I'll Wait--Spanna
“You know, the drive back to Rosewood is almost an hour long. You really can’t avoid me,” Hanna pointed out, looking at Spencer. The brunette didn’t reply.
“I know you’re mad at me. It’s okay, I get it. I’d be mad too if I were you. But you have to talk to me at some point,” she added. Spencer’s grip tensed up on the steering wheel. Hanna sighed. Her girlfriend was angrier than she’d realized. It was her fault, of course. She was the one who’d mixed up the beers and ended up passed out in a parking lot, her purse missing, Noel Kahn long gone.
“I’ll wait,” she said, faking patience. Unfortunately, patience was never Hanna’s strong suit, and within five minutes she was talking again.
“Look, Spence, will you please just say something? I’m sorry. I’m sorry you had to come all the way out here to pick me up. I’m sorry I’m so stupid I drank out of the wrong beer. I’m sorry I can’t do anything right,” Hanna apologized. Spencer glanced over at her girlfriend before turning her eyes back to the road.
“You’re not stupid, Hanna. And I’m not mad that I had to come out here, or that you drank the wrong beer,” she said quietly. Hanna’s eyebrows furrowed together.
“What are you mad about?” she asked carefully. Spencer didn’t answer, and Hanna managed to stop pressing her.
“So what were you up to today?” Hanna asked, changing the subject. Spencer glared at the road.
“You would know if you hadn’t run off on your own,” she said bitingly. Hanna rolled her eyes.
“We’ve established that you’re pissed at me. So do you want to move on and tell me what’s going on? Emily’s message said you found something,” she said. Spencer took a few minutes to answer.
“We went to the old Kahn cabin. We found a flash drive,” she said. Hanna raised an eyebrow.
“And?” she prompted.
“Noel was in the Dollhouse,” Spencer said. Hanna’s eyes bulged.
“What?” she nearly yelled. Spencer glanced over at her.
“The flash drive had files of all of us, in our rooms in the Dollhouse. We didn’t watch them all. But the one I saw… I didn’t hurt anyone. The blood, Noel put it on me. I didn’t hurt anyone,” she repeated, her voice shaking. Hanna reached out and put her hand on Spencer’s thigh.
“Of course you didn’t. I’ve never believed that you hurt someone,” Hanna said honestly. She had believed it when she’d told Spencer that first time, and she believed it now. Spencer gave her a grateful smile, momentarily forgetting her anger.
The rest of the drive was uneventful, with neither girl wanting to disrupt their newly found peace. It wasn’t until they got home that Hanna decided to reopen their previous conversation.
“If you’re not mad at me for being stupid or having to drive out there, what are you mad about?” she asked.
“How could you just disappear like that? After everything that happened? Do you have any idea how worried I was?” she asked in a tight voice. Hanna’s frown deepened.
“I told Em I was going to New York to meet with Lucas,” she said. Spencer rolled her eyes.
“You sent her a text. And you didn’t tell me anything! I had to hear from Emily that my girlfriend was going out of town! And then we couldn’t get in touch with you, and Lucas said you weren’t together. I thought you were dead, or AD had gotten you again! How hard would it have been to just answer one of our calls?” Spencer yelled, angry tears rising to the surface. Hanna closed her eyes, guilt washing over her body.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“When I worry about AD getting a hold of you or… or hurting you, or worse… You know, I have a very real picture of what that looks like in my mind,” Spencer said, trying and failing to control the fear in her voice as she remembered those terrible moments when they’d found the Hanna doll and she’d believed her girlfriend was dead.
“I know. I’m sorry,” Hanna whispered, ashamed. In her desperation to catch Noel, she hadn’t even thought about the pain she might cause her girlfriend.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Spencer asked. Hanna shrugged.
“You guys weren’t ready to believe that Noel was AD. I knew you wouldn’t let me do this on my own, and I didn’t know if you would have helped me,” she explained. Spencer raised an eyebrow.
“Are you kidding me? Of course I would have helped you! I mean, I might have suggested we try something besides kidnapping a man we suspect of murder, but I would have helped you!” she yelled, anger replacing her sadness once again.
“I’m sorry, Spence. I don’t know what else I can say. I needed to do this. I needed this to be over. I can’t sleep, okay? I can’t look in a mirror or wear anything without sleeves or do anything without remembering what he did to me. Every time I take a shower, I’m back there, being sprayed with freezing cold water. I’m scared all the time. I need it to be over!” she yelled back, tears streaming down her face. Spencer sighed and pulled her girlfriend into a tight embrace.
“I’m sorry. I know you want this to be over. I do too. Trust me, baby. There is nothing I want more than to make him pay for what he did to you. But not at the expense of you being hurt again,” she said seriously, guiding Hanna to the couch.
“I didn’t get hurt,” Hanna mumbled. Spencer tilted her head.
“Yeah, because you got lucky. You’re lucky Noel left you on the sidewalk and only took your purse. He could have taken you. He could have killed you, or raped you, or locked you alone in another cabin in the middle of nowhere. And I’m too selfish to lose you again,” she said. Hanna grimaced at the reminder that Noel could have done much, much worse. But he had done worse, hadn’t he?
“I wasn’t supposed to drink the wrong drink,” she reminded her. Spencer rolled her eyes.
“Well I didn’t think you did it on purpose. But that’s why we work together. Because when we work alone, we make mistakes. After… after the plan to catch AD ended in him kidnapping you, I thought we’d agreed that we didn’t do things on our own anymore,” she said.
“I know. I’m sorry,” Hanna repeated. Spencer sighed and took Hanna’s hands in her own.
“You don’t have to keep apologizing. I just need to know that you aren’t going to disappear on me again. When Emily called Lucas and he said you guys didn’t have plans, I… I felt like my heart had stopped and I couldn’t breathe. Anyone could have sent a text from your phone… I thought for sure he had you again,” Spencer admitted, breaking down again. Hanna put her arm around Spencer and gently guided her into her lap.
“I’m sorry, Spence. I messed up. I know I messed up really bad. I swear I won’t do it again. I should have trusted you,” she said, smoothing Spencer’s hair gently as the brunette cried.
“Why did he leave me on the sidewalk?” Hanna asked when Spencer’s tears had come to a halt. Spencer frowned, sitting up to face her.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“You said it yourself, he could have done anything. So why didn’t he?” she asked. Spencer shrugged.
“Maybe he thought you’d told us that you were meeting him? Maybe he left before you actually passed out and someone else just stole your purse?” she suggested. She didn’t voice the other maybes running through her head: maybe he didn’t have anywhere to take you. Maybe he was planning to come back and get you. Maybe he thought whatever you’d put in the drink would kill you.
“Maybe,” Hanna agreed, though she was still unsatisfied.
“I really am sorry,” she said again. Spencer shook her head.
“I know you are. You don’t have to keep apologizing. Let’s just forget about it and move on, okay?” she suggested. Hanna nodded.
“Thanks, Spence,” she said. Spencer smiled and kissed her.
“Come on, let’s go to bed. We’ll deal with the rest of this tomorrow.”