Chapter Text
The day Toby gets married, Spencer buys a brand new car and runs it into a telephone pole on the way to the reception.
"Honestly," says Emily when she shows up, flush-faced, her clothes not quite as neatly pressed as they were at the ceremony. She eyes the wreck of Spencer's car, the sharp points of silver and red crumpled in on each other, and clicks her tongue impatiently, hand propped on her hip. She looks over at Spencer, frowning. "You are okay, right?"
Spencer, who by now is sitting on the curb, picking at the grass, blinks up at her. "I'm fine," she says. It's pretty much the truth; she's a little shaken up, a little bruised, but that's not really anything new.
"Good," Emily says in the short, indistinct way that means she's actually really glad Spencer's alive. She shifts from one foot to the other, cocks her hip, sighs exasperatedly. "Jesus, Spencer, you could've picked a better day."
"It was an accident," Spencer snaps. She's not entirely sure how it happened; she remembers leaving the church and hitting the pole, but not really much in between. "Why didn't you just make Aria come if you’re so bothered?" She gets to her feet and brushes the dirt off her ass. Aria, at least, would've been a little bit supportive about the whole situation.
“Aria was having fun. It's one of her and Ezra’s first nights out alone since the baby, did you really want me to drag her away from that to clean up after you?" Emily says impatiently, the same tone she's always reserved for Spencer when she does stupid things. Spencer kind of hates that tone, but she ignores it, since she deserves it this time.
"Sorry," Spencer mumbles, wandering back over to inspect the damage again. She hadn't actually liked the car that much, but it still sucked. She'd bought it on a whim, that morning, one of those impulse buys because you feel like you need something new in your life. It wasn't really her style, though. She frowns down at the bent hood, picking a piece of flaking paint off an abrupt bend of metal. It's sharper than she expects; it pokes into her skin and gets stuck under her fingernail. "Fuck, ow," she says, and digs it out with her thumb.
Emily is watching her, lips pressed together in a thin line, hand on hip in classic Emily bitch-pose. "You called your insurance, right? A towtruck?"
"Yeah, right before I called you." Spencer kicks sullenly at a tire, scuffing dirt all across the toe of her good shoes.
"Good," says Emily, not like the one before, just in relief that Spencer's managed to do one thing competently today. She pauses, draws a breath, and hovers between the inhale and the exhale for a moment before asking, "So, did you want me to take you home, or back to the reception, or what?" She asks this very carefully; Spencer can practically feel her stepping around the words like broken glass. Pity from Emily Fields, Spencer thinks. She's not sure how she feels about that.
"Home's fine," she decides eventually with an awkward sort of shrug. "They're not gonna miss me at the party."
Emily's eyes narrow minutely, for just a second, but then she just shrugs, too. "I'll call Hanna,” she says. "So people know you're alive."
It's another hour before Spencer finishes dealing with the insurance company and the towtruck guy; she finally sinks down into the passenger seat of Emily's car, the energy seeping from her as she exhales, sagging back into the leather upholstery. Emily climbs in the other side, pulls the door shut behind her, and fires up the engine without preamble. Some random pop song blares to life on the radio; Emily reaches over and turns it down to more of a background-noise level.
"Sorry for keeping you from the reception," Spencer says.
Emily shrugs, not looking over at her, eyes intent on the road. "I gave my speech, and I didn't have a date or anything, so, like." She shrugs again. "Toby'll understand."
"Yeah." Spencer looks down at her hands. Cracks her knuckles a few times.
"That's so gross," Emily says. Spencer cracks them again, and Emily rolls her eyes.
It's dark outside when they finally pull up to Spencer's place: it's a cute little house on the outskirts of Los Angeles, and she had chosen it over an apartment because, she said, what was the point in having an awesome place if you didn't have a backyard to plant stuff in? As Emily's car slows to a stop, though, the house just looks too big. Spencer sighs.
Emily looks over at her for the first time since the drive started. "Are you sure you're okay, Spencer? I mean, you should probably go to a doctor--"
"I'm fine, Em," Spencer interrupts, pulling a grin with some effort. "I've still got my pretty face, and that's what really matters, right?"
