He really was nice. Too nice, some might say, though Eleanor never really understood that. How could someone be too nice when it seemed like there was such a shortage of genuinely kind people in the world? Usually the problem was that people weren't nice enough. But not Spence. Everything about him radiated a reassuring warmth that drew Eleanor in like a moth to a flame, and she had to remind herself for maybe the thousandth time that afternoon not to latch onto that with her usual iron grip.
Easier said than done.
It had always been easier to avoid the really hard things by focusing on Aaron. After their father's murder and their mother's disappearance, most days all Eleanor had to do was focus on Aaron and how he was doing in order to keep herself from unraveling. Of course, she had her bad days too, but Aaron was usually there for those. He wasn't now, and this was the first day in at least a month that Eleanor could safely say didn't feel all that bad. It felt like maybe things were finally turning around.
Her eyes lowered briefly to inspect her shoes when Spence did that thing that people do where they say they're sorry for things that they couldn't possibly have any control over. It was a nice gesture, but somehow always borderline awkward, at least for Eleanor. An unwanted spotlight shining directly onto the wound she was trying so desperately to keep hidden and not doing a very good job of it. It made her feel self-conscious, even when it did also happen to be in the presence of someone that she very much didn't hate being around. But the feeling was only temporary.
Spence's renewed promise likely wasn't meant to be anything binding, but Eleanor glanced back up at him gratefully anyway, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. He was very good at that too, inspiring confidence in other people. It wasn't the fake kind she so often observed with her father's associates, the people who were all fake smiles and nothing of real substance underneath. There was nothing about Spence that seemed fake, even if he was so remarkably handsome that you had to wonder. People who were that good looking usually knew it, and flaunted it. He didn't.
Eleanor hoped he was as good as he said he was, because if this didn't pan out, she didn't know what she was going to do. Of course, Helena had a few ideas of her own, but Eleanor wasn't at all comfortable with anything that went on in that woman's head at the moment. Which was also technically her head, now. Definitely not something she'd gotten used to yet, but she found herself believing Spence that she'd get there too.
"Questions?" Eleanor bit her lip anxiously with a short laugh. "I don't think so. I'm sure I'll think of at least five as soon as I leave here, though." Feeling strangely energized (no doubt a combination of pent up adrenaline from sitting down for so long and the sugar fueled donuts she'd very recently ingested), Eleanor stood from her chair with the same kind of urgency from before, but looking around as she was about to say goodbye, her eyes caught sight of the art hanging on his walls again and pointed curiously to the one next to Sunset Boulevard. "Actually I do have one question. What's that from? I recognize Sunset but I can't place the other. Seems familiar, somehow."