still had a lot to learn. I needed to learn how to stop wondering about Spencer. I needed to learn how to stop thinking that I was still the best man for him and if he just came to terms with who he truly was and stopped being afraid, then we could still be. That was a dream I needed to let go of and fast. He was getting married. Right then. I wasn’t going to lust after a married man.
I also needed to stop wondering about why Spencer had returned to Chicago. He seemed to have a good enough life in New York and even though he had some unfinished business back here, he could have left it unfinished. That would have been the more expected Spencer-type thing to do. A part of me told myself that I really didn’t want to know the answer to that question because it would probably open up a whole other bag of worms that neither of us wanted to deal with. And in such situations, ignorance really is bliss.
I learned that lesson too.
It didn’t matter that this whole thing seemed like a shotgun wedding or a desperate cry from Spencer to his old friends, as if he were trying to prove to us all that he could and would do better and that he could make something of his life. It didn’t matter that a part of me and a part of Brendon and a part of any boy or girl who had ever loved Spencer Smith still loved him. It didn’t matter that the Spencer we’d all knew had changed even though change was what he feared the most, right after Time. None of that mattered.
All that mattered was that Spencer was getting married to Chelsea and they were going to have beautiful children who would grow up to be just like them. All that mattered was that Spencer’s dreams were coming true.
It didn’t matter that I wasn’t a part of them. It didn’t matter because I didn’t understand why, but I did understand. And that was all that mattered.
Author: Shazi nosebleed_seats
Rating: PG
Pairing: Jon/Spencer, Spencer/OFC
POV: First; Jon's
Summary: Dreams are not universal and love is not always returned and sometimes you don't need comfort. Sometimes you need understanding.
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone ('cept my original character, of course) and this story is FAKEFAKEFAKE.
Author's Note: This story was very much inspired by the song "Cath..." by Death Cab for Cutie. In fact, it played on repeat the entire time I was writing this. It's been played about forty-five times now. The cut text is also from that song.
It hurt me to see him conform like this.
It was what had been expected - not just by everyone, but by me. I knew that this ending was inevitable (it had been terribly predictable from the start), but that didn’t make it any easier to take. I could have been grateful that I was lucky enough to witness this predictable moment, but it felt more like a funeral than a wedding.
My funeral had already taken place years ago, so I didn’t have much left to mourn. It still hurt all the same. I might have known those five years ago that my relationship with Spencer was doomed from the start, but that didn’t stop me from giving it a shot. Despite how reliable of a friend he was, Spencer didn’t really know what to do in a relationship. He couldn’t handle himself the way he could in platonic friendships. He didn’t truly understand that a romantic relationship could work like a friendship, just with the romance as an added bonus.
We’d been great friends - we still were. It was one of the reasons I’d been invited to his wedding. We could make the most boring of events fun and filled with laughter and whether or not we were with other people or just alone together, I always felt things were so simple with him there. Spencer could light up a room with his smile and alter the mood of a crowd with a simple gesture. He really had a commanding presence.
We balanced each other out, you could say. We pretty much had to, seeing as we lived together. He was the neater of us two and was more often that not stuck with doing the chores around the house. I just kept everything cool and mellow. I was more laid-back than he was and Spencer was better at handling serious situations than I was. I could be responsible, but I sometimes got stressed under pressure and having a stressed out Jon Walker on your hands wasn’t entirely pleasant. I was able to get Spencer out of his moods easily and he was able to tell me when it was time to get down to business. We had a good friendship going. I appreciated him.
Then my appreciation grew into total admiration which made way for adoration. I had convinced myself that I had fallen head over heels in love with Spencer Smith and at the time, that’s what it had felt like. Looking back, I’m not so sure if it wasn’t just infatuation, but I deeply cared for Spencer and that’s what mattered. I tried charming him into my arms, figuring that we could take our relationship to a new level and he rejected and resisted my attempts at first.
Then I became more serious with my intentions and flirtations and Spencer had to start making excuses - ones that I had thought to be silly. He would tell me things like, “I’m worried that you’ll hate me if it doesn’t work out,” and “I’ve never been in a successful relationship.” Sometimes he would just lie and tell me that the chemistry wasn’t there and that I wasn’t really in love with him. Eventually, he gave up this game and just gave in to my advances. Eventually, he became mine.
