After a moment, Spencer reached down for one of his beers, wanting more than ever to drown himself in alcohol and forget about everything else. However, no matter how hard he tried as he focused on the show in front of him, he couldn't. The expression his daughter had worn as she left the apartment was burned into his mind. An image that sent him into a spiral of self-deprecating thoughts that left him with a growing pit of burning anger directed at himself. Just as he was reaching the apex of his rage and was about to throw the beer bottle in his hand at the nearest wall, he heard a familiar buzz come from his leftmost pocket that made him pause. He had received a message.
Slowly, Spencer pulled out his phone that rested in his pocket, wondering who had messaged him, although he already had a feeling of who it could be. It was a feeling that was soon proven correct as he was met with a message from Tony, whom he used to work with, a friend he hadn't seen in months, despite how close they had been. Of course, Tony wasn't the only exception. Since the funeral, aside from Gemma and Lily, Spencer hadn't spoken to anyone else he once knew.
However, despite this, that hadn't stopped Tony from messaging him to ask if he wanted to meet up at the weekend for drinks, something he had been doing constantly over the past few weeks. This was despite the fact that Spencer never once responded, always leaving him on read, an action he copied once again, not in the mood for any kind of interaction. And so, ignoring the message, he tucked his phone back into his pocket.
Suddenly, just as he was prepared to zone back out as he stared at the TV, a loud rumble could be heard throughout the apartment, one that originated from Spencer's stomach. Realising how hungry he was, having not eaten anything all day, Spencer clambered his way up off the couch and headed towards the kitchen. It was then that a muttered curse escaped from his lips as he opened the fridge and was met with nothing but a six-pack of beer and a few microwavable meals for Lily.
Seeing the all but bare fridge before him, Spencer realised he needed to go shopping pronto–not only for himself, but also for Lily. Yet the moment he had such a thought, his body came to an immediate pause. Immediately, through the sluggish haze in his mind, he desperately thought through everything he had done that morning. He did so again and again, each time in the vain hope of a different answer, until the truth became undeniable. He had forgotten to make Lily's breakfast.
At such a realisation, Spencer was left wanting to throw up in disgust. A second wave of self-hatred, even larger than the previous one, washed over him as he wondered how he could have possibly forgotten to do something so important. However, the more he thought about it, the more he realised how that wasn't even the worst part. That honour belonged to the fact that, despite not having had anything to eat, Lily hadn't said a word, leaving Spencer to wonder if this wasn't the first time something like this had happened.
'Gemma was right. I really am a fucking failure of a father! I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the fucking tree after all, huh, Dad.' Spencer thought with a self-deprecating chuckle. A chuckle that ended abruptly.
"FUCK!" Without warning, he let loose a furious shout as he punched the fridge door as hard as he could, creating a large dent in the centre of the fridge.
Ignoring the growing pain forming in his hand and the turbulent emotions he currently felt, Spencer rushed to grab his wallet and keys that were haphazardly splayed across the kitchen counter. Quickly, he stormed his way out of the kitchen and towards the front door, both to get some much-needed food for Lily and himself as well as in desperate need of fresh air. So frantic in his desire to escape, he didn't even bother locking the front door as he raced down the four flights of stairs in his way and exited the rustic apartment complex.
The moment he did so, he immediately started to take long, deep breaths of the warm summer air that now surrounded him. Only after doing so for close to a minute did he finally begin to feel himself start to calm back down, though the self-loathing he felt remained just as strong as before. Still, he had managed to reach some modicum of peace, something that was no doubt helped by the alcohol he had purged during his agitated sprint outside.
With that, letting out one last breath, Spencer began to finally march forward through the parking lot in front of him. Luckily, the store he was heading to was only a short walk away and easily reachable on foot–after all, he doubted getting into his car would be a smart decision in his current state. Even so, after only a few minutes, he started to regret such a decision. With every person or car that he passed, Spencer couldn't shake the feeling that he was being constantly judged. As if each glance sent his way was steeped in disgust and contempt, aimed at his wretched appearance, with his long, greasy brown hair and matted beard that made him appear homeless.
For a second, he considered simply heading back home, wanting to be away from the swarm of onlookers and be left alone. However, at the memory of why he was doing this in the first place, he knew that wasn't an option. So, despite how uncomfortable he felt, Spencer put his head down and continued marching forward, doing his best to ignore the piercing stares he felt all around him. It was then, after only a couple more minutes of walking, that he finally arrived at his destination, a small store that he had become intimately familiar with over the past couple of months.