"Mmm, right," Emily says. She studies Spencer for a moment, but apparently decides she's well enough, because she waves a dismissive hand. "Go rest. I'm gonna go see if I can catch Toby to say bye before the honeymoon--call me later so I know you're not dead from internal bleeding or something, okay?"
Spencer nods. Emily waits until she's inside the house to drive off.
The next morning, Spencer wakes up stiff and sore and finds thirteen new messages on her phone: mostly just people making sure she's alive, Aria asking if she needs anything, Hanna snarkily offering her driving lessons. A voicemail from Toby.
Spencer deletes them all and calls Emily, who picks up on the second ring.
"It's seven in the morning, Spencer," she grumbles, muffled; Spencer can picture her with her face half-sunk into the pillow, sleep-mussed hair in her eyes.
"Oh," says Spencer, glancing over at the clock. "Sorry, I didn't check." She fell asleep really early, she figures. She didn't even eat dinner after Emily dropped her off.
"S'fine," Emily mumbles. "You're still alive? Not bleeding or concussed or anything? News of the crash has apparently already made it’s way back to Rosewood. You're the town's new hot gossip.”
"Fabulous." Spencer says. Because nothing brightens your spirits like having to continuously assure people she wasn't drunk or suicidal. She considers briefly just closing all the curtains, curling back into bed, and hiding from the world for a year or so.
Emily makes a sleepy sort of noise from the other end of the line, but her voice clears up a little, like she's rolled onto her back and isn't talking into the pillow anymore. "I told your mom to tell people it was a mechanical thing; the car's pretty much gone but you're fine, you went home to rest," she says, succinct, business-like.
"Thank you." Spencer lets out a breath. "Uh-- you can go back to sleep now, if you want. Sorry for waking you up."
"S'fine," Emily says around a muffled yawn. "G'night."
Her house really is too big, Spencer decides over a bowl of Froot Loops an hour later, showered and dressed with her wet hair an unbrushed mess. But it's really less of having too much space and and more of having too few people, Spencer thinks, frowning in concentration as she tries to fit all the green loops into one spoonful. It's too quiet. Spencer's used to laughing and yelling friends and music turned up loud and Toby mumbling in his sleep. Spencer's not good with quiet.
One of the green loops escapes her spoon. She picks it out with her fingers, pops it in her mouth, and goes after the purple ones now. Then the red ones, then the yellow ones, and then she just gives up and shovels the rest indiscriminately into her mouth. Then she gets on Facebook to see how many new rumors she can find.
As soon as the clock hits noon, she calls Emily again.
Emily answers the phone with, "Did you know you were spotted in five different bars before the accident? Spencer, you better not have been making clones. One of you is more than enough for this world."
"I also snorted cocaine off a stripper named Chardonnay's stomach," Spencer replies cheerfully. “It says so on the internet, so it must be true.”
"Classy," Emily deadpans.
Spencer makes an agreeable noise, scrolling aimlessly through the page in front of her. It's all bullshit, but that's nothing new. She lives on the other side of the country, but Rosewood will never change. Funny how you can get used to things, she thinks. Used to people flinging around the worst stories people will believe. Used to people who will say they love you even if it’s not true. Used to no one actually caring what the truth is as long as they've got something to talk about.
"--for not showing up," Emily is saying.
"Wait, what?" says Spencer.
Emily sighs. "Are you sure you're not concussed? I said I managed to catch Toby before he left--he says you're a douche for not showing up. At the reception. And he means that lovingly, of course."
"Of course he does." Spencer closes her browser window. She eyes the screen for another moment, then just turns the whole monitor off. "I kind of want to buy another car."
"You just did that yesterday," Emily says, sounding resigned. "You crashed it, remember?"
"Yeah, that's why I need another one. I didn't actually like that one anyway." Spencer stands and stretches, cradles her phone between ear and shoulder so she can stretch her arms up as far as they'll go.
"You-- okay, whatever. Go buy a car, then?"
"Come with me?" Spencer asks, the question out of her mouth before she even thinks about it, but yeah, she thinks she'd really like someone to come with her. Buying a car is probably not a normal impulse for someone who's just been in an accident. Maybe she's going a little bit crazy. It might be good to have someone around.
