Stray

by Solveig Yrsa

  “Ohhh my god! Lana!” Rachel squealed and ran over to the brunette.

  “Um… It’s Layla, hi Rachel, how are you?” Layla shifted uncomfortably and looked at the two girls behind Rachel. All three girls looked very similar. All had long blonde hair, tanned skin, small waists, and expensive clothes.

  “I’m fantastic! How about you? You still living with that bastard and his family?”

  Layla sighed, she knew better than to fight Rachel here. “You mean Spencer? Yes, he and I are actually together now.”

  Rachel pursed her lips and raised a brow. “You… and him…” Rachel let out a laugh that the two girls behind her mimicked. “Darling, get out now before he uses you up.”

  Layla glared at her. “Spencer isn’t ‘using me up’, we care about each other.”

  Rachel snorted, “I’m sure. Look, do what you want, I don’t care, I’m just saying, we all know Spencer’s MO. I mean look, girls, she’s even got the Spencer starter bag!”

  Layla looked at her purse. “Spencer starter bag?”

  Rachel nodded. “Spencer always gets his new girlfriend a Louis Vuitton bag, it’s typically the first gift you’re given. I have one, Emily and Sarah here both have one.”

  Layla blinked. “Wait… you two… were…”

  Rachel chuckled. “What? Did you think Spencer had only dated me? Honey he goes through women like I go through shoes. If you’re with Spencer, just enjoy the good sex and the expensive gifts while they last. Hey, maybe after he gets his new model, you and I can be friends. That’s how we all met.”

  Layla felt her chest tightening. “Excuse me, I have to go.” She ran past the laughing girls and towards the exit. Once outside she felt herself having an asthma attack. She sat on the ground and fished out her inhaler, taking a puff from the small device before resting her head. She wanted to cry, was this true? Or was it just Rachel being… well, Rachel.

  Layla sighed before she stood up and began walking, she knew she should call John and stay where she was like she promised, but she wasn’t ready to go back to feeling trapped in the house.

  After a few blocks, she came across a craft store. Smiling, she walked in and went straight to the drawing section where she saw a sketch-book and a set of pencils. She looked in her purse and saw some of the birthday money that Liam and Jensen had given her. Deciding that she had enough money, she grabbed the items and headed to the checkout. She was about to go pay when the Halloween section caught her eye. She looked at all the pumpkins and skeletons and smiled. When she went to turn around, something in the other aisle caught her eye. She walked over to the end cap and looked at the picture frame. “You make my heart smile,” she whispered as she ran her fingers over the engraved dark wood. I wonder if I put a picture of us in there, if Spencer would put it with his other pictures. She looked at the price tag and reached in her wallet, doing some math in her head. After deciding she would still have enough, she grabbed the frame and headed to checkout.

  ***

  Spencer pinched the bridge of his nose as he sighed in frustration. “Why, John?” he growled, “Why would you let her go off, alone?”

  John, who was deeply regretting coming in for a drink, rubbed his bald head. “Sir, she is twenty, and has survived much worse than the shopping center without our assistance. Miss Layla was bored, and she would’ve left regardless of whether I drove her or not.”

  “She weighs nothing, you’re telling me you couldn’t have overpowered her?” John gave Spencer a look that said he was going too far before Spencer grabbed his keys. “The shopping center downtown?” John nodded and Spencer left the house.

  Spencer pulled into the entrance of the center and called Layla’s phone. He frowned when it went straight to voicemail. He hung up and went to track her cellphone. His frown deepened when he noticed she wasn’t anywhere in the Center. Suddenly his phone rang and he saw her picture pop up. He answered it and it played through his car speaker.

  “Layla, where are you?” It came out way harsher than he intended, he was pissed off that she would go off on her own.

  She was quiet for a moment. “I’m in front of an arts store a few blocks from the shopping center. Why? Spencer, don’t tell me you—”

  “Don’t move, I’m coming to you,” he interrupted before hanging up the phone and speeding off. Once he got to her, he parked the car and walked quickly up to the bench she was sitting on.