And then came the ever-so-short, blissful honeymoon period. I’ve still got the pictures to prove that it happened. Pictures of me hugging Spencer from behind while he smiled at the photographer with a wide, eye-crinkling smile. Pictures of starry, dreamy eyed looks shared between us and pictures of shy smiles and tentative touches. Pictures of us together looking like puzzle pieces that just fit. There are even some pictures of us in cuddle puddles with our friends and those may or may not be my favorites. Brendon’s at the start of the puddle in nearly all of them, of course. It had been a great time. We were still all smiles and no fights and no awkward silences and still testing out the boundaries of this new friendship-turned-relationship.
But like all periods of time, no matter how blissful, this one had to end. And what an ending it was. It started, surprisingly, after Spencer told me he thought he loved me. He never directly said the three words and I guess I couldn’t be pleased with that, but then again I should’ve known better. I should’ve been more patient. We were only three months into the relationship, which was a good deal longer than most relationships Spencer had even been in up until that point. It was after that that I began doubting my love for Spencer, blaming it on the things he did or the way he said things or the way he acted.
It was then that the things that made Spencer think he was in love with me - my little quirks and characteristics - became the things that Spencer started to hate about me. He began to get annoyed by the little things that made me who I was and that was when the fighting started. They were trivial things at first - he would shout at me that I needed to remember to cap the toothpaste when I was done because it was really beginning to piss him off - but then they escalated and became totally out of control. Spencer would tell me that I was a lazy, inefficient bastard and that I would never get anywhere or make enough money or be successful in life. I’d tell him that he was too uptight and concerned with materialism and that money wasn’t everything. He would work himself into a great mood that not even I could get him out of and then he’d leave the apartment for hours on end. I never knew where he went or what he did and I never bothered asking because I was too busy being angry with him and pretending like I didn’t care.
I’d forgotten that all Spencer wanted was to live a normal, happy life. He wanted to live the fabled American Dream. He wanted to be that Chairman or that Board Director. He wanted to be the rich, handsome man in the rich, handsome suit with the beautiful wife and the beautiful children in the beautiful home on that safe, preferably suburban street where nothing could touch them. I’d forgotten about all that and I’d forgotten that I couldn’t give him that story tale ending. What I wanted to give him was happiness, which was all that I wanted. But I’d forgotten that that wasn’t all that Spencer wanted.
Happiness and love weren’t the total package for him.
I didn’t understand that about him then and I don’t understand why now, but understanding why someone does something isn’t the same as simply understanding them. Still, my lack of understanding all those years ago caused me to get angry at him and that anger caused the great split. It was possibly the most anger-fueled break up I’d ever been involved in and I do regret some of the ways I went about things, but what’s past is past.
Our breakup caused this great rift between us, one that Spencer had feared would be created before we’d even started going out. Spencer moved out, unable to stand the tension in the apartment anymore and I felt lonely without him there even if a good part of me didn’t want him back. A few good months passed and I got no word from anybody about Spencer or from the man himself. I felt neglected and wronged but I also felt guilty and regretful. I didn’t know what to with myself and for a while, I felt like I should just become the man that Spencer had wanted me to be. In the end, it was Brendon who had talked me out of that.
“Spencer loved you once and that was because of who you are, Jonny. If you change so that he can love you again, it won’t be the same,” he’d wisely told me. I listened and kept on living the way I was meant to live. I figured that wherever he was, Spencer was doing the same. All the months (which turned into years) that he was away, I never forgot Spencer or our relationship and I certainly never forgot our short-lived honeymoon period. Some nights when things got rough, I’d get sentimental and emotional and I’d sleep with one of those old pictures under my pillow. I kept them for reference and so that they never became irrelevant.
In some ways, I never moved on from Spencer. In most ways, he helped me mature. He helped me realize things about myself and things about him. He made me realize that he wanted to become someone I never could and that maturing wasn’t necessarily changing who you were, but growing up and accepting the responsibilities that come with life. I learned from Spencer’s mistakes that you didn’t need to be serious all the time to be responsible though. I learned from him that there were some dreams worth chasing and others that needed to be let go. I learned lessons from Spencer that he’d yet to learn himself.
