Out of This World

Chapter Eleven

Since the night Toby told me he was going to marry me, things changed. Not necessarily in a bad way, but not in a good way either. Things were just...different.

It might have been the weather - that was what I told myself, anyways. In the dead of August, the heat was driving everyone insane. Even more than usual.

One night we were sitting in Toby's room, blasting a couple fans we stole from the nurse's station, trying to keep cool. I had been biting my tongue, but I couldn't take it anymore.

"What's wrong?" I asked out loud. "You seem distracted tonight."

"Nothing."

"Come on, Toby," I practically begged, "what are you going through?"

"I'm trying to see things as they really are instead of just what I wish they were."

"What do you mean?" I hated when he talked like this. It was as if he was always speaking in riddles, expecting me to figure out the answer.

"I mean, how can I tell if I'm real? If I'm alive? I can feel my pulse, but it feels fake. Everything feels fake, except for you. You're the only real thing I've ever felt, Mars. But you're not from here, remember? You're really, literally, out of this world."

"Christ Toby, stop talking nonsense, please."

"Of course you would think it's nonsense."

I didn't understand what he was going through, what was going on in his head.

"Then tell me in a way I'd understand," I practically begged.

"Manipulation - you understand that, don't you, Mars? That's one of the first things you ever told me. I have this bad habit of taking people's lives and molding them into something that fits me. I always have. I did it for dope for years, I did it to manipulate, to help me lie cheat and steal. I did it to get day passes out of here, and I did it to you."

"Me?"

"Come on, don't you see it? People always tell me I need to stop twisting things to fit my story, stop making something out of nothing, but do I listen? Do I ever stop and look at the fact that sometimes what I'm trying to create just might kill me?

I wished I understood, but I still didn't.

"Is this about you wanting to marry me?" I asked hesitantly, "because I don't know why you would want to, but it's something that we could talk about, someday."

I didn't mean it though, and Toby knew it.

"Jesus Mars, it's like I'm torn between cutting you off so i don't get hurt, or pulling you in so i can love you longer. I never meant for you to mean this much to me. But here I am, finding myself stuck between loving you and running from you, because letting you comfort me is going to bring nothing but heartache when you I let you go. I don't want to lose a part of me when I lose you."

"Who says you're going to lose me?"

"I'm a junkie and you're crazy. It's bound to happen eventually."

He had a point.

"I'm not going anywhere, Toby." Whether or not I knew it to be true, I knew he needed to hear it - maybe that meant I was getting better. Putting other people in front of myself.

"Promise?"

"Of course."

"Do you love me?"

I didn't have an answer for that one. I looked at Toby and stared into his brown eyes, and I saw his heart break a little bit more. I didn't know why he would ask, it wasn't like he didn't already know the answer.

"Toby..."

"What, Mars? What's stopping you from letting yourself feel something for once in your life?"

That, I did have an answer for.

"I'm just so god damn sad, and I don't even know if I want to get better."

"I need you to, Mars. Because I need more."

"You told me you didn't."

"I lied."

"You told me you'd never lied to me."

"I lied about that, too."

That stung. I couldn't say I was surprised - nothing good ever worked out in my life, and I was sure it was the case for Toby's, too. We weren't the kind of people that got to be happy. But still, for the first time in a long time, I had let myself become open enough to be disappointed in someone.

"I didn't know you felt that way," I whispered, feeling myself starting to shut down again.

"Oh trust me," he said, "I won't ever tell you how I feel again."