“Hey guys! What are you both doing here?” A familiar voice came from behind them.

They both turned around and found Madison standing there with a shopping cart in front of her. “Hey Madison!” Kelly said giving her a hug. Mandy was un-phased by it knowing that Madison was straight. Hell, she even gave the girl a hug.

“Yeah, we were just shopping for the kid’s birthday presents. Already have Amanda covered.” Mandy jumped in.

“Us too, do you have any idea what Avery likes?” US? Oh gosh, that meant he was there too. It had been years, and Mandy had gotten over him from that one night…until the same thing happened again and they fell in bed. Next thing she knew she woke up alone. Things remained awkward since then. And she refused to forgive him.

They stood and shopped and made pointless banter for a while until Aiden arrived with a box of cheese sticks. He put them in the cart and received a look of question from Madison. “What? I wanted some friend cheese.” He giggled until he looked in front of him to see Mandy and Kelly. Soon his laughter became nerves. “Hey Kelly, Amanda.” He spoke nervously.

“Actually, it’s Mandy now.” She said quietly.

“Oh, I see. So how have you guys been?”

“Good you?” Mandy asked rather quickly.

“Good” Aiden replied.

“Good, well we really should get back to shopping. Bye Madison.” And then they parted the awkward tension and went shopping in their own directions.

According to Spencer, the blonde would be found in some part of that store, but she had decided to make a pit stop somewhere along the way. Where she was had an eerie feeling, but she walked with beautiful flowers as if she was trying to spread some cheer. She knelt down into the grass and placed the flowers in front of her. She ran her fingers over the tombstone and traced the lettering of Paula Carlin. “You miss her don’t you?” A voice came from behind her.

She looked over her shoulder to see her father walking over with a similar arrangement of flowers in his hands as he knelt beside her. “Yeah, I do.” Spencer said quietly. “It’s strange you know? After the hell she put me and Ashley and even you through, I still forgave her. Then the moment things got better between everyone, she died.”

“I know honey, but no one could have stopped the car accident from happening. You did everything you could.” Arthur said resting his hand on Spencer’s shoulder.

Not more than a month after everyone had healed their battle scars, Paula and Spencer drove to the beach for some mother-daughter bonding. They had stayed at the beach until nightfall and then some. It was near midnight and the weather had gotten cold so they decided upon going home. Spencer drove there and back considering it was her car. There was a small argument about Spencer needing to get a career chosen. The blonde didn’t think she needed one considering her and Ashley could live until they died off of Raiffe Davie’s inheritance check along with Christine’s, whenever she would take her plunge. Moments passed quickly through the argument, but whilst Spencer continued to raise her voice, she ran a red light and the car was impacted on Paula’s side. Ever since then, Spencer had wondered if it really was an accident or if it was a subconscious decision to run that red light. She thought it was her sick way of pay back and she hadn’t fully forgiven herself since.

“No dad, I think I could have done better.” The blonde began forming tears.

“Spencer, honey, you have got to stop blaming yourself. You did nothing wrong.”

Oh, you so don’t know my side of it. Spencer thought silently. “I did.” She stated whilst standing up. “Sad thing is, if I did it once, I would probably do it again.” And then she walked away to keep herself from spilling too much. She knew her dad would shrug it off as nothing more than guilt, but it was deeper than guilt. It was a question of how much of an accident it was or if it was murder.

TBC