  Layla sighed when she saw his car whip in and he jumped out of the driver’s seat. She could feel a fight coming on.

  “What were you thinking?” he hissed once he reached her.

  Layla flinched. “W…what do you mean?”

  “You left the house? Alone!? What is the matter with you?”

  She was taken aback by his tone. “Spencer, I’m an adult. Are you telling me that I’m not allowed to leave the house without someone with me?”

  He stopped and took a breath. “Look, it’s not like that, I just worry about you, what if something happened to you and no one could help you?”

  “I appreciate your concern but I was alone most of my life.”

  Spencer scoffed, “Yeah and you were nearly raped and left for dead.” As soon as he said that, he regretted it.

  She glared at him. “I was also attacked in the back of your limo, in your driveway, by your cousin. I’m not going to live my life in a cage, Spencer. I’ve told you this before, I’m not something you get to take out whenever its convenient for you and then put me away until the next time. I am my own freaking person. I have my own thoughts, my own wants, and right now I’m bored and I wanted out!”

  Spencer looked down at the ground. “Wow, I can’t believe that she was right. I should’ve known better, why would you want to stay with me? That’s fine.”

  Layla looked at him in confusion. “What are you talking about? Spencer, I just went shopping?” Layla said holding up her bag. “Are you really that controlling that you won’t let me leave the house to go to a store on my own?”

  Spencer glared at her. “You know what? You want to leave? Go ahead and leave. No one else wants to stay either. So take your shit and go.” Spencer grabbed her shopping bag that she had held in his face and threw it onto the sidewalk.

  Layla heard something break and she instantly ran over to grab the bag. “You’re a real jerk, you know that!” she yelled as she picked the bag up. “That was all the money I had, and you just broke everything.” She shoved the bag against Spencer’s chest and turned to walk away. “Where are you going?” he asked while gripping the bag.

  “You told me to go! I’m going!” She turned around and stormed off, leaving Spencer standing there alone. He sat down on the bench and sighed. He didn’t mean to come off controlling. He just worried about her because of her tendency to give food or money to homeless people, that, and honestly, he was afraid she wouldn’t stick around. No one did. His brother left, his dad left, all his girlfriends in the past, but none of that would hurt as bad as losing her.

  He looked down at the bag that she threw at him. He looked inside and saw a sketch-book and a box of pencils. “Does she draw?” he muttered while pulling out the pencils, he groaned as he heard the broken pieces moving around in the box. He looked at the bottom of the bag and he instantly felt like the worst person in the world. There laid a picture frame with a picture of the two of them from when he snuck a kiss in front of the fountain in his driveway right before Layla had gone to the spa for her birthday. The glass was shattered, the wooden frame had snapped into several pieces. “I’m a bastard.” He sighed as he got up and walked into the store.

  Spencer looked around and found the pencils she had bought, he grabbed those and then headed to the picture frames. After several unsuccessful minutes, he flagged down a worker. The young, uninterested-looking girl walked over to him.

  “My girlfriend bought this frame and I guess had a photo printed at your kiosk.”

  The girl raised a brow but then smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I helped her, s
he’s really nice, I asked her if she was experienced with sketches because the pencils she bought were kind of lower end, you should try to get her to sign up for my art class that I teach, she seemed really excited but said she didn’t have the money. Oh no, dude, what happened to her frame?” The girl looked at the shattered picture. “She was so happy about this.”

  Spencer just continued to feel worse. “I umm… accidentally broke it. Do you have another one I can buy?”

  The girl sighed and shook her head. “It was a clearance item. I think it was our last one. If we had another it would be here on the end.”

  Spencer and the girl looked for several minutes but couldn’t find another one to replace it. “If you’re handy, you could probably fix it with some wood glue and just buy some more glass for the frame.”

