Sam loved Spencer like a brother but she'd been on Team Leighton this whole time. His efforts to be better hadn't gone unnoticed but Sam was far more concerned by Leighton getting her heart broken than anything else. "Oh god, for real, don't get me wrong. I love Spence and all but like there no way he'll ever be as sweet or charming as a boyfriend as you! I do hope that for Leighton's sake that he does come close one day though." Sam wanted nothing but the best for her friends and loved ones and she'd absolutely already imagined how freaking killer it would they all grew up together being this powerhouse group of friends and couples.

Pursing her lips together as she sat there, shifting her legs and arms, trying to figure out the best way about standing without causing her dress to ride up in the process. Once Jess took pity on her and finally got her up, she muttered, "Stupid fucking dress." Pulling her dress down while he made sure that they had all their belonging, Sam was cursing herself out in her head because she knew she only had herself to blame for the dress.

Snapping a quick picture of herself with Jess in the background, she sent it to Leighton before setting her phone down on the dashboard. "Yep." Sam did as she was asked and placed it in the glove box before making herself comfortable in her seat. While he smoked, her eyes scanned the area and made sure no one was going to sneak up on them. Once satisfied, she relaxed some, took the joint from him, and got to smoking it. "Dances are definitely still lame but I actually had a lot of fun. I seriously can't wait for the after party though. And then the after-after party." Sam winked at him and blew her smoke right toward him before feeling bad and using her hand to help disperse it some.

Sex with her boyfriend was going to be the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae that was this amazing night. Sam had tried to sneak a couple bites of the cherry already tonight but Jess, but he hadn't seemed interested yet. She wasn't worried though. If he turned her down when she got naked in his bed later tonight, only then would she allow herself to start worrying about it. Right now, she figured he didn't want her thinking he'd only done all of this for her in hopes of getting laid. Her boyfriend was hot though, and the fact that he'd done all of this to make her happy, only made him that much hotter to her.

"I think that after this," she handed the joint back over to him, "We should track down Leighton and Spencer, and get back to your place?" she suggested. "I think we've spent enough time looking fabulous. It's time to get comfy and get our party on."

She rolled her eyes at him when he pretended not to know who James Dean was. “Of course, I think you’re hot. Was there any ever doubt?” Leighton chuckled, slightly confused.

Leighton was more experienced than she led Spencer to believe. It was a conversation she wasn't ready to have. Even if she wanted to tell him, Leighton didn’t know where to begin. She also wanted to spare him from the horrific memories she lived with daily. Leighton only said she was a virgin because she never got to make that choice herself. Her mom kept secrets and rewrote history, so why couldn’t Leighton?

Everything she told Spencer about her feelings was genuine. No one had ever made her feel the way he could when they were together. A simple brush of the hand could send shivers up her spine while his kisses sent shockwaves through her body. The effect he had on her was overwhelming and addicting.

Leighton swirled her tongue around his, occasionally sucking on it for shock factor. Feeling Spencer’s hand roaming her chest, Leighton adjusted her posture and straightened up, giving him better accessibility. As their kiss continued and his hand explored more, Leighton moaned against his lips. She didn’t want this moment to end, and she wanted more. Leighton didn't want to deprive Spencer anymore. She thought he’d waited patiently long enough.

Leighton moved one of her hands to Spencer’s lap and searched for his bulge. When she did, she began gently massaging it through his pants, wanting him to feel some sensation as well. She seductively bit Spencer’s bottom lip before eagerly kissing him again.

Jess smirked and squeezed her thigh when she mentioned their private after-party. He rested his head back against the headrest and looked over at her. “I’m going to make you feel so good, baby. I can't wait,” he informed her, sliding his hand higher between her legs. He wished he could control himself, but he found Sam irresistible. Jess immediately felt himself start to get a hard-on and began pulling back his hand. He grunted, “Fuck,” he muttered, shifting in his seat.

“Thank the fucking, God!” He said, looking up at his car ceiling. “Yes, please,” he eagerly wanted to go home, but he didn't want to be the first one to say it. “I'll go ahead and text Spence. They can start heading this way now.” He picked up his phone from the cup holder and shot Spence a quick text message.

After texting his best friend and wondering where their friends could be, Jess turned his attention back to his girlfriend. He pulled one of her hands over into his lap and absentmindedly began playing with it. Jess loved her hands; they fit perfectly into his. He turned his head and looked over at her, unsure where the urge came from, but he said it anyway. “I'm falling in love with you,” Jess admitted. “Like, really falling in love with you.” He had always thought he'd experienced love, but these were feelings that none of his other girlfriends had ever given him.

