Big Brothers, Big Sisters
Jason and Spencer are sitting on the couch in the barn, a cold pot of coffee on the table in front of them.
“You should tell Melissa,” Jason says, finally. “If he’s coming here.”
Spencer is staring off into some personal middle distance. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“She’s your sister. She’d want to know. They were together a long time, Spencer.”
“I’m not sure,” Spencer repeats, “If Melissa can be trusted.”
“This is Rosewood,” Jason shrugs. “No one can be trusted. Sometimes you have to take a chance.” He stands up, putting an arm through the sleeve of his jacket. “I’m going to talk to my lawyers. If Emily had Alison’s Power of Attorney, we might be able to argue that Dr. Rollin’s doesn’t have standing to control her shares of the company. But call me, okay? When he gets here?”
“Sure,” Spencer answers, mechanically. “Of course.” She barely looks up as Jason heads out the door, her mind clicking into gear as she considers possible connections between Wren and Alison. He hadn’t wanted to go into it on the phone, out of what he called an abundance of caution. She wonders if that might be true, or whether he just wanted an excuse to see her.
“It takes quite the crisis to get on your dance card doesn’t it,” he’d chuckled, after she’d given him the short version of why she was calling. “I’m in New York at the moment, but I’ll get the first train.” His voice pitched a bit lower, his accent crisper. “And Spencer? It’s good to hear your voice.”
She gets up and goes to the kitchen, counting Melissa and Wren’s break ups and make ups on the silverware as she runs it under hot water. A butter knife from breakfast. The engagement being called off. She looks at her own reflection in the blade, trying to remember who she was then, how it felt to have Wren look at her like he did that night on the patio. A coffee spoon. She rinses the curve and remembers how Wren helped Melissa when Ian was hurt. She thinks about him, following Melissa to London. Wonders what he said, what he did, to get another chance with her. She runs her fingers along the sharp tines of a fork, thinking about Hanna’s story about Melissa drunk in a posh London powder room, her claim that Charlotte broke them up in a final act of malice. She dries everything with a bright yellow dish towel. Even after everything, Ali never wavered in her certainty that Charlotte deserved a second chance.
Spencer slips on her shoes to walk up to the house. Jason was right. She’ll tell Melissa. Give her time to pick the right lipstick and perfume combination, or to clear out if she doesn’t want to see him.
From a few feet away, Spencer sees that the patio door is ajar. She can make out the back of Jason’s jacket, his shoulders square and tense as he argues with Melissa.
Spencer stands in the shadows, leaning in to catch as much of their conversation as she can.
“I don’t understand you two,” Jason says, sounding exasperated. “She needs to know. She’s your sister.”
“She’s your sister, too,” Melissa snarks. “But you always want to be the good guy, don’t you? The truth would really cut into your big brother routine.”
“You brought him here,” Jason says. “You knew exactly who he was.”
“And you knew exactly what I needed him to do. You can’t just pick yourself up from a puddle of scotch and pretend like it never happened.”
“Tell her now,” Jason presses. “It’s not too late. Before he decides to tell her about -”
“He’s not going to tell her anything,” Melissa interrupts. “If that was his game, they would have found out years ago. It’s been too long. He has no way to spin this where he doesn’t come out dirty. Spencer would never trust him again.”
“Are you sure Spencer is the only one we need to be worried about?”
“Who else?” Melissa counters. “Hanna? Please.” She shakes her head, dismissively. “Her tastes have evolved. And he’s not a threat to us. He’s a bad guy who claimed to grow a conscience - maybe he did, maybe he didn’t! Either way, he won’t be sticking around.”
“Even if you can get him to leave, he never stays gone,” Jason warns.
Spencer’s phone pings loudly from inside her pocket, and she curses silently, retreating quickly back to the barn as Melissa and Jason turn nervously towards the windows.
She slides in the door, her heart pounding, and sees that the message was an SOS from Aria. Before she can start typing back, she catches sight of Aria hunched on the couch. Her eyes are red rimmed and she’s biting her nails to stop her hands from shaking.
“What’s wrong?” Spencer asks, her voice full of concern. She sits next to Aria and puts an arm around her shoulders. “Is it Ezra?”
Aria leans into Spencer for a minute before she can gather herself together enough to answer. “It’s not Ezra. It’s Mike. He was there that night. Spencer - I don’t know what to do! I think Mike may have killed Charlotte!”