  Spencer sighed, he definitely was not the most handy when it came to that kind of stuff, but it seemed like his only option. The girl helped him find the tools needed to repair the frame and then Spencer had her grab the pencils that she had recommended for Layla. At the checkout, Spencer thought for a moment about what Layla said about wanting a life.

  “This art class, how long is it?” he asked.

  The girl smiled. “Oh, I teach as long as you want. She would start at the beginning to learn the fundamentals. The beginner’s classes are two nights a week.”

  Spencer nodded. “Give me your number, I’ll have her call you.”

  ***

  Layla sighed as she continued to storm down the street, hot tears running down her cheeks. She hadn’t been this angry at Spencer since he stole her money. She looked up and noticed a familiar luxury condo building in front of her. I wonder if Jensen is home.

  She pulled out her phone and called Jensen, after a couple of rings a voice came on the other end.

  “Lay? What’s up?”

  “Jensen, Spencer and I had a fight and I’m alone in front of your building, are you home?”

  Layla heard rustling and then he responded, “Yeah, come on up, I’ll tell the doorman to let you in.”

  She hung up and walked to the entrance where she greeted the doorman, who opened the door for her, and headed to the elevator. She got off on Jensen’s floor and saw him leaning against his doorframe when the doors opened.

  “What happened, Lay?”

  She went to talk to him but started sobbing. Jensen grabbed her and pulled her into a hug before ushering her into his apartment. Layla sat on his couch while he went to his kitchen and grabbed her a bottle of water. When he came back, he sat down on the chair next to the couch and looked at her.

  Layla took a drink and jumped when she saw a figure appear from the other room. “Oh my God, Liam!” Then it dawned on her. “Oh, oh God, I’m interrupting. I’m so sorry.”

  Liam chuckled as the flustered girl grabbed her bag and headed for the door. He closed the door as she opened it. “Lay, sit your ass down, you aren’t interrupting, we were watching TV. Tell us what’s going on.”

  Layla sighed and sat back down before explaining everything to the men. She told them about feeling trapped, Spencer breaking her stuff, everything.

  Once he was sure she was finished, Jensen spoke. “I’m not going to defend Spencer’s actions because, we all know they were wrong. But, Spencer has a hard time expressing his feelings. And he has an even harder time dealing with rejection. He’s terrified of getting close to people and then them leaving. That’s why, up until now, he has only dated superficial women. He buys them the same bags, the same jewelry, the same everything, because it’s just easier, and he knows that within six months they’ll be gone. Spencer has lost his dad and his brother due to his mother’s illness, and he will probably lose her sooner than he is willing to admit. I think when he hears that you want out, it reminds him that he’s afraid that when you are out, you won’t come back. Does that make any sense?”

  Layla sat there and nodded. “I just want to be able to go out. Sometimes I feel like he treats me like a child.”

  Liam nodded. “Spencer does that, it’s like you said during my dad’s funeral, he’s taken on this ‘caretaker’ role, he’s the person that everyone leans on, so I think that, sometimes he just tries to predict a bad situation and figure out what he can do to stop it from happening. Like with you, you have asthma, it terrified him that you went to the hospital, he is terrified that something may happen to you and he won’t be able to save you, so he is trying, in his own very messed up way, to keep you safe. But you are right, you should be able to go out, and that is something that you should talk to him about calmly.”

  “He told me to leave,” she huffed and looked away.

  Jensen chuckled. “And we both know that was a lie. Spencer would probably die if you ever actually left. When you didn’t talk to him over the summer, it nearly killed him. He doesn’t want you to leave.”

  Liam nodded. “Yeah, I guarantee that he’s going crazy right now.”

  Layla shrugged. “He hasn’t called or texted me once, so maybe he did want me to go.”

  Jensen rolled his eyes and shook his head. “First off, he can see your location on your phone, so he is sure you’re here. And second, he may not have called or texted you, but he already texted me to make sure that you made it to my apartment safely.”