Jess felt his heart drop when Sam didn't immediately say anything. He tried to give her the benefit of the doubt. It was just as a shock to him as it was to her. “Please say something,” he begged quietly.

"Well, no, not really, but it's still nice to hear." He shrugged.

Spencer hadn't exactly thought this all the way through. When Leighton shifted to give him better access, he cupped her breast in his hand. Even over top the dress, it was turning him on. The dress looked amazing on her but he was really starting to hate it once he realized it'd be impossible for him to feel her skin underneath as he fondled her breasts.

His closed eyes rolled into the back of his head the moment he felt her hand begin to stroke his penis and he let out a groan when bit his lip. 'Fuuuuuccck.' Leaving her breasts so that he could hold her face while he kissed her harder, groaning every now and then when her hand grazed the tip. He desperately wanted to tear that dress off of her but in the back of his mind, he knew that this wasn't the right place.

That didn't mean that they couldn't have a little bit more fun first. Placing his hand on her thigh, he wiggled his fingers down between the other one as she spread he legs some. From there he slid his hand under her dress until he felt the material of her underwear. Stroking softly at first, he gradually applied pressure until the underwear created a valley between her lips. Moving his finger around until he found a spot that made her moan back.

Once he heard that sweet sound he wanted, he deepened the kiss and focused his fingers on that area. Every stroke and moan just made him want her more and more and he wasn't sure how much longer he'd be able control himself. Someone was looking out for him though in the form of a buzz in his pants pockets. With his mom in town, he had to answer her promptly or else she went into crazy mom mode.

Letting out one more groan - a mixture of pleasure from what was happening right now and disappointment because he had to be the one to stop it all. Withdrawing his hand and softly stopping hers as he pulled back from the kiss. "Sorry... It's... I..." Spencer tried gathering his thoughts while all the blood was rushing to his erection. "I'm loving this, I just think it'd be better, somewhere more private."

Sam mimicked his behavior, resting her head against the head rest and staring lovingly at him. She still couldn't believe it, but she was utterly smitten with the boy sitting across from her. Her eyes wanted to close as his hand drifted up her leg but before they had a chance to, his hand retreated, and she was left pouting at him. Quickly though, she found herself giggling when she noticed his movements and put it together. "Awwwww. Baby."

Laughing more when he celebrated the idea of leaving, she pulled her dress down a little bit and puffed on the joint before putting it out when she saw what she thought was a teacher. She was pretty sure it was a senior but still, she kept her eye on them until they drove away. Tensing up when she heard Jess speak again, she heard words she'd never expected to hear in this moment. Sam was frozen and she was panicking. She knew how to love family members and she knew how to love her friends, but now he was more than just a friend. Did she really even know how what romantic love meant? That was something she'd been questioning for a few weeks now.

Realizing she was sitting there with her mouth open as she stared, Sam's free hand made it's way to her mouth to close it. He started to look as terrified as she was feeling and that caused her to finally snap out of it. "Oh my god. I'm sorry. It's just... I've never. Uh. No. Let me start over." Sam took a deep breath before continuing. "Jesse Jessabelle Montgomery, I'm falling in love with you too. Actually, I think I might already be in love with you."

Leighton didn't know what happened. One minute, the four of them were as thick as thieves; the next thing Leighton knew, Jess and Sam were hanging out with Brooke, Jess’ sister, and she and Spencer were fighting. It felt like her life was falling apart. Because of all this, she’d been leaning on her mother more than normal. In all honesty, it brought them closer.

She could over Jess and Sam repeatedly disappearing on her, but she couldn't understand why Spencer’s mood suddenly changed. It was as if a switch had flipped. How could his feelings change so quickly? It made her head spin. After a long conversation with her mother, Leighton decided to take the leap of faith and try to salvage whatever they had left of their relationship one last time. Leighton hoped, at least.

He’d often been hiding in the library instead of his usual spots. He wanted to stay out of sight. Leighton knew it. Spencer knew trying to find him between the stacks would be harder if she went looking. She decided to skip her fifth period because she knew it was Specer’s free period, and he’d been in the library somewhere. After casually walking through his favourite genes, Leighton looked elsewhere in the library. She eventually found him in the biography section. He had propped up against a wall, watching or reading someone on his phone. It wasn’t clear. Before she could say anything, Spencer had already seen her standing before him. He always had a poker face, and Leighton could never get a vibe from him. It was unsettling at times.

