Work Text:
His mom doesn’t mean to hurt him, she's sick, that’s what his father says that she’s sick and she won’t take her medicine and she needs to take her medicine. Spencer heard them talking; his dad says she has schizophrenia, she says he is lying. He finds out what that is in a book. His mom is sick but in a different way then what he’s used to.
His dad is at work a lot, he says it so they make enough money, but Spencer thinks that he just doesn’t like mommy. Sometimes he’s gone for days and even when he gets back he’s only there to sleep and nothing else. Sometimes mommy thinks that Spencer is a spy and she gets angry. She locks herself in her room for days without coming out. Sometimes she thinks he's a spy and gets angry and locks him out. Sometimes she’s ok. She gets better but she doesn’t stay like that for long, she always gets worse.
She had been doing better this morning. She came out and ate some food, he was so happy. He was so happy that he even had a good day at school today. Then he went inside his house and mommy had a knife in her hand and mommy started to talk and he was scared and mommy called him a spy and mommy said that she wouldn’t let him get away and mommy had a knife. So, Spencer runs, he runs out the door, he runs down the block he runs until he gets to a park not too far from his house he wants to cry but he can't. No tears will come out.
School got out not too long ago so there are kids running around everywhere he blends in just fine. When more of the kids leave and there are only a few kids left with their families, he hides behind a tree so no one will question where he’s gone and he pulled out a book, it’s about chemistry, he got it from the library. He likes to read about chemistry, chemistry had rules, regulations, it made sense. He read and read trying to pack as much information about chemistry into his mind as he could, as if it would help his current situation, it wouldn’t but maybe it would make it more bearable.
He stayed the night there and when he woke up he was still lying against the tree. He decided he would try to see if his mom was doing better. He knocked on the door and his mother opened the door. He saw relief pass over her face “There you are Spencer I was wondering where you went you worried me can’t just disappear for an hour like that They might hurt you.” Spencer was glad that his mom was doing better. She was at least acknowledging that he was Spencer and not some spy for Them whoever she thought that was.
Sometimes she was not great and then she would get worse. She had been ignoring Spencer for most of winter break, to her he didn’t exist and he was ok with that until he did exist and he was a spy and it was cold outside but she didn’t care because no matter how young the spy looked and how much he begged he was still a spy and spies can't be trusted and he needed to leave, she yelled at him to leave and he did, he grabbed a coat and he left, that was in improvement now there weren’t any spies in her that she could see.
For Spencer his day had taken a drastic turn for the worst. It was pouring rain and the nearest payphone was five blocks away and he didn’t have any money, so he couldn’t call his dad. He remembered one time his mother had done this and he decided to just wait on the porch and she had seen him and she almost attacked him, so he couldn’t stay on the porch either. He was able to find a fairly dry spot between the bushes and the roof overhang and it was an ok spot hopefully his mom would get better before night came because even though he was able to grab a coat it was still freezing out there and he hated it and he didn’t want to freeze to death. At least because his shoes were too big he had on two pairs of socks. He fell asleep after a while and he knew that that is not what he was supposed to do but he was really tired and who really cared what happened he would be ok.
He couldn’t stop shivering, he really couldn’t. That was a fairly good sign that it meant that he had only mild hypothermia and it had stopped raining. He could try to go inside or he could go to the library. The ladies at the library liked him the would let him come in early at times he felt bad for lying to them about how he got to the library and why he was really there but to him he had no other choice, he couldn’t tell them that his mom was sick and his dad didn’t care it made more sense if he was just some genius kid that his parents couldn’t handle so the drop him off at the library it made more sense it was easier it was right.
By the time he made it to the library he had mostly stopped shivering. He stayed at the library for a couple hours in which he managed to read Moby Dick he thought it was an interesting book he liked. Then one of the librarians called him over “Hey, Spencer someone dropped this box of books off on the front steps and we can’t take them if you want any.” He was surprised at the question but he wanted to take them all he wanted to pack as much information into his head as he could he wanted to know everything to know what other people thought of things he wanted knowledge and these books could give it to him but he couldn’t say all of that so he said “Sure do you have a bag I could put them.” if he wanted to take any he would need a bag. “Of course I’ll grab you one.” and the librarian came back with a tote bag that had a silhouette of the library building and she helped him pick out books from the box taking out books she thought were too mature.
He thanked her and he started his walk home at this point it was around 2 O’Clock and it was pretty warm outside for which he was glad of and when he got home the door was unlocked and he went inside and his mom had locked herself in her room which wasn’t good but right now it didn’t matter because he had books he had knowledge and that was better than anything.