  Layla was quiet for a minute before looking up at the two men. “Could I get a ride?” Jensen smiled and nodded.

  ***

  Spencer looked at his phone, Jensen had texted a while ago saying that saying he was driving her home. Putting his phone down, he then looked at the frame on his desk. It wasn’t perfect, you could still see the cracks, and one of the corners was gone, but it was back together. He growled in annoyance as he removed his shirt, and fell to the ground before proceeding to start pushups. Why did everything have to be such a struggle? All he was trying to do was keep everyone safe, and he felt like he was in a lifeboat floating in shark infested waters and everyone just kept jumping in to go swimming.

  He put an arm behind his back and grunted as he started one handed pushups. I know I’m a dick, but I’m just trying to keep everyone safe. Everyone acts like I’m this bad guy, I want her to have a life, to have fun, but if something goes bad, I’m the one that’s going to have to try to fix it. So what’s so wrong with me trying to avoid that?

  He switched arms and looked at the floor to see a droplet of sweat fall from his slender nose and land on the carpet. He knew he was going to have to apologize, and he knew he was going to have to loosen his grip on her, but nothing terrified him more than allowing her to go off on her own.

  Spencer jumped when he heard a soft knock on the door. “Come in.” He rolled his eyes when his voice cracked. Way to be a man, Spence.

  Layla walked into the room and closed the door behind her. “Hi…” she said softly. She watched as he stood up. Does he have a shortage of shirts? What the hell! She blushed and stole a peek of his tight arms and the light beads of sweat on his face and neck. The peek turned into a full stare as she was once again mesmerized by his chest and abs, that were currently tensing because of his heavy breathing.

  “Just going to come in here to treat me like eye candy or did you want something?” Spencer cursed himself, that was not the way to win her over. Layla looked like she was ready to yell at him but then something caught her eye on his dresser.

  “Is that the frame I bought? I thought it broke?”

  Spencer rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, it did but I fixed it. Well, the best I could anyway.”

  Layla picked up the frame and studied it over. “You did a good job.”

  He smiled. “Thanks, I went back to try to replace it for you but the girl that worked there said the one you bought was the last one. Here, I also got you these pencils, she said these were better than the ones you had bought.” Spencer placed the pack of pencils in her hand, she looked at them for a minute before setting them on the bed.

  “I umm… you didn’t have to do all of that. The old pencils would’ve
worked fine and I bought the frame for you.”

  Spencer blinked. “For… me?”

  She nodded and looked away. “Yeah, you have all those pictures over there, I just thought maybe if I gave you a frame, you would put it up there.”

  He was pretty sure he had never felt so good and so horrible before. “Well, yeah of course I will!” He grabbed the frame and gently placed it on his dresser in the front of the other frames. “Perfect.”

  Layla gave him a small smile. “Well, I’m tired, I’m going to go nap, and it looks like you’re in the middle of… something.” She motioned to the floor. Spencer doing one-handed pushups, shirtless, would be a visual that would live rent-free in her mind forever, she was sure of that.

  “No, Layla, wait.” Spencer knew what was happening. He knew that look, if she walked out that door she wasn’t going to talk to him again. “Layla, I’m so sorry. I should’ve never broken your stuff, and more importantly, I should’ve never talked to you that way. You’re right, you are an adult, and you haven’t gotten to experience much in life, I shouldn’t try to stop you. So listen, the girl at the craft store said she taught a drawing class that you seemed interested in so I got her information so that you could go.” Layla looked up at him, her eyes wide. She tried to hide her smile.

  “N…no, thank you but I don’t have that kind of money.”

  Spencer nodded. “I do though.”

  She looked away, she was so excited but she couldn’t let him do this. “Spencer.” She thought about what Rachel had said about him showering his girlfriends with gifts and then moving on. “I saw Rachel today.”

  His mood darkened. “Oh, and?”

  Layla tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “She called my purse the ‘Spencer Starter Bag’.” She saw Spencer flinch, and he rubbed the back of his neck.