When he took out his earbuds, Leighton knew it was her cue to go. “If you don’t want to be with me anymore, all you have to do is break up. You don’t have to hide in the fucking library,” Leighton spoke softly, but her tone, it was serious. She wanted to cry, but at this point, she was sure she cried out all the tears she could. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me, and you are. I don’t understand. Why did you ghost me? Why did you choose to abandon me after veering? I don’t understand. Make me understand,” Leightons expressed sternly.

She took a few more steps forward before sitting pretzel-style before him and placing her bookbag beside her. “Your turn,” her eyebrows raised as she said it. Leighton was being direct because her mother told her to do that. It may sound crazy, but while her mother goes through men like toilet paper, they fall head over heels in love with her for a time.

Spencer didn’t move at first.

He just stood there, back pressed to the wall like maybe it could swallow him whole if he stayed still long enough. Like maybe he could disappear into the cracks of the biography section and avoid the whole fucking mess he'd made.

But Leighton—
God, Leighton.

She sat there, cross-legged on the carpet like she wasn’t afraid of how badly he could still break her. Like she was willing to bleed it out right here if it meant getting the truth.

And the thing was—
She deserved it.
Every word. Every ugly, jagged, uncomfortable part of it.

Spencer scrubbed a hand over his jaw, staring down at her like maybe if he blinked hard enough, she’d vanish. Like maybe if he didn’t answer, he could pretend he hadn’t already destroyed the best thing he’d ever stumbled into by accident.

"You want to know why?" he said finally, voice rough and low enough that it barely made it past the rows of dusty shelves.
"You really want the truth, Leighton?"

He laughed then—a short, humorless thing that cracked on the edges.

"Because I knew I was gonna fuck it up," he said. "I could feel it. Like gravity, or a fucking hurricane coming."
His hands found the pockets of his hoodie, fingers curling into fists. "You looked at me like I was worth something. Like I could be good if I just stayed... and I wanted to. I wanted to be that guy so bad."

He shook his head, staring at the floor now.
"But I’m not. I'm not good, Leighton. I'm just some idiot kid who's better at running than staying. And when it got too real—when it stopped being easy and started feeling like it mattered—I panicked."

Spencer looked up finally, the mask slipping, just enough.
The hollow fear behind his eyes said more than the words ever could.

"I didn't ghost you because I didn't care," he said, voice cracking. "I ghosted you because I cared too fucking much, and it scared the shit out of me."

There it was.
Ugly. Honest. All of it.

And she was still sitting there, watching him, not flinching, not moving, just breathing him in like he hadn’t already torn a hole through the middle of her.

Spencer slid down the wall slowly until he was sitting too, knees bent, elbows resting on them. For a second, it was just the sound of the air conditioning humming overhead. The world felt smaller in that moment, pressed in tight around the two of them.

He picked at a frayed thread on his sleeve.
"When I’m with you... it’s not casual, Leigh. It’s not a joke. It’s not whatever the hell people think high school relationships are supposed to be."

He glanced at her, voice almost a whisper now.
"It's everything."

Silence. Then:

"I’m scared I’m gonna wreck it," he admitted. "Wreck you. And I’d rather have you hate me than watch you stay and regret it."

He didn’t reach for her. Didn’t ask for forgiveness.
Just sat there, broken open and waiting, letting her decide if he was worth salvaging.

Leighton didn’t answer right away.

She didn’t trust her voice—not when her throat felt like it was being squeezed from the inside, not when her heart was sitting in her chest like something cracked and wild.

So she just looked at him.

Really looked.

At the way his shoulders curved like he was still trying to fold into himself. At the twitch of his fingers against the threadbare edge of his sleeve. At the way his eyes didn’t beg for forgiveness—but didn’t run from her either. That might’ve been the worst part. That he didn’t expect her to stay.

“I would’ve rather you told me,” she said quietly. “Even if it was messy. Even if it was ugly.”

Her voice wavered, but she didn’t let it falter. Not now. Not after everything she’d been carrying around like armor and anchor and all the shit she didn’t want to admit had started to feel like love.

“You think I wasn’t scared?” she whispered, eyes locked on his. “Spence, I’ve been waiting my whole life for someone to mean it. And you—God, you looked at me like I was real. Like I wasn’t just background noise in my own life.”

She reached for a thread on her knee, twisting it between her fingers like it could hold the whole moment steady.

“I knew you were gonna hurt me,” she confessed, tears pricking but not falling. “I knew it the night you climbed through my window and kissed me like the world was ending. I knew it the morning you didn’t text back. I knew it every time I saw you disappear behind your own eyes.”