Spencer also reminded me of things that I had once learned, but easily forgotten. Lessons about love and lessons about life. Lessons like love isn’t always mutual or requited or that nobody is perfect or that things aren’t always as they seem. Lessons like dreams aren’t universal and that not everybody wants the same thing and that people are different and so are their opinions. So, in some ways, I have him to thank for a lot.
After relearning these things, I tried my best not to forget them again.
Almost four years later, Spencer returned to what used to be our home in Chicago. He came to my door with a pretty, young looking girl named Chelsea who he didn’t even have to introduce as his girlfriend because I just knew and he looked nervous. He told me that he was coming back to stay for good and that he hoped we could be friends again and that this was Chelsea, she’s twenty-three, isn’t she nice? I told him that we’d never not been friends and that he should come inside and that it was nice to meet Chelsea. It wasn’t very nice to meet Chelsea then, but I am sure that if it had been different circumstances, I would have found her to be very charming. He declined the invitation (he’d later tell me that the apartment reminded him too much of what he’d left behind), but left me his number and new address and told me that he hoped to see me around. I wished him good luck and reminded myself of my lessons learned and all the lessons Spencer and Chelsea had yet to learn.
On my doorstep, they looked like the picture of perfection, which was just what Spencer was aiming for. Spencer was clean-shaven now, something he hadn’t been very often before he’d walked out on us. It made him look younger and more vulnerable, which I found a little ironic. His brown hair was a still a little long to be truly professional and he’d kept his side bangs, which made me happy. He was wearing a light blue button down shirt that brought out the color of his eyes, but looked anything but casual on him and gray, perfectly pressed slacks with black leather loafers. He looked like a businessman and I only wondered what kind of work he’d gotten into while he’d been away.
Chelsea, on the other hand, fit the image of a young, wannabe housewife almost perfectly. Her straight, auburn colored hair was held off of her face with a plain, black headband and she had simple, “natural” looking makeup on with only a smidgen of pale purple eye shadow on and some red lipstick to tint her lips. She had elegant, small diamond studs in her pierced ears and her peach colored skin was flawless and glowing. She wore a red and white floral dress with a simple thin brown belt around her small waist and a dark gray crop sweater that was left open on top of it. Chelsea wore transparent, sheer tights that admittedly looked great on her long, shapely legs and led right to her classic black pumps. She was a little shorter than Spencer and had a much smaller frame than he. They both looked so perfect it made me ache inside, but I managed to force a smile before we said goodbye. I reminded myself that this was what Spencer had wanted and that if he was happy, I could be happy too.
Funnily enough, all his smiles during that short meeting were awkward and looked forced, but I tricked myself to see otherwise. Spencer wasn’t my issue anymore. Not in that way, at least.
Spencer got in touch with all our old mutual friends and funnily, they all contacted me as soon as they’d heard from him, asking me if I was okay. A few of them had even heard about Chelsea and I got to describe the lovely girl to them and then they asked me if I was okay a few more times. I was fine though. I was perfectly fine. I told them all so and I doubted any of them believed me, but that was okay. Brendon told me that he had snapped at Spencer over the phone and that Spencer sounded a little guilty and sad, but that didn’t make me feel any better about my situation. I wasn’t trying to get revenge or anything; I just wanted Spencer to be happy.
I wanted to understand him, because when we were together, I hadn’t. I realized that. I had admired him and all and I thought I’d loved him, but I didn’t get him. I didn’t understand him the way he needed someone to. I didn’t believe that Chelsea understood him either and I liked to think that I understood him more than she did, but there was nothing I could appropriately do or say about that. I was just beginning to understand Spencer and a part of me believed - or at least wanted to - that I understood bits of Spencer that he didn’t understand about himself.
I understood that he wanted to live the “perfect” life, the American Dream. I understood that he couldn’t live out that life with me. I understood that he didn’t want happiness, he wanted success. I understood that he didn’t really want love, he wanted a companion. I understood that he didn’t need friends, he needed company and contacts. I understood that he wouldn’t change who he was not because he was happy with who he was but because he was afraid of change and that he needed some steady structure in his life. I understood that he couldn’t have successful relationships because he didn’t know how to give and receive and how to accept other people and how to adjust. I understood that Spencer needed to achieve everything now because he was afraid of The End and he was afraid of not making it before Time decided to stop. I understood that Spencer was just going through the motions and that he didn’t really live his days to live them and that he was only living the way he’d been taught. I understood now that we never would have worked out.
