"I don't know," she echoed, her voice hardening and her face twisting into a scowl. "Sometimes I have no idea what he's thinking. How do I know if he'd even open up to me if something was on his mind?"
"How the fuck do I know?" He scoffed, frowning at her. "He's your boyfriend, ergo he's your problem."
"Ergo," she mimicked in a high-pitched, tilting her head from side-to-side, vaguely disgusted. She tutted. "Shut up."
"Look," he huffed, rolling his eyes, "all he said to me was that his jaw ached. That was it. Nothing about you, nothing about him. He just complained about his jaw."
She gave him a dark, stern look. Her voice was sharp when she next spoke. "You shouldn't have punched him."
"No," he replied airily, staring impassively at the tiled kitchen floor. "Maybe I shouldn't have."
"I don't like when people get violent," she scolded, her gaze fixed on him. "You remember how angry I was when Dean Howden punched you in the face at that party?"
"What, do I remember getting punched in the face?" He echoed dryly, impatiently. "No, I don't. Mustn't have been that memorable."
"Your sarcasm is exhausting," she shot, shaking her head with disapproval and curling her lip, a slight scrunch in her nose. "I just thought that you wouldn't do that to somebody. I don't know. I don't like violence."
"Clearly I do," he retorted brightly, briskly with a shallow smile. "I'm thinking of starting a Fight Club, but don't tell anyone about it."
"You know," she continued, ignoring him and folding her arms over, "I was so furious when I found out. I was ready to hit the roof."
"It wasn't even about you," he admitted, shaking his head. "And Spencer knows that."
"He told me that you didn't do it because of me, you just did it because you wanted to," she said, studying him without seeming to realise that he was looking back at her, " but I don't know how much I believe that and I don't know how much you believe it either."
"I believe it," he said simply. "I know it's true."
"Well, anyway," she pressed, turning away from him. "I only came over to ask you about that. I just wanted to make sure that nothing happened while the two of you were together."
"Like what?" He asked, his chest tight and his stomach turning with a kind of wounding feeling. It offended him how quickly she had assumed that he had sabotaged her; it offended him how easily she had forgotten him. "We saw each other at the store, he gave me a ride home and we didn't talk about you."
She watched him for a long time, frozen, as if she was waiting for him to say something else. "As long as it isn't something that I've done or, you know, something that has been said about me or whatever."
"I don't know if it is or if it isn't something you have or haven't done," he replied sharply, narrowing his eyes, "but I know it's nothing to do with me and I'd like to have my breakfast now."
She withdrew, visibly pulling away from him and her eyebrows shot up, her brown eyes widening. "Right," she replied quietly, a little curtly as her face smoothed out and she tried to regain her composure. "Sorry for showing up unannounced."
He lingered, feeling as though he should say something, feeling as though there were words trapped in his throat that he could not find the sounds for, but all he managed to offer was a shrug. Then, after another moment passed them, he pushed himself away from the kitchen counter and left, walking into the hallway and stopping when he reached the front door. He offered her a quick, wooden smile.
Following him out, she stopped beside him, glancing between him and the front door, and for a long time she did not move, her expression thoughtful and distant. He offered her a quick, wooden smile; her face did not change.
 Then, she cleared her throat, gave him one final look and said, "There's nothing left to say now, is there?"
"No," he replied quietly, his throat bobbing and tightening. 
When she dared to meet his gaze, their eyes locked. She looked at him with some kind of emotion, some kind of thought, that was lost on him. The distance between them was such that he no longer understood her secret glances and no longer knew what she was trying to say to him, and in one swift, sharp second, that cracked the silence like a whip, she realised this. She saw that he could no longer reach her and that their silences no longer meant anything. They were just silences. They were just two people who didn't know what to say to each other anymore.
"Okay," she said so quietly that it came out like a whisper, barely escaping her. 
He opened the front door for her and she stepped out without looking back, and in a swift, sweeping second, he was alone again, remaining next to the closed door until he heard her getting into her car and driving away.
Unsure of where to go, he stood in the hallway with the feeling that he was standing inside of a memory or an old picture, and remained stuck where he was, thinking about where to go. When it occurred to him that there was nowhere that he wanted to be, he trudged back up the stairs and returned to his bedroom, suddenly deeply tired and aching to sleep.
note
hello!! Thank you for reading <3 I have a very busy week this week so thought I would get this up!! I hope you enjoyed and I hope to see you next time :') 
(More Hadley and Spencer coming soon!!)
originally published 
03 March 2025