A breath. Not quite steady, but honest.

“But I still wanted you.”

She blinked hard, forcing the sting back. “And now I’m sitting here in a fucking library while you tell me I was right—that you broke it before I could even say I loved you.”

The silence cracked between them again, not loud but deep.

And still, she didn’t look away.

“I don’t want perfect, Spencer. I never did. I just wanted you.” Her voice shook then, raw and real and razor sharp. “And you didn’t even give me the chance to stay.”

She let the words sit there, pulsing like something alive in the air between them. Then she pulled her knees up to her chest, chin resting on them, her voice small now.

“So… what do we do with that?”

Spencer stared at her knees tucked to her chest, at the way her fingers gripped the denim like maybe it was the only thing keeping her together.

And he hated himself.
Hated the version of him that put that look on her face.
Hated that somewhere deep down, he believed she was better off without him even as he sat here begging for a reason to stay.

His chest ached so badly it almost made him laugh.
Of course it would come to this.
Of course the one real thing he ever had would be the thing he ruined with his own bare goddamn hands.

"You want to know what we do with it?" he said, voice ragged and raw. "You walk away."

The words sliced out of him before he could catch them.
Before he could stop being the coward he always fucking was.

"You stand up," he said, every word costing him more air than he had to give, "and you go find someone who doesn't make you cry in libraries. Someone who doesn't treat you like a fucking second chance he never deserved in the first place."

He scrubbed both hands over his face, nails digging into his skin like punishment.
"You don’t stay here waiting for me to be someone I don’t even know how to be," he choked out. "You leave."

Silence again.
But this time it was heavier, crueler, bleeding out between them in the empty spaces where hope used to live.

Spencer dropped his hands, finally daring to meet her eyes—and it nearly gutted him.

Because she wasn’t angry.
She wasn’t yelling or throwing things or calling him every name he probably deserved.

She just looked hurt.
Quietly, devastatingly hurt.

And that was worse.
That was so much worse.

His voice cracked again, softer now, like he was already mourning her before she was even gone.
"I love you, Leighton."

The confession barely made it past his lips, fragile and wrecked and clinging to whatever pieces of him were left.

"I love you so much it scares me. It’s fucking ruining me."

A humorless laugh slipped out, broken and breathless.

"And I'm still telling you to go."

He didn’t reach for her.
Didn’t touch her.
Didn’t move.

Because if he did—if he so much as brushed his hand against hers—he knew he’d beg.

And Spencer Walker had hurt her enough.

So he stayed there, sitting against the wall, breathing like it hurt, waiting for the sound of her walking away to tear him in half.

Waiting to finally deserve the loneliness he’d spent his whole damn life bracing for.

Leighton didn’t move.

Not at first.

She just sat there, arms locked around her knees like they were the only thing tethering her to the floor, the only thing keeping her from unraveling in the worst, loudest kind of way.

And she was tired of being loud.
Of screaming for people who didn’t listen.
Of trying to hold on to things that let go first.

But then—then he said that.

And it shattered something in her. Not like glass. Like a dam. Like everything she’d been holding back came flooding to the surface and she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t contain it, couldn’t pretend like it didn’t matter that the boy she loved was too afraid to stay.

“God, Spencer,” she whispered, breath catching halfway out of her throat. “Do you think I want to leave?”

She uncurled slowly, like every inch hurt. Like standing in front of him was both a battle and a surrender.

“I don’t want someone else,” she said, voice shaking. “I chose you. Over and over again, I chose you. Even when you were pulling away. Even when I knew you were scared. Even when you broke my heart in the quietest fucking ways.”

Leighton stepped forward once, then again—until she was close enough to kneel in front of him, not touching, just there. Steady. Solid.

“You think pushing me away is some kind of mercy?” she asked, eyes shining with tears she refused to blink loose. “You don’t get to decide what breaks me. You don’t get to love me and then act like it’s some noble sacrifice to let me go.”

Her hands balled into fists against her jeans again, but she didn’t look away.

“I’m not leaving because you told me to,” she said, calm now. Devastatingly calm. “If I walk away, it’s because you gave up. Not because I wanted to.”

Then—softly, almost too soft—
“And if that’s what you’re really doing… then say it. Look me in the eye and say it. Say you don’t want this. Say you don’t love me. Say I’m not worth staying for.”

Her voice cracked.
But she didn’t.

She just waited. Breath caught in her throat, heart in her hands, holding space for the truth—whatever it turned out to be.