Toby Who? -- A Toby "Tobuscus" Turner Fan Fiction

Prologue

 “A falling star fell from your heart

And landed in my eyes

I screamed aloud, as it tore through them

And now it's left me blind

The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out

You left me in the dark

No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight

In the shadow of your heart.”

I couldn’t believe this was happening to me.

I sat next to Blake on his porch swing, staring up blankly at the vast, nighttime Texas sky. The warm June breeze gently ruffled my long blonde curls, tickling my back and causing a chill to run down my spine.

“Are you even listening to me, Emma Leigh?” Blake asked while looking at me like I was some small child with a short attention span. He frustratedly ran his hands through his short blonde hair and rolled his gorgeous baby blue eyes.

“…What?” I managed to choke out in my light southern accent. My throat felt dry and sore; I could hardly breathe. I was terrified that it would crack at any minute as I tried to hold back my tears.

“I can’t do this anymore.” Blake repeated himself, not knowing that I had heard him loud and clear the first time he said those heart-breaking words to me.

I broke my staring contest with the moon to gaze at my boyfriend of 5 long and happy years with tear-filled hazel eyes. “…Why not?” I begged to know as one lone tear escaped from my eye and slowly slid down my cheek. I didn’t even bother to wipe it, so it just plopped onto my lap. My heart felt like Blake had just jammed a knife into it.

Blake took ahold of my hands that were previously folded in my lap as he said, “Do you want me to be honest with you?” When I nodded, he continued, “I love you, I really do. But I’m just not in love with you anymore." 

Those last few words really drove the metaphorical knife deeper into my chest, twisted it around, then jerked it out just as painfully as it had entered. I yanked my hands away from his grasp, standing up to my full 5'5" of height as the rest of my tears fell down my face. How could he say this now, after we’d spent 5 amazing years together? I ran down the porch steps, desperately trying to get to my car before the real crying began. The kind that came in uncontrollable sobs and made me hyperventilate.

I made it to my car, clumsily opening the door and slamming it after I was safely in the driver’s seat. As I locked the doors, I heard Blake calling my name while running towards my turquoise car (which didn't take long since he was well over 6 feet tall and had a very athletic build). What could he possibly have said that would’ve made me feel better at that moment? Anything other than “just kidding, babe, we’ll be together forever” would’ve been just like pouring salt into my open and bleeding knife wound.

I rested my head against the steering wheel as my sobs overwhelmed and consumed me. Blake tapped on the driver’s-side window, but I kept my head down. I couldn’t bear to look at him. Not like this. Not after what he’d just told me. This whole thing felt unreal, like something out of a terrible nightmare that causes you to wake up crying and screaming.

“Babe, don’t be like this.” Blake pleaded through the window, as I still stubbornly refused to open the door or roll down the window to talk to him. How dare he call me “babe”! I was done. I needed to get away from him, NOW.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled myself together and put my car into gear. I tried to shut out all my emotions so I could safely make the 10 minute drive back to my apartment. As I sped away from Blake and his house, I never once looked in the rearview mirror. I didn’t want to look at the guy who had just broken my heart and who had ripped every dream I’d had for us into a million little tiny pieces.

When I made it to my apartment building, I flew up the stairs to my 3rd floor unit, sprinted into my room and landed face-first onto my bed, finally allowing myself to fully feel every emotion I’d been trying to hold in until I was alone.

I didn’t know how I was going to deal with this. Blake and I had been together since our Junior year of college. All of our friends saw us as the perfect couple. We were inseparable and completely head-over-heals in love with each other. We’d been together for 5 whole years, which was a really big chunk out of my 26 years of life. My family absolutely adored him, as did I. I gave my relationship with Blake everything that I had, both emotionally and sexually (he was my first). There had been talk of us getting married and having kids together. I planned on spending the rest of my life with him. I was 100% sure that I had found THE ONE. When Blake unexpectedly asked me to meet him at his house earlier that night, I thought he might propose or at least ask me to move in with him. I was not expecting us to break up at all.

Now, all of those thoughts about my past and potential future with Blake came crashing down around me and buried me under their suffocating weight. Everything I thought I knew was replaced with uncertainty. If I wasn’t going to spend forever with Blake, then what the hell was I supposed to do with my life?

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A/N - This is chapter dedicated to Crybuscus, thanks for the awesome cover! :)