Emily says, "Make Aria go with you." She sounds annoyed.
"But Emily, it's Aria and Ezra’s first day in after their first night out alone since the baby, do you really want me to drag her away from that?" Really, she's already got Emily on the phone, and convincing her is easier than making a whole new call. "C'mon," she says. "It can be, like, a super-awesome gorgeous bachelorettes type thing."
“Fuck you," Emily says, and she actually sounds inexplicably offended.
Spencer frowns. "Hey--"
"Look--" Emily says, then sighs. "Just don't crash whatever you get, okay?"
"Yeah," Spencer says. "I won't."
She doesn't get a new car until Friday, and then it's not even new: an old 1994 Toyota Camry, deep green, plain interior, and the radio doesn't work, but Spencer figures that's just part of its charm--something about the idea of hurtling down highways with no music except the wind whipping the thoughts from her head is too appealing to pass up. The inside of the car smells like dust and cheap cleaning chemicals, but the upholstery is unstained, indistinctive. Spencer doesn't love it, really, but she feels like she could search every lot and not find a car she wants to buy more right now.
So, she forks over a few thousand and spends the rest of the day driving aimlessly around the city and the suburbs, humming to herself, nothing in particular, just noise. She gets a smoothie and drives some more. She thinks about calling Emily or Hanna or someone, but she decides to go home instead.
Aria is still in Los Angeles for the weekend, and is apparently completely and utterly amused by the car.
"No, Spencer, it totally suits you," she says with a ridiculous grin. "It's very, um. Symmetrical."
Spencer folds her arms over her chest. "I like it, okay? It's got sentimental value."
"To who?" Aria has her cell phone out now, and is snapping pictures of the car from artsy angles.
"Someone, I'm sure," Spencer huffs. "Who are you sending those to?"
"Oh, everyone. Has Emily seen this thing yet?"
Emily has not, yet, but when Aria is done being a photographer Spencer almost immediately receives a text message. It says, Hahahahahaha.
"Emily thinks it's classy," Spencer informs Aria haughtily. "Edgily vintage."
"Is edgily a word? Emily thinks the car is hilarious," Aria says.
Spencer rolls her eyes and shrugs. The Camry might not really be her usual flair, but it runs and it's in one piece and she hasn't crashed it yet, which are really the important things, she thinks.
"Emily has not been behind the wheel of this beauty," she says. "She will understand once that happens."
"Baby, you can drive my car," Aria sings.
"Yes, I'm gonna be a star," Spencer agrees.
"Beep beep'm beep beep yeah," they croon in unison.
Aria is right, though: Emily thinks the car is hilarious. Spencer can tell by the way she looks at it, hand on hip, mouth twitching up at the corner. Emily is occasionally very subtle about finding things hilarious, but Spencer likes to think she's figured out most of Emily's expressions by now. The crinkle of her eyes is affectionate, the set of her jaw a little exasperated, the purse of her lips resigned and bemused for reasons Spencer can never quite figure out.
Right now, though, the point of concern is not Spencer's new used car or the subtleties of Emily's mouth, but rather the price of the new pair of limited edition sneakers Emily is eyeing critically through a storefront window.
"They're not that different from the ones they released last year. I don't see where the hell they get off asking that much for them," Emily is saying, thoroughly annoyed, so much so that she has both hands on her hips, now.
"It's not like you can't afford them," Spencer says, leaning forward so her breath fogs up the glass when she exhales. They are here because Spencer had insisted that Emily give the Camry a chance, at least, or because Spencer didn't have anything to do, or maybe because Spencer could not, as hard as she tried, seem to stretch herself out enough to fill up her house. Getting out is good, even if it is shoe-shopping for Emily.
"Well, yes," Emily says impatiently, "but it's the principle of the thing. I don't need to spend three hundred dollars on a pair of shoes I practically already own, do I?"
"Well, no, but you want them anyway," Spencer says.
Emily sighs. "I really do."
