I didn't wear my glasses at all this week. I misplaced them, left them in the filing room at work. I've done it before, and usually Spencer is the one who finds them and brings them back to me. He didn't though, because he was shot in his leg and he isn't cleared to work until Monday, and so I was left to my own devices. My biannual presentation came and went, and I was at the office for twelve-hour days the entire week, and I didn't even notice my glasses were missing until my presentation ended and the adrenaline in me subsided and I realized I had the most insane, massive headache.

It's a month late, the presentation, so it had to be extra good. Between Rachel and my suspension and Reid being shot, it had to be delayed. We could have delayed it to Monday, when Reid was back, but everyone knows he's up to date on research. And I suppose I would have just kept coming into the office for the whole weekend if they had tried.

I can't even look at my phone. There are a bunch of missed texts and calls from Estelle. She's been getting worse about my temporary stay at Chateau Reid, but it isn't serious. He needs help moving around for a bit, and I don't mind. Besides, she was pissed off that I moved in Bastien and Rachel, and now they are both gone, so she can have her little office, and her time away without me.

Spencer calls me on the subway, and the sound of my phone ringing nearly makes me sick. I stumble off the platform and make it to the bathroom only for nothing to come up. That's when I remember I didn't eat lunch today because I was prepping for the presentation. I vaguely recall Spencer sticking a muffin in my hand and a coffee while I was out the door. Maybe the hunger is making my headache worse.

I should go to the doctor. I should make sure I have my next therapy appointment penciled in. At least I'm a woman of should rather than coulds now. I hate being someone who could do something. I can handle the pressure of a should. It's like a weighted blanket, which are supposed to be good for anxiety. I should read up on the research.

When I finally get back to Spencer's apartment, my head is hanging low. I massage my temples while I open the door. The sound of the keys is bright, somehow.

"I'm home," I say when I enter the door.

It's bad for my shoes, but I kick them off rather than bending over to properly undo them. I look at the mirror in the narrow entryway and check my face. There are dark circles under my eyes, craters even. My eyes are bloodshot, not a good look, and my skin is tinged distinctly green. I'm not sick. I don't get sick. The last time I was sick was probably in the nineties. I fix a few strands of hair.

"Cole?" Spencer's voice calls from the kitchen.

I should have brought foundation in my workbag.

"Coming!" I say, hurrying into the room down the hall.

My socks slip on the floor but I catch myself in the doorway.

Cletus is sitting at the table. The one and only Cletus.

"I tried to call," Spencer says, sitting next to him.

It has been six months since I last saw Cletus. I suppose it was time, since it seems like that's how often I see him. Wedding and then Christmas, and now June. His blonde hair has grown longer, too long on the sides. He's got stubble now, thick but patchy and uneven. He looks at me, and his eyes look just as bloodshot as mine.

"My head hurts," I manage, bracing myself against the doorframe, clinging to it.

"Sorry to intrude, Colette," Cletus stands up.

He pulls himself away from the table and gestures for me to take the chair. I don't move in any closer to the centre of the room. Spencer's brow is furrowed. I look down and then over at Cletus.

"If you're looking for Caro, you shouldn't have come here," I press my forehead into the wooden doorframe. I close my eyes just for a second too long before twisting to look back at Cletus. "She's not here."

"Yeah, I know she ain't," Cletus says. He blinks and then looks at me. "I miss her."

French. I blink back, lifting my head from the door too quickly that my vision goes dark around the edges. I stumble a bit, and then feel someone holding me. I'm too dizzy to rip myself out of Cletus's grip.

"Sorry," I force my eyelids open and shut, again and again until everything is back in focus.

It's Spencer holding me up. His brow is furrowed, and he's got me by the elbow holding me up. I look down at his leg, that he's standing on. It's quaking under his weight.

"Sit down," I say.

He must think it's a request for me rather than an instruction for him, because Spencer guides me to the table and puts me in the chair before limping over to his own. I would glare at him, but event he slightest move of my face intensifies my headache.

"Ice, Cletus," Spencer says.

My hair was proper, but rubbing my head against the doorframe seems to have messed it up because Spencer is smoothing the strands of it in place. I don't even protest. His hands feel cool against my skin. Soon enough, Spencer is pressing a cold cloth filled with ice to my forehead, and I'm breathing in and out.

"Cletus, you should come back tomorrow," Spencer says. "Colette's not in any state to talk."

I don't look at Cletus. His feet patter across the floor.

"Wait," I say in French. I twist my head up to look at him. "When did you learn French?"

His hand is on the doorframe, holding him in the room, placed just wear I leaned against it, probably the same height too. His brow is knitted tightly though, and he shakes his head.

"I don't understand," he answers. "Slowly, please."

His southern accent is even thick in French. The words he's used are all proper grammatically, but the three phrases he's used aren't complex. I wonder if that's all he knows, phrases, or if he is able to string together words. Saying 'I miss you' and 'where is the bathroom' is different from knowing a language.

"When did you learn French?"

His face falls when I ask the question in English.

"February 2007," he swallows. "When I... proposed. Caro wants to speaking French to our children."

It's stilted, and the verb conjugation is wrong, and he doesn't know the word for proposed, but he can get around it.

I think about the wedding, where I made a joke about Cletus being brave for marrying a woman who speaks French when she was angry. At the time, he was learning it, and he didn't say anything.

Then, I think about being on the dancefloor with Spencer, swaying in his arms, only able to do it because he learned how to dance for me.

God damn it.

"She's not here," it would be easier for both of us to do this in English, but I will do I in French anyway. Slowly, twisting my head to the side while Spencer hovers next to me with the cold cloth. "Ask Stéphane."

"I've have," he says, wrongly, but he says it all the same. "She's not inside Shenandoah."

Spencer's hand reaches down and squeezes my knee. I take his hand under the table, wrapping his fingers in mine.

"I don't know where she is," I tell him.

Cletus digs into the pocket of his jeans. In his fist, he pulls out a piece of paper and unfolds it. He holds it with both hands, both of them shaking and he opens his mouth then shuts it. His eyes scan down the page, presumably skipping through until he finds what he needs.

"Maybe we won't have a baby, but that's okay. I don't regret learning French. You were always worth it," he says, and then begins to fold the letter in his lap. He coughs and then looks at me. "She thinks it's her fault, you know. That we... well, I don't really like to play the blame game, but Caro's always deciding who's at fault. I guess, I just... tell her to call me if you hear from her. Please."

He's not good enough for my sister. He's not good enough, but I think he knows it. Cletus doesn't look like me. Neither really do any of my siblings unless we pick them apart piece by piece, but his eyes are bloodshot, and I would bet my entire salary for the month that he's got a headache too.

"Okay," I manage.

He nods and then heads out. His shoes are on, the bastard. I listen to the sound of the front door shutting.

"I didn't mean to... I should have tried calling again when you didn't pick up," Spencer says. "I know how you feel about him, and I probably shouldn't have let him in, but... well, I felt sorry for him. He hasn't seen his wife in five months."

"You don't think he's cruel to her?" I ask.

In the bathroom, Caro just kept saying how everything is her fault, how it's never his. I had always assumed that was some manipulation on his part. Maybe it is, I'm not a profiler, but Spencer shakes his head.

"I don't think he hurts her. I suppose you never know behind closed doors, but I... no. I doubt it."

I take the cloth from him and press it into my head.

~~~~~

Okay, time wise I'm late, but it's Saturday! Let a hot girl live her hot girl fall life. Also, things are so good right now, right? Things aren't about to go bad. No sir.