Laughter [Tobuscus/Toby Turner]

Chapter Nineteen

Sooner or later I discover the only con to Toby's awakening. The hamartia. The fatal flaw.

He's not himself, just a shell. Just the outside, not the inside. It's like he was a pitcher and death was a glass, eating up all his contents until he was just a model.

And I hated it.

I wanted Toby back, my Toby, the one who brings me ice cream when I'm upset and yells at cabinet ghosts and starts food fights before noon and still somehow finds a way to love every single person he meets. I know I'm being selfish as Hell, but I just want him back. And I know it's hard, considering he stared death right in the face and escaped it. I just miss him, I miss him more than I did when he was in a coma.

Sometimes he's up for talking, but not normally, and he never smiles. He's colorless, a pale face against a sea of the anonymous. I tried talking about us, but that had no apparent effect, so I stopped. After a week in ICU and two more in regular medical care, I finally make the decision that may change it for Toby.

"Hey, Tobes." I say gently as I walk into his room. He looks up at me, then looks back down to stare at his hands. I sit down at the end of the bed, a chill running down my spine, and move to sit cross legged, facing him. I take his hands in mine.

"Toby, there's something I wanna talk to you about." I whisper, and he meets my eyes before nodding ever so slightly. I take a nervous breath and prepare my next words.

"I think we need to send you somewhere. Rehab. Just for a little while, just to recover." I say in a rush, and Toby doesn't break my stare.

"You wanna send me to a place for crazy people?"

"No, Toby, of course not! They'd help you, they'd make you better, I just think-"

"But what if I don't want to get better?"

I pause. "What?"

"You heard me." It's his turn to pause and take a breath. "The truth is... I'm tired, Cassie. I'm tired and just so damn done. And if you want to send me off to a rehab center, go ahead. But I didn't, and still don't, want to live with myself knowing that you blame yourself for how I've been lately." He shakes his head, breaking the gaze to look down at our hands, and I mull over that statement or awhile before deciding to speak again.

"Toby, I just want to do what's best for you. I want you to get better. I know you can get better." I say quietly, yet there's a touch of determination in my voice. He looks back up at me.

"Go ahead."

The following morning, I sign him up for a three week stay at Evergreen rehabilitation center.

- - -

I don't know how to feel rn