Half an hour later, Emily's got a plastic bag looped over her wrist and the box inside keeps bumping Spencer's knee as they walk. Emily's old shoes are in the box. The new ones are on her feet. She's got a strangely endearing satisfied look about her, less bitchy than she's been most of the afternoon, and it makes Spencer feel a little better about life.
Over a late lunch, Spencer picks at her chicken and Emily asks questions around pieces of sushi.
"So, how are you?" Emily asks. She's frowning a little bit, as if she's expecting some nervous confirmation of internet rumors, or maybe like she feels obligated to ask.
"I'm fine," Spencer answers, stabbing a piece of chicken with the end of her chopstick.
"Actually fine, or, like, emo-fine?" As in, going slowly insane and carving dark sexual metaphors into hotel room walls. Spencer's pretty sure that isn't applicable to her present state of mind. She's a little restless, with the time off from work, maybe a little lonely with so much time to herself, but there's really no reason for Emily to be scrutinizing her over her dragon roll like she is.
"Actually fine, Em,” Spencer sighs.
"Yeah," Emily says. "Okay, that's good."
On the way home, Emily's cell phone rings.
"Hey, superstud," Emily answers it, grinning. Spencer looks over briefly, but mostly makes sure to keep her eyes focused on the road. She can hear Toby on the other end of the phone, not well enough to make out words, but the familiar rise and fall of his voice, pauses and punctuations, inflections and intonations.
Emily laughs quietly at whatever Toby is telling her. Spencer glances over again, but doesn't ask about it. The sun is setting over on the passenger's side and Emily looks soft and golden in the fading light. It's an incarnation of Emily that Spencer loves, because it reminds her that, despite differences and disagreements, Emily has never left her in any important ways.
Spencer tries to tune out the majority of the conversation, but she can't help but catch the words filtering past her ears. "No, no, I'm just chilling in Spencer's sweet new ride," Emily says, not a trace of irony in her voice. "You should come home early just to see this baby. No, not because I miss you." A pause, then another laugh. "Yes, I'm gonna be a star," she sing-songs into the phone.
"Beep beep'm beep beep yeah," Spencer sings quietly to herself.
"Why are you even talking to me?" Emily asks eventually, amused, mouth quirked into a grin. "Don't you have, like, husbandly duties or something? Yeah-- okay, whatever. Seriously, Toby, I'm glad you're happy. No, stop calling me. Forever. Yes, I breathe for you, too. Go away."
She hangs up, blinks around in the near-nighttime. "Spencer, uh, where are we going?"
They're on the highway, going steady at about eighty miles an hour. Spencer shrugs. "Somewhere not home," she says. She'll decide when she gets there.
The thing is, the breakup was mutual and friendly. There were no tears, no screaming fights, no weeks or months of treading on glass while hearts healed and habits reformed. It didn't affect their friendship, not in any notable ways, and after the way where at some point they had slid so naturally into five years of soft touches and secret moments and long nights that are seared into Spencer's brain like a match in the dark, somehow, they had come full circle back to where they started, and it just wasn't a romance anymore.
"You know forcing things never works," Toby had said, quietly, into the crook of Spencer's bare shoulder, his long fingers twining with Spencer's own. "We can't run this into the ground. We can't ruin it. It wouldn't be fair."
"No," Spencer agreed into Toby's hair, blinking slowly, trying to decide how to feel.
"There's such a big difference," Toby murmured, "between loving and being in love."
And that was it, really. Everything wound down soft and easy, and Spencer stopped thinking about it, because there was nothing left to think about.
Now, Spencer thinks, it's a lucky thing she's got Emily in the passenger seat with her three-hundred-dollar shoes propped up on the dashboard, because that means she's got one really good reason not to run the car off the road. Again.
"Can't we at least turn the radio on?" Emily asks around a yawn. She gave up an hour ago asking where they were going, and is now just sort of resigned, reclining in her seat and texting Hanna with approximate locations, just in case she needs rescuing at some point. Spencer is glad she's not bitching, or demanding they turn around. She thinks that maybe, on some level, Emily might understand.
"Radio doesn't work," Spencer says, shrugging apologetically.
