I get up from the table because I have to leave, because this is too much. This is way more than I can ever take, so I remove myself from the situation. I get up, say my goodbyes and head for the exit with Kelly following behind me.

We make it to the car in silence and as we get in, and drive to my loft, I could never call it ours when this our is associated with someone who isn’t Spencer, we still don’t speak. It isn’t until we come to the parking garage and she begins getting out of the car, while I continue to sit there, does she say something. “Aren’t you coming in?”

I look down, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter. “I just need some time to think.”

She doesn’t argue, she doesn’t show the possessiveness that always seems to present itself in front of Spencer. She simply nods and shuts the passenger side door.

I pull up to the beach house that is my salvation. I can hear the waves crashing against the sand and that, somehow, soothes me. I walk into this dark house, locking the door behind me. I don’t bother turning on the lights, I know this place too well to need them. I navigate my way to the room I need to be in. The room that will provide the comfort that was removed the second Stacey called my Spencer, claiming my Spencer as her own. I take a seat at the piano there, lightly placing my fingers on the keys. I revel in how smooth they feel against my flesh and how at ease they put me. My fingers begin to press down upon them, playing a familiar song before I register they’re doing it. It’s a song I’ve come to know so well, a song that I wish I’d written, because it speaks so directly to me, takes my life and places it so perfectly between its words.

“As high as the moon
So high were my spirits
When you sang out my name
And coming from you
It was enough just to hear it
Oh, it rang like the bells did today
But even the sturdiest ground
Can shift and can tremble and let us fall down

Kindly unspoken
You show your emotion
The silence speaks louder than words
It’s lucky I’m clever
If I didn’t know better
I’d believe only that which I’d heard…”

I close my eyes as my mouth wraps around the words, sings them so perfectly that one would think, they were meant for me to sing.

“In the days of my folly
I followed your lead
I did what Simon said to do
But I won’t let melancholy
Play me for a fool
Oh, no I’m on my way somewhere new
And as far as your lack of something to say
Well, to tell me goodbye there was no better way

Cause kindly unspoken
You show your emotion
The silence speaks louder than words
It’s lucky I’m clever
If I didn’t know better
I’d believe only that which I’d heard

Well, don’t keep me up ‘till the dawn, no
With words that’ll keep leading me on, yeah well
I know much better than to wait for an answer from you

Kindly unspoken
You show your emotion
And silence speaks louder than words
It’s lucky I’m clever
If I didn’t know better
I’d believe only that which I’d heard…”

I feel someone take a seat beside me. I don’t jump, I don’t bother flinching. There’s only one person that would know I was here, and as she rests her head on my shoulder, watching my fingers continue to move across the keys, she doesn’t say a word, she doesn’t need to. But I do. “I miss you, Spence.” My eyes close on their own accord, they let the darkness of this room engulf me, sending me to speak the most honest truth I possess because I can’t lie to her, I can’t hide behind anything, not in our place, not at our beach house.

“I miss you too, Ash.”