Out of This World

Chapter Seven

"Your room, it's so..."

"Creative? Free spirited? Captivating?"

"Dirty."

"Yeah, I refuse to clean it. Just like my mind, sweetheart."

"I'm not your sweetheart."

"Alright, Mars."

Toby's room was dirty, but in an interesting way. It was more of just clutter. There were books all over the floor, stacked up in teetering ways, threatening to collapse at any moment. His infamous denim jacket was tossed over a chair, looking careless - though I was sure Toby had carefully made it look that way. There were notebooks strewn across his desk, something scribbled in all of them. He had somehow even convinced the nurses to let him string christmas lights across the walls, giving the room a glow, eliminating the need for the harsh fluorescent lights. His room looked more like a college dorm than a hospital room.

Mine looked still sterilized and bleak, just the way I liked it.

Toby had been wearing me down, like a cancer. I didn't know if it was his lack of charm, which was replaced with overconfidence, his ridiculous hair, or just the company of someone else in a place meant for the hopeless. But regardless, I was sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at him sprawled out across it like a starfish.

I didn't want to admit it to him, but I was starting to feel like I needed him. It was harder to breathe when he wasn't around. I knew he already knew this, it wasn't like I had a good poker face. But I couldn't say it to him if I had such a hard time saying it to myself.

"What do you want with me?" I asked, wanting an answer more than I wanted to die.

"What do I want with you?" Toby seemed shocked that I would even ask him that. "What are my intentions, you mean? Honestly, Mars, I want to wake up next to you every morning, and not in a hospital bed. I want to be the one you talk to when you want to watch everything burn to the ground. I want to keep you safe and loved and full of life. I want to make you want to die a little bit less."

"So you don't just want me for sex?" I joked, unable to meet his eyes as I said it.

"Oh, is that on the table?"

"You wish."

I had never done it before, and while I wanted to with Toby, I didn't want to in this place. I didn't want it to be something the nurses, or god forbid, Dr. Watts, would find out about. I didn't want it to be a symptom of our diseases.

But still, even without that in our relationship, I knew I'd never feel as happy as I did when I caught him looking at me.

Watching him lying there, beginning to doze off into dreamland, I couldn't think of anywhere else I'd rather be. No matter what my fears were, there were feelings bubbling up that were starting to override them.

"You're so cute when you're sleepy."

"You're cute when I'm sleepy, too." Toby smiled, but his eyes remained closed, and I knew he was drifting off. "Tell me something poetic."

Shit, I was bad at this kind of thing.

"Sometimes I'm sure I don't exist, that I'm just floating around experiencing nothing. My thoughts are fake and nothing matters, or some shit. Was that poetic enough for you?"

Through his semi-conscious state, Toby chuckled.

"Stay with me, will you?" he asked, pulling me closer to him, so we were both lying in bed.

"Always."

"Promise?"

I didn't say anything, because I didn't want to lie and I wasn't sure what the truth was. It didn't matter though, because Toby was already lightly snoring, and didn't need me to respond.

Lying there, it hit me for the first time that I didn't like not knowing my truth. I didn't like not knowing how I felt or what I wanted, or what I could give to this boy.

This feeling was different than anything I'd ever experienced. Spending the majority of my time in hospitals didn't leave much time for boys.

I laid next to Toby and carefully placed my head against his chest to hear his heart beating. He was deep in sleep and I stared at him like I was seeing him for the first time. Rediscovering his ridiculous hair, his eyelashes that would make any girl envious, and the way he looked so peaceful when he was sleeping. But I also saw the things that he spent every waking moment trying to hide from me. The hollowed cheeks that never seemed to fill out no matter how long he stayed clean, the scar above his eyebrow that his stepfather gave him when he was nine (I overheard a nurse talking about it, because of course Toby would never admit someone hurt him to me), the scars from the track marks up and down his body, even his neck. The hint of sadness he permanently wore was the worst thing to see.

I wished I could take it all away from him.

I laid there next to him, worried about what the future held. I worried his heart may change and he would make a decision that would break him. I worried that his stubbornness and resentments would take him back out. I worried for him, but I worried for me more.

I worried I wouldn't be able to handle it if it did. He wasn't even mine, but I was terrified of losing him.