The spoiler, p.1
The Spoiler, page 1
The Spoiler
LE Todd
Sword and Silk Books
Copyright © 2024 by LE Todd
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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First Edition: JUN 2024
Contents
Dedication
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the author
To Mom and Dad, for always believing in me and nurturing my dreams.
“We are, and must be, one and all,
burdened with faults in this world.”
-Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
There’s something to be said about the way in which we see ourselves; every flaw magnified and glaringly obvious. As children, those imperfections seem to be all-consuming. And, as it goes, the more focus we put on our insecurities, the more fodder there is for cruel, adolescent minds.
The stranglehold that my nickname, Routine Rose, had on me when I entered high school was enough to make me see nothing but flaws in myself. Of course, it was just a name they’d given me—something that echoed in my mind with every errant twitch of my fingers. Being her was all I knew of who I was, and in never being just Rose, I closed my eyes to any other way I was seen, while also losing sight of the fact that I was not alone in my struggles.
The half-bath light was still on, so I knew he was still at the house. I sighed and squinted at the glow that seeped across the hall and under my door. He always left the lights on. Robby mentioned Tristan staying for the weekend, but I’d be damned if I was going to sit through my movie marathon with him popping in again. It was like he could hear through the walls, and I swear, his number one goal was to piss me off by spoiling whatever I was watching. I tucked my stack of rentals under my bed before hurrying down the hall to the kitchen.
My brother, Rob, had met Tristan Moore just before their senior year when he transferred to our hometown of Blue River, Virginia, and joined him on the varsity hockey team. Together, they became inseparable and led the Braves to a league championship win. I was a junior then, and I was a star at nothing. But it was partway through that year that I did pick something up, and thus began my one acceptable obsession.
Those were the days of video stores and rent-any-three specials, and so, my weekends were spent tucking into popcorn and Red Hots and curling up to watch any movie set back in time that I’d never seen yet, plus those I couldn’t resist rewatching.
To be honest, it did become a true obsession—watching period dramas. But like I said, it was a good one; one that catered nicely to my love of history and took me far away.
It wasn’t like the fixations I’d had that tended to irritate people or make them think I was weird. There was a big difference between obsessive movie marathons and honing in on every crumb on a table and removing it with precision while losing focus on someone speaking to me. Obsession… fixation. One seemed to help with the other, so I continued on doing what I loved. Alone.
Weekends by myself were fine in high school and they helped me to be as good a student as Rob, but I had to admit, I was lucky to have him for a brother. When I got my acceptance letter to the University of Virginia, he held the only other room in a just-off-campus house he found and insisted I move in. It made sense for us to share a house and we were close as siblings go. But, after living together for two years and enduring endless spoil-laden pop-ins from Tristan, I was on the hunt for a new apartment.
“Rose, who’s going to fix little things around here if you leave?” Rob sighed and tilted his head at me from the other side of the kitchen.
“There’s no ‘if’, there’s only when. And it’s not like I’m moving across the country. I’ll probably be close enough to walk over and remind you which drill bit to use when you need me. Plus, you should know these things by now. Didn’t you and Dad build the ice rink together?”
“Yeah, but I just wanted to skate on it, not learn to build shit.” He narrowed his dark brows, crossing his arms with noticeable frustration.
“Well, regardless, I’ll be around. Just... have more of my own space.”
He sighed once more and closed the cupboard above my head pointedly, looking up as it creaked open again. It was on my list of things to work on, but now I wasn’t so sure that list was worth keeping.
“Sorry, Rob. I just—”
“What’s going on in here?” Tristan entered the kitchen and slipped between us, heading for the fridge. It was an older model, and he was too tall to see into it without bending down. I took in a slow and irritated breath as Tristan eyed me, then crouched to grab a beer. His ink black hair fell into his view and he swept it back behind his ears.
“Nothing. Going to bed,” I quickly said.
He straightened, walking around the peninsula, then leaning forward on the counter as I turned my back to him. “Well, enjoy Excalibur. You know—”
“Actually,”—I whipped around to look up at him— “I’ve already seen it, so you can save your you-knows.”
“Mhmm. Yeah, I know you’ve seen that one.” His height made me crane my neck and stare at the frustrating little beauty mark above his lip. “I was just going to mention that box of tissues you may need for the next one in your stack. Ya know, for when everyone else dies and Chingachgook is the only living Mohican at the end of The Last of the Mohicans—hence the title.”
“Oh my God! What is wrong with you?” I reached up to slam the faulty cabinet and marched past Rob. “This is why I’m moving out, Robby!”