I was okay with that.
He and Chelsea stayed in Chicago for the rest of the year and old friendships were rekindled and new ones were started, but things were never the same way they’d been before Spencer had walked out. It wasn’t as if I’d expected them to go back to the past - I understood that that was impossible now - but it would have been nice to be able to chill and take pictures and be in half-drunk cuddle puddles with Brendon again. This time around, Spencer was always a wallflower with Chelsea and they gave everyone who passed them eye-crinkling smiles, but they weren’t the kind of eye-crinkling smiles Spencer used to give. The genuine ones that were contagious. These new ones were forced and made you give fleeting smiles in return and want to turn away from the ugly, fake scene before you. This time around, Spencer stayed away from the actual parties and he wouldn’t even take pictures of anyone else and he’d constantly be checking his Rolex watch. Because of Time. Time meant everything now.
The year passed quickly and Spencer worked in some icy, corporate building for some company or other. They all sounded the same. When he asked me if I still worked at Starbucks, I smiled yes and laughed and he gave me this kind of perplexed, bemused look as if I should be ashamed of it. My job kept me well and alive and I liked it, so what was there to be ashamed of? I never voiced this because it wasn’t something Spencer would understand and I wondered if there would ever come a day when he would understand. I wasn’t holding my breath for it.
Chelsea was the daughter of a wealthy salesman and didn’t work, although she once had a dream to be a nurse when she was younger. I wondered what had happened to that dream, but it wasn’t my place to ask about it. Spencer was her third boyfriend and according to what she’d told me one night, he was meant to be her last. I could tell by the way she so openly talked to me that she didn’t know about Spencer and I and I didn’t plan on telling her. That was another lesson she’d yet to learn and if Spencer was so ashamed of his past, I had no right to enlighten Chelsea about it. It stung a little to know that Spencer had never talked about us or about any of his old friends it seemed. It stung to realize how little we’d meant to Spencer and how replaceable we’d all been. I wanted to be angry and unforgiving about it, but my time with Spencer had passed. I understood that.
Instead, I was a good boy and I patiently listened to everything Chelsea told me. She told me about Spencer’s equally uptight, businessmen friends from where they’d lived (I learned that he’d been living in New York while he’d been away) and how they’d met when Chelsea had taken Spencer’s favorite spot in his favorite restaurant that he went to on most of his lunch breaks. The scene sounded so cutesy and film-ready that I wasn’t surprised by it very much and I made sure to smile and nod at all the appropriate parts. Chelsea seemed to be very proud of her life so far, but I didn’t ask her any questions about herself. In fact, I barely asked any questions at all; she liked to talk a lot.
I couldn’t see how two people like Chelsea and Spencer had come to love each other, but I could see that Chelsea was desperate to fall in love and get married and have kids. She was desperate to have a real home to call hers and a life to call hers and things she could show off and claim. Spencer was just as desperate for all of this and that’s how the attraction started, I suppose. Still, that was all they seemed to have between them and it seemed like enough for them both. I didn’t understand how or why, but I understood it.
“They’ll never last,” Brendon told me over the phone one lazy afternoon. I could hear the eye-roll in his voice. “None of Spencer’s relationships ever do.” Brendon was talking from first and secondhand experience, but he sounded a little bitter and I already knew how Spencer and Chelsea’s relationship would end. So when Spencer popped the question the very day after Brendon had called me, I wasn’t surprised in the least. Still, nobody really celebrated it. We threw Spencer a practically required congratulatory party and everyone congratulated him with stale handshakes and awkward claps on the back, but no one really celebrated it. It was a very somber party, but the bride-to-be and Spencer looked very pleased with themselves.
Spencer came to my apartment alone the day after the party. He looked just as stonily professional as ever and he even cleared his throat once I’d opened the door as if he was getting ready to present some kind of business offer to me. Which, looking back on it, he probably thought the event was.
