there is something wrong.

i just know it.

my mother had this very same intuition,

and her mother before her did as well.

each time they had a sense of suspicion,

they had been proven right.

their husbands had become adulterers.

now here i sit,

though unmarried but as every bit as in love with spencer reid as any wife would be.

i can feel the mistrust weigh heavy on my bones,

threatening to break them if i don't do something about it soon.

but what should i do?

follow in my grandmothers footsteps and just leave?

pack up all my belongings,

leaving nothing behind but a simple note?

or be more of my mother and argue until our lungs are raw?

the logical reason is to communicate.

to talk and get answers.

i am from a new generation,

one that gives me more opportunities to change than the ones of my mother and her mother.

before i have much time to think further,

the front door opens.

there he is.

the man in which my existence belongs to.

the man i have promised myself to,

inside and out,

to have him in return.

"y/n? you're still awake?"

spencer asks as soon as he's inside.

he locks the door behind him,

like he always does,

then comes to join my company.

"i've been up for a while,"

i admit.

"been waiting on you."

i wait for a sign:

the pulling of his suddenly too tight collar,

the wiping of his perspiring hands,

the coughing to clear his conscious.

something, anything at all that says:

oh, no. she knows.

"i appreciate that. but i hate you missing out on your sleep for me. i want you to be well rested."

who am i kidding?

i am playing mind games with a man who is impenetrable.

this is his living.

he knows how to lie without fault,

which limbs to move to sell his image.

spencer could keep me in the dark forever,

and i would never know.

"y/n? why are you crying?"

i wipe my tears hurriedly,

having never known they fell,

and i take in a deep breath.

"are you cheating on me?"

spencer flinches at my accusation.

"why would you ask such a thing?"

"don't change the subject. don't-don't turn this on me."

"okay,"

he begins with hands extended to calm me.

i hadn't meant to raise my voice but perhaps i am too much like my mother after all.

i could only run so far.

"no, y/n, i'm not having an affair."

my head is pounding.

all i can remember are those very words of my father who denied any wrongdoing until the end.

"please, spencer, don't lie to me! i can't-i can't take it just please tell me."

i clutch my heart that feels like it's beginning to fragment.

i don't understand this influx in emotion or why it is overwhelming me the way it is.

"y/n, my love, please...you need to breathe."

spencer kneels beside me and lets his hand cup both my knee and neck.

i mollify beneath his touch.

despite my brains cries of protest,

i become whole again.

"don't you know how much i love you, y/n? my life is-is devoted to you. i can't even fathom looking at another woman, y/n. you are all i see and want. i know..."

spencer pauses.

he presses his lips together in thought and allows for his caress to smooth me over.

"i know what happened between your mother and father wasn't easy to see. especially when you were so young. i know...i know you think you're-you're family is cursed with the infliction of infidelity but you...you are not. i will never put you in that position. i love you so much, it's all i know. sometimes, i can't even focus at work because all i can think about is when i'll be back home to you."

spencer takes his hand and wipes away the remainder of my tears.

his smile is soft when i've been everything but.

i have been cruel.

"my love for you is infinite."

i fall apart.

i crumble into his arms and let him mend these broken bones of mine.

"i just...i thought with you staying out so late and being gone for so long that-that it must have been something else."

"i'm sorry...i've been so neglectful of your needs, taking priority of my job when i should have been here with you."

i shake my head at this.

his career calls for long hours and his undivided attention.

who am i to demand more?

"no...no, that's your job. i just...i'm being crazy."

spencer lays his gentle lips to my cheek and leaves me with a kiss of reassurance.

"you're not crazy. you're reacting as best you know how to in this situation. i left you too long to overthink and i am sorry i ever let that happen. the extra, long hours at work are unnecessary. i want nothing more than to be here with you."

spencer takes me into his arms of arbitration and fixes me right again.

he is reminding me that i am not my mother and he is not my father.

that i have escaped that curse by the luck of god,

that he is here and with me.

"i love you so much,"

i whisper.

spencer kisses my temple while he lets his hands glide up and down my back in soothing.

"i love you just as much, if not more."

spencer rests his forehead to mine and molds his hand around the figure of my face.

"are you okay now? do you still want to talk?"

"you don't think i'm being clingy?"

he chuckles at this.

"not at all. and even if you were, i would love you the very same."

he kisses me with confidence after this.

it is only meant to be a slow, soft kiss that fills our spirits.

and while it does,

i've suddenly grown insatiable.

i need to wallow away in this love of his.

i pull him into me and he responds.

spencer let's his lips speak the language we've created.

i am whisked to bed that night by my lover,

the chosen man my heart beats in rhythm with.

as we lay entangled into each other,

proving ourselves to be in love and desperate for one another's touch,

he kisses my shoulder and says,

"i'm glad we chose each other...i'd choose you a hundred times over if i could, y/n. it will always be you."

and i rest that night better than i have in weeks.

because i am tucked away with the promise of devotion.

i am neither my mother or my mother's mother.

while they were cursed in love,

i have reigned triumphant.

i am changing.

and i am healing.

this is forever.