“You’re moving out?” Tristan’s voice was distant as I continued through the hall and cut into my room, locking the door behind me. I passed into the bathroom and locked that door as well, turning on the shower and angrily shaking my head at the mirror. At the version of me everyone always saw. The pale face burdened by heavy, purple circles of sleeplessness; the concealed scars from too much picking; the oversized eyes that showed the world my every vulnerability.
Tristan irritating me was like a weird sickness. It used to shadow all my compulsions, masking the feelings I once had for him, but now it just drew me to other things I often fixated on. I stared at my imperfect skin while my chest still pumped through its frustration. It was fall now, but the summer had brought out more freckles on my nose and they weren’t the cute kind. They were blotchy and, from a distance, discolored my skin, which looked odd with the deep brown waves of my hair. Next, my eyes zeroed in on the prominent scar above my left eyebrow just as...
“Roh-ohse,” Tristan’s voice slipped like velvet through the bathroom door, making me jump. He drew my name out in a sing-song way he knew got under my skin. “Don’t be a spoil sport.”
“Spoil—a SPOIL sport?! You have got to be... You are the one who spoils everything. And how did you get in my room? I locked the door!”
“Keys exist, Rose... You know you shouldn’t leave Rob like this.”
“Why don’t you just move in and stop acting like you give a shit if I get a new place? You stay here enough, anyhow. You should be paying rent!”
“I like my situation.”
I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn’t see. “You like living with Heather when it suits you.” I could swear he’d been practically living with his long-term hookup, not that I cared or anything.
“I’ve never lived with Heather. And I haven’t seen her in months.”
“Probably because you’re intolerable.”
The silence on the other side of the door made me consider if he’d left. I toed into the tub, fuming and shaking my head, and reached for the shower curtain.
“Good luck finding an apartment, Rose,” his voice rumbled through the door again. “There’s a reason Rob had to hold the room for you when you started here. There’s nothing available this late and you know it.”
“Then maybe I’ll transfer.” Another long silence.
“You’d transfer schools and leave Rob because of me?”
“Would you just LEAVE ME ALONE ALREADY?!”
It was hard to say why Tristan always got to me the way he did. They weren’t all bad, the spoilers. Sometimes he opted for stupid ones that only made me laugh. But then the real ones, the ones that really wrecked the end, he’d drop those on me and I’d lose it.
It was more than that, though. Tristan was just always around. Rob and I had been so close growing up, it made it easy for me to skip over the part where teenagers make close friends. As far as I was concerned, I didn’t need a BFF when I had a perfectly good, perfectly reliable brother.
So then there was Tristan. Tristan who never left. Tristan who arrived one day at our house before the hockey season started and became some honorary member of the family. Tristan who sailed his way into UVA on sheer brain power, ensuring that he was always going to be around. Tristan, who made me feel a little less important to Rob these past years.
The bathroom was too steamy after my shower to see the mirror, but I wiped at it anyhow, trying to see my face for long enough to remove my smudgy eyeliner. I gave up quickly as my phone buzzed in the other room.
Rob: Tristan says you kicked him out of the house. He left looking all pouty.
*eye roll* I told him to go away because he broke into my room. But tbh, I don’t care if he left.
Rob: You know why he fucks with you.
Bc he sucks?
Rob: Seriously, Roslyn?
I don’t care, ROBERT. Tristan is like the guest who overstays their welcome, never helps out, and gets away with doing annoying shit all the time. I hope he’s at home crying. Tell him to stop coming over so much. He can move in when I leave if he needs to be that close to you.
Rob: He isn’t here to be close to me.
I stared at my phone screen for long enough to reread his last text four times. I knew what he was trying to say, but I also knew he was exaggerating. Rob had a way of making things into bigger situations than they ever were. It was one of his best qualities in some ways. He could really make you think you were an unstoppable, amazing person. But he could also turn molehills into mountains, which was exactly what he was doing. I slid my phone onto my nightstand, killed the light, and turned on the TV.
Even though Tristan had ruined part of The Last of the Mohicans, it was a great movie. It had everything I loved about a good period drama—passion, risk, adventure, tragedy, and love. And it had meaning. It meant something when it was written—that in the end, Chingachgook was the very last of all the Mohicans; that history had overrun his tribe, the world had shifted, and things had changed so much.
It was a spoiler, though, that everyone else had died. And it was the type of spoiler Tristan loved to give me. Somehow, he always knew what I was watching and how to ruin things.
She dies in the end, Rose. Those two never end up together, Rose. He doesn’t really love her, Rose. They lose their farm, Rose. He was the constant, irritating thing in my life—aside from my OCD.
Though he’d left, there was no doubt he’d be back. Tristan’s place in our house, in our lives, was seemingly permanent, after all. Moving out was going to change things, though. I was finally ready to be on my own. Rob and I would still see each other, but I needed this. I needed to do something that was just about me.