“Jon, I just came over here to offer my sincere apologies for everything that’s happened between us in the past few years. I know you’ve already told me that there is nothing to forgive me for and I am grateful that we are still friends, but I feel like I still owe you this apology,” he said, sounding anything but sincere. I tilted my head to the side a bit, wondering if Spencer had always been this wordy or if he had changed some. If he’d always been this way, I wondered how I hadn’t seen all these blatantly obvious flaws in him before or if I’d been too infatuated with him to see it before.
“All’s forgiven, Spence,” I replied, his old nickname sounding weird and foreign on my tongue. Spencer seemed to wince a little when I said it. I kind of hated him for that. “What’s past is past.”
“Too true,” he eagerly agreed, nodding fervently. “After all, we are men, aren’t we? Surely we can handle such a small issue like this maturely? We are nearing our thirties.” Spencer laughed nervously and I gave him some kind of weird smile in return. I was sure that he never forgot how old he was and possibly reminded himself of how Time was getting the best of him everyday. I didn’t remember when our breakup and his walking out on Chicago became a small issue, but I didn’t pester him about it. I understood that there would never be an appropriate time for that.
“That we are,” I said, sighing a little.
“Well. I came here today to tell you that I haven’t forgotten the wonderful friendship we shared and the great years I’ve spent with you by my side,” Spencer told me, clearing his throat again. It didn’t go unnoticed by me how he very much avoided the word relationship or that he never again mentioned the four years he’d spent away from me. “I realize that the way I left was not at all well or proper, and I apologize for that once more. Still, I would like for you to not only forgive me, but to do me a right honor and be my best man at my wedding.”
My eyes widened and I blinked at Spencer in disbelief once the words had left his mouth. I certainly hadn’t been expecting him to ask me to be his best man, but when I mulled it over in my head, everything made sense. Spencer had basically burned all his bridges when he’d left all those years ago and hardly any of our friends were willing to be as forgiving and understanding as I had been. But I had learned as much about Spencer as I could have and I understood him very well. He had no best friend to be his best man and I was the closest thing to a real friend he had in this town. I realized that he wasn’t asking me because he cared or respected me that much, but because I was the only person he could turn to and the only one who wouldn’t turn him away. I was the only person who wouldn’t tell him no.
“I will.”
Watching Chelsea walk painfully slow down the aisle towards Spencer’s not-quite beaming face was like watching someone slowly burn alive for me. I thought I’d gotten over the pain, but it still hurt to see that Spencer was really following through with his self-fulfilled prophecy and that he really was going to try to live that life. Just because I understood it didn’t meant I condoned it. I did anything but, in fact. Brendon kept shooting me glares from the pews, as if I had personally betrayed him by agreeing to be Spencer’s best man. I guess in some ways I had and if he was hurting even half as much as I was at that moment, then I owed him a serious apology. But a part of me - the part of me that still loved Spencer and the part of me that made these “understanding” excuses for him - couldn’t let Spencer down like that. I couldn’t cut him out of my life completely.
I wasn’t ready for that.
I might have learned a lot from and about him, but I still had a lot to learn. I needed to learn how to stop wondering about Spencer. I needed to learn how to stop thinking that I was still the best man for him and if he just came to terms with who he truly was and stopped being afraid, then we could still be. That was a dream I needed to let go of and fast. He was getting married. Right then. I wasn’t going to lust after a married man.
I also needed to stop wondering about why Spencer had returned to Chicago. He seemed to have a good enough life in New York and even though he had some unfinished business back here, he could have left it unfinished. That would have been the more expected Spencer-type thing to do. A part of me told myself that I really didn’t want to know the answer to that question because it would probably open up a whole other bag of worms that neither of us wanted to deal with. And in such situations, ignorance really is bliss.
I learned that lesson too.
It didn’t matter that this whole thing seemed like a shotgun wedding or a desperate cry from Spencer to his old friends, as if he were trying to prove to us all that he could and would do better and that he could make something of his life. It didn’t matter that a part of me and a part of Brendon and a part of any boy or girl who had ever loved Spencer Smith still loved him. It didn’t matter that the Spencer we’d all knew had changed even though change was what he feared the most, right after Time. None of that mattered.
All that mattered was that Spencer was getting married to Chelsea and they were going to have beautiful children who would grow up to be just like them. All that mattered was that Spencer’s dreams were coming true.
It didn’t matter that I wasn’t a part of them. It didn’t matter because I didn’t understand why, but I did understand. And that was all that mattered.