Without a break in his stride, Spencer swiftly rushed inside, letting out a small sigh of relief at being out of the open. From there, with barely a cursory glance across the store, he raced along the aisles, pushing and barging past any of the people who stood in his way. The only times he stopped were to grab everything he needed for Lily, as well as a few things for himself. Once he had, having spent less than a minute inside the store, he immediately joined the long line for the cashier.
As he waited impatiently for his turn, tapping his foot loudly, not attempting to hide his annoyance, he started to scan the shelves around him in an attempt to distract himself. It was then that he noticed one shelf specifically to his right, one that held a variety of different plushies and teddies that instantly had Spencer thinking of Lily. This, in turn, left him riddled with self-loathing and guilt as he remembered her heartbroken expression as she had left for the zoo with Gemma. And so, wanting desperately to somehow make it up to her for not joining her at the zoo, he stepped out of the line and towards the shelf where he began to examine the array of plushies.
Eventually, Spencer decided on an elephant plushie that he thought would be perfect, remembering how much she loved them when they had last visited the zoo. With that, as he made his way back to the line for the cashier, a sense of excitement started to build within him at the thought of giving Lily the plushie. At least that was until he made it to the front of the line and reached the cashier.
"That'll be $43.56, please, sir. Will you be paying by cash or by card?" The cashier asked politely.
"Card."
"Alright, sir, please just place your card inside the reader whenever you're ready."
The moment Leo placed his card into the reader and heard the familiar beep of the machine, a grimace flashed over his face as his mood instantly soured. Not because of the amount he had spent, no, he was not in any worry about running out of cash anytime soon. He grimaced because of what every purchase ended up reminding him of: the death of his wife, Chloe.
The life insurance money he had received upon Chloe's death was both a blessing and a curse. It allowed him to look after both himself and Lily, despite having been unemployed for the past few months. But it also meant that with every purchase he made, he was unable to escape the truth of her demise, her memory a spectre in his mind, always felt yet forever unseen. And every time, it left him with a deep, longing ache that stripped away any positivity he still possessed, leaving him hollow and miserable. Just as he was now.
As quickly as he could, Spencer grabbed his shopping bags from the cashier before all but running out of the store. At that moment, all he wanted was to get back home, collapse onto his couch and distract his mind anyway he could, preferably with a couple of bottles of beer. So, as he slammed the door shut upon arriving back home, and after discarding the shopping he had just bought onto the floor, that was exactly what he did. With laboured and heavy breaths, Spencer grabbed the six-pack of beer from within the fridge before flopping back onto the couch in exhaustion. He didn't even attempt to put away the shopping. He simply began to drink bottle after bottle of beer, drinking through half the pack in an instant.
Once again, he was overcome with a numbing buzz he had not only gotten used to but desperately needed in order to even function. It was the only thing stopping him from unravelling completely, from shattering apart into a thousand pieces. That was the reason he drank, not because he actually enjoyed it–in fact, Spencer all but detested the taste of beer altogether–but because he needed to. God did he need to.
Yet despite the numbness the beer brought with every sip he took, it didn't stop the flood of memories that plagued Spencer's mind, each one involving Chloe.
He remembered when they were kids, wandering throughout the neighbourhood without a care in the world. He remembered how they would talk in hushed whispers at the library or sneak into whatever movie they could manage. He even remembered the moments where they did nothing but sit in comfortable silence beside one another, looking up at the large night sky. Memories that once felt so ordinary now seemed so incredibly precious and important. Through every moment of his life, she was with him, a constant pillar of love and support, helping him wherever things were bad. To Spencer, she wasn't just his wife; she was his everything. And now that she was gone, he was lost, adrift with no idea how to fix the glaring hole in his world.
"God, Chloe. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?" He muttered aloud as he stared up to the ceiling, praying for some kind of response he knew, no matter how long he waited, just wouldn't come.
Time quickly passed as he progressively got more and more drunk, staring blankly towards the TV while thinking of his wife. It was only when he finished the last beer in the pack and found himself unable to keep his eyes open any longer that those thoughts finally vanished, giving him some much-needed peace. No longer was his mind filled with thoughts of his late wife and daughter, as the living room soon filled with the sound of his snores. So lost in slumber, he was completely unaware of the impending disaster headed his way, one that was going to change the fate of both himself and his daughter forever.