But, adding to my frustration, Tristan was right. After several fruitless searches, I’d spoken with a woman who managed rentals all over town. Rob knew her well enough from waiting on her at his coffee house job to get her personal number, so I’d been hoping she could find me a place. It was just as Tristan had said, though. They had no rental units open this late, and she told me I’d probably have to wait to sublet from someone.
So maybe I’d just have to be patient, but at least I had one thing to look forward to, and it was something Tristan couldn’t ruin for me: a movie marathon at the art cinema. They were showing Austen and Brontë classics that coming weekend, and since I’d seen them all a million times, I didn’t do much to hide my excitement over the tickets I had for a show each night, plus a Sunday matinee.
Tristan sat across from me in the kitchen a couple days later, his dark eyebrows lifted, thumbing the tickets I’d bought on presale that now stuck partially out of my purse. It was his scrutinous, faux judgmental look. “Ambitious, Roslyn. You’re going to... three showings?”
“Yep. But it doesn’t surprise you, so you can put those away.”
“Put what away?” His head tilted to one side as his left brow arched.
“Those hideous eyebrows. Nobody needs to see those things creeping up your face. You already know I love every one of those movies.”
“Hideous? Ouch.” He clutched at his chest as if in pain, then slid from his chair and inched around the counter toward me. “I could swear I heard you say something about loving the dark Heathcliff look.”
His fingers tapped in a slow pattern on the edge of the countertop as he studied me. My eyes flitted across those long, tapered fingers. His hands betrayed the fact that he worked on roofs every summer, and yet, the strength of them was at odds with their graceful length. There was a time when I’d imagined what it would be like to feel them sifting their way through my hair. I swallowed and looked away from his hands.
“I’ve never heard you swear. And who said you have that look?” I glanced over as he deliberately dropped his gaze and threw me those sort of shadowed, brooding eyes I tried to hate. If I was being honest, he did have the Heathcliff look. His dark hair came down to frame the sharp cheekbones that stuck out beneath his soft, coppery skin. He’d be a perfect Native Heathcliff.
I shook my head at him and pursed my lips as he took another step my way. His hazel eyes cut through a veil of long lashes to look down into mine, the length of them flirting with the highest point of his cheekbones. I could feel the flare of heat on my face when he slid a touch closer and dipped his chin down to emphasize his penetrating gaze, his fingers slowly playing on the counter’s edge once more.
“You know, it must be warm in here... Your cheeks are awfully fucking red.” He exaggerated the word, drawing his lips up in a sly smile as he left the room and I took a stupid, shaky breath. Of course, he’d find yet another way to be irritating.
I am definitely NOT attracted to Tristan Moore… anymore.
“It doesn’t sound right when you swear!” I called after him a few seconds late.
Later that day, I begrudgingly sat through my last class of the week, picking at the uneven corners of my notepad, then meticulously cleaning up every tiny shred of paper I’d strewn across the desk. It was one of those things. One of those little frustrating, fixating, fuck-my-brain-why-am-I-doing-this things. It was something I did too much, but something I couldn’t always stop.
In high school—as so many of us experience—I started having moments of anxiety that quickly manifested into heightened moments of panic. Instead of breaking down or freaking out, I began to have more frequent instances of obsessive behaviors. It wasn’t unfamiliar, if I’m honest. It had always been there in some strange form or another, and I had always been that kid. That weird kid. But when high school started, it was more. It was worse. And there were times when I was doing these little things where I was less aware of them while people around me... Well, they were more aware.
I sat there touching the pad of my index finger to every crumb of paper, and when I was done, I started erasing smudges and lines from the desk that others had left over the years. It wasn’t my job, but it sort of became my job when I was in my state of fixation. OCD was a diagnosis given to me by a psychiatrist, and while it had taken me some time to accept having a name for it, I knew it probably just looked crazy from the outside.
My eyes snapped up as a TA set a Blue Book on my desk for a quiz I was not fully prepared for. I swallowed as she grimaced at my now-stilled hands. She’d probably watched me fussing over all the little imperfections that set me off. Italian Medieval and Renaissance History was one of my favorite classes—and my last Gen Ed requirement for my architecture degree—but the TA was far from my favorite.
“Thanks,” I whispered while she quickly turned away. Or not.
Campus was busy this time of year. After likely bombing my quiz, I walked alone and meandered across The Lawn. Some students sat around near the bases of trees while others quickly paced across the green space and cut between the buildings.
I liked this part of campus. My inner need to keep things straight and squared and crisp enjoyed the symmetry of the old buildings that flanked the beautifully maintained grass. Everything fit and felt comfortable. I could breathe here.