"Ah," says Emily. She punches out another text on her phone. Spencer is fairly sure it says something along the lines of, Spencer is a douchebag, can i please kill her. Spencer is also fairly sure Hanna won't agree to that, though. Hanna’s a good friend.
Emily rolls down her window, and the wind whips into the car, around Spencer's ears, through her hair and between her fingers with the scent of the desert and the night. Emily leans back and closes her eyes. Spencer keeps driving.
Three o'clock in the morning finds them in southern California, somewhere between Los Angeles and San Diego, rolling quietly up to the dark, deserted beaches of the Pacific coast. Emily is asleep in the passenger seat, has been for several hours now; she shifts and murmurs when the car slows to a stop, but doesn't wake up. Spencer reaches over to touch Emily's cheek briefly, whispering, "I'll be right back."
Spencer leaves her shoes in the car: it's summer, and she doesn't want to get sand in them. She leaves her door open and pads quietly across the sand, the sand soft and warm under her bare feet. It's a clear night; the moon is large and bright overhead and Spencer can see the ocean stretching out into nothingness, the white crests of waves, the scattered reflections of starlight trailing across the water. It's breathtakingly massive, and Spencer shivers despite the warmth of the night.
The breeze from the water is crisp and salty. Spencer stops just short of where the waves are lapping quietly up the beach and watches them ripple up the sand, inches from her toes, then slide silently back into the ocean, fitting right back into it like they were never gone in the first place.
"What the hell are you doing here, Spencer?" she murmurs, wrapping her arms around herself and looking away from the water, up at the sky. Three in the morning, hours from home, with her best friend asleep in her car up the beach. There's something beautifully and disturbingly existential about the whole thing. If Spencer was a writer like Aria, she would take it and spin it into an anthem about loss and heartbreak. Instead, though, all she can do is let the feeling squeeze her heart until it's fit to burst.
A wave breaks the pattern, lapping over Spencer's feet; she jumps and yelps, water spattering over the sand. The sound seems unnaturally loud in the darkness. Spencer looks around instinctively to make sure no one heard, even though she knows Emily's the only one nearby.
The water is cold, but Spencer's feet are wet now anyway. She rolls her jeans up to her knees and wades in a few feet until the waves are tickling her at mid-calf, toes curling into wet sand, the chill of the water a sharp contrast to the ocean air. Spencer shivers again, then stands very still, looking out seaward. The sky and the ocean blend together in the darkness, and she can't tell where the horizon is.
She stares for a long time, trying not to think, and wondering if that's the problem.
By the time Emily wakes up, Spencer's feet are numb from the water. Emily moves quietly, always has, so Spencer doesn't even notice her until she's standing at the water's edge, sneakers hanging from one hand.
"Spencer!" she says sharply so Spencer twists around to see her, blinking back into focus, the realization that there other people in the world jerking her mind back down to earth.
"What the hell?" Emily says. She looks angry--some kind of angry, anyway, not the kind of angry Spencer's used to from Emily. "What the hell, Spencer, seriously, what are you doing, get the fuck out of the water."
Spencer complies wordlessly, wading back over to her, the air cold against her wet skin and sand sticking to her feet. Emily gives her a once-over, sighs, and reaches for Spencer's hand.
"I was just thinking," Spencer mumbles as Emily leads her back to the car, her warm fingers wrapped tight around Spencer's cold ones.
Emily gives her an exasperated look. "You don't think," she says flatly. "You need to sleep--lay down in the back for a few hours and then we'll go find some breakfast."
Spencer does that, curling awkwardly onto the back seat with her sandy feet hanging off the edge. Emily climbs back into the passenger seat, reclining it back as far as it'll go and settling on her side.
"Emily," Spencer says. Whispers, more like.
"Shut up," Emily mumbles, but she stretches a hand back to find Spencer's again, fitting their fingers together and squeezing. Spencer falls asleep like that, clutching Emily's hand like it's keeping her from drowning.
Spencer wakes up to harsh sunlight and a painful crick in her back. She yawns and tries to stretch, but winds up jamming her knuckles into the door instead. "Ow, fuck," she says.
"Good morning, sunshine," Emily says from the front. Spencer twists around to blink up at her, adjusting to the brightness; Emily's still curled in the passenger seat, awake, texting away. She's still barefoot, her shoes set up on the dashboard, and her hair is mussed, but otherwise she looks relatively unfazed.
"Ugh," says Spencer, sitting up slowly and cracking her back. "What time is it?"
"Like nine-ish." Emily pockets her phone, adjusting her seat back into an upright position. "Are you done being existential yet, because I'm starving."
"Mmmgh," Spencer says, intelligible and articulate. But she pushes the far door open with her feet and crawls out, groaning and stretching, going up on tiptoe and reaching up as high as she can. Grabbing for the clouds. They seem a little more in-reach than usual. In the bright morning, the beach is nothing like the place she drove to: there are already people wandering up and down the sand, surfers tiny and bright-colored out on the water. The water is blue and sparkling, and it's still massive, but not impossibly-- all-encompassing. Universal.
They manage to find themselves an IHOP and settle into a booth in the back, Emily informing Spencer snippily that she better be buying. Spencer shrugs and orders inordinate amounts of coffee, and Emily seems at least a little bit mollified once she's got a steaming mug in front of her. As Emily adds cream and sugar and sips at her coffee, Spencer sits quietly, half-heartedly studying the menu. She always gets the same thing at IHOP, anyway.
"Can't Buy Me Love" is playing over the restaurant's speakers. Emily unconsciously taps her fingers in rhythm on the table, and Spencer hums along quietly.
When Emily finally has her giant Black Bean Chili & Cheese omelette in front of her, she takes a moment between mouthfuls to blink over at Spencer, frowning a little. "So, do you want to talk about it?"
"About what?" Spencer says around a mouthful of delicious, syrup-soaked pancakes.
"We're in fucking San Diego," Emily says, stabbing a bean with a fork and waving it emphatically.
Spencer shrugs.
Emily eats the bean and rolls her eyes.
Hanna is laughing at her, again. Spencer is back home, now; Emily made her drive them back after breakfast, a few hours of Emily frowning at the scenery and Spencer humming the Beatles, Emily disappearing into her apartment with one last long, hard look at Spencer through the passenger's side window. And now, Spencer is back home again, and Hanna is laughing at her over the phone.
"I just kind of decided to drive to the beach?" Spencer repeats, wrinkling her nose. Sometimes Hanna finds things funny and she doesn't know why.
"Emily just let you kidnap her for a what, 2-3 hour road trip?" Hanna sounds amused and slightly incredulous. When Spencer thinks about it, she's surprised, too, by Emily's complacency through the whole thing.
"Well," Spencer says, attempting to convey her shrug through her voice, "longer, because I didn't drive straight there, and yeah, I guess she did. It was a really nice night?"
"Huh," says Hanna.
"What?"
"Nothing," says Hanna. "Well, I don't know-- I guess it was probably good for her to get away for a night, after the wedding and all."
"You think?" Spencer asks, frowning thoughtfully. She doesn't see where Toby's wedding would really fit into Emily's need for vacation, except the part where she might miss her friend while Toby's off on the honeymoon, but Hanna is sometimes smarter about Emily than Spencer is, so.
"Well-- yeah," Hanna decides. "Yeah, probably. Hey, Spencer, I know this is supposed to be like, vacation time, but keep an eye on her for me, okay?"
"Yeah," Spencer says, slowly, after a moment. "Okay, yeah, of course I will."
It's a strange thing, to Spencer, to think of Emily as someone who needs looking after--she doesn't know why Hanna would think that, and Emily's always been the put-together one, the one whose brain holds things like gas prices and the right dosage of aspirin. Whatever she's been missing--whatever it is Hanna knows and she doesn't--well, it's a good thing to distract Spencer from thinking about the beach, about Toby on his honeymoon, and all that other shit she'd thought she was over.
So she keeps her word to Hanna and sends periodic text messages to Emily, just:
Emily, Emily, Em my sweet ride misses you
or
hey hey baby you can drive my car
or
are knock knock jokes in or out???
and tries to read between the lines of Emily's replies. It's hard to gauge mood and well-being through acronyms and punctuation, especially with Emily (o.k., occasionally yes or no), and especially with someone who's hard enough to read in person. Spencer thinks, how are you ever supposed to know if something is wrong, anyway?
So when Spencer gets sick of trying to decipher the emotional content of you’re a freak, she just calls.
"Ten texts in three hours, Spence, do you really miss me that much?" Emily answers in a huff of exasperation. "I mean, like, I let you kidnap me to San Diego, do I need to get a restraining order, because--"
"Are you okay?" Spencer blurts, interrupting. She doesn't do subtle well.
"What?" Emily sounds annoyed, nonplussed. "I'm fine. Like, alive, kicking, all that. Why?"
Spencer shrugs.
"Shrugging doesn't work over the phone," Emily says.
"Apparently it does," Spencer points out, grinning.
"Fuck you," Emily says congenially.
"So you're really okay?" Spencer is pretty sure that even if Emily wasn't okay, she probably wouldn't confide in Spencer over the telephone, but if Hanna asks, she'll at least be able to tell her something.
Emily sighs. "No, Spencer, I'm going slowly insane and have in the last two days taken up conversing with my house plants."
"Um," Spencer says. "When did you get house plants?"
"Maybe I'm imagining them," says Emily, and Spencer can hear her grin, broad and toothy.
"I might have to come over there to make sure," Spencer says, solemn, drumming fingers restlessly on her kitchen counter.
"No, I don't think so-- hey," Emily cuts herself off, the grin in her voice trailing off. She's quiet a moment, almost long enough that Spencer's about to speak up before Emily completes the thought. "Hey, can we--" Emily starts. "Do you want to go to the beach again?"
Spencer blinks. "Um," she says, "I guess that'd be cool? I like the beach."
"That same beach," Emily says. "I want to go there."
Spencer says, "When?"
"Soon," Emily says. "Like, now."
Spencer looks at the clock, checks her watch. Glances at the open inbox on her desktop screen. There's plenty of time for questions in the car, she figures. "Sure, okay," she says.
Emily is not wearing her three hundred-dollar sneakers, this time; she is wearing flip-flops, which she kicks off to prop both bare feet up on the dashboard, toes scrunching up against the inside of the windshield, leaving smudges on the glass. Spencer would comment, but she's messed up worse things of Emily's in her life. In the whole scheme of things, toeprints are pretty insignificant.
The road looks different this time, wide-open and washed out in the early afternoon, bracing itself for rush hour. Spencer almost gets distracted by it, but she can see Emily out of the corner of her eye, fingers curled into the knees of her jeans, can see the soft slump of her shoulders when she lets out a long breath.
"Do you miss Toby?" Spencer asks, after a while, when she remembers she's supposed to be asking questions.
"Toby texts me almost as much as you do," Emily says. Her voice is bland, unaffected, but Spencer can still feel the warmth behind the words. Spencer has gotten exactly four messages from Toby since the wedding; she's deleted them all without reading or listening.
"Oh," says Spencer.
Emily glances over at her. "You miss Toby," she says. It's not a question, and it's not about the honeymoon, but she doesn't push it further.
"Mmm." Spencer eyes the road lazily, changing lanes for the hell of it. "Why'd you want to go to the beach?"
"I like the beach," says Emily.
About an hour into the drive, Emily says, "I really wish your radio worked."
Spencer shrugs, watching Emily out of the corner of her eye. "We could have a sing-along," she says, grinning.
Emily raises an eyebrow at her, then looks back out the window.
Her fingers tap out a rhythm on her knee. "Baby, you can drive my car," she sings softly.
"No, no," Spencer laughs. "A whole new wooooorld--"
"Fuck, no," Emily says, frowning. "Sing ‘Dancing In The Dark’. You haven't sung that in forever."
"Sing it with me," Spencer says.
Emily doesn't sing exactly on-key; she mumbles around the words and fades out sometimes to lean against the window, but Spencer thinks they sound great together anyway. By the time they're skirting around San Diego, they've gone through their fair share of covers and there's the hint of a smile in the corner of Emily's mouth.