Out of This World

Chapter Sixteen

I knew the moment he walked in, he was high. It wasn't the inability to meet my eyes, or the slow nods in and out when he sat down next to me. It was the light he had, the spunk he carried around in his demeanor in an almost obnoxious way, it was gone.

"You look like hell-"

Before I could even finish getting the words out, his lips were on mine. In an urgent, needy way, he kissed me deeper than I had even been kissed before.

"You taste like heaven."

I stared at him. I didn't know what there was to say.

"What," he mumbled, "notice anything different?"

"You're loaded."

"I was talking about my haircut, but way to ease into it."

He had gotten a haircut, I noticed. Within two weeks it would be back in his eyes again, but I was sure he didn't care. It wouldn't have surprised me if he had gotten it just to have something to distract me from his high.

"What the fuck happened?" I asked, unsure if I actually wanted to know the answer.

"I swore I wasn't going to touch the one thing that always tore us apart, but I've found myself high and I don't understand why you're not the poison in my veins."

"Stop talking nonsense," I begged, "What happened?"

"I think I'm dying, which is great. I've never been one for life anyways," he mumbled, a small smirk on his face, "I've wished for death."

"Shut up," I whispered, "you're not dying. You're just high. The world's still here, Toby. You can make your way back to it."

"That's the thing, Mars. I don't want to, not if you're unhappy in it."

"I'd be a lot happier if I didn't notice everything. If I didn't notice how you can't look at me anymore, how you've lost more weight than I thought possible. If I didn't notice the track marks on your arms, and the times you disappear to god knows where. I'd be a lot happier if I didn't notice you falling more in love with the drugs than with me."

"Seriously, Mars. I wanted to relapse - it's the devil in me, I know. I missed nodding off and feeling like a piece of dust floating around. I don't want to be clean anymore. I want to get as dirty as I possibly can before it's too late. I know it's horrible timing, but it's what I want, and I'm not in the business of denying myself life's pleasures."

"Why did you do it? You told me you wouldn't. You told me you loved me."

"I'll never love you. Not in the way you want me to."

Fuck. That stung.

"But I miss you," I said, holding back the tears.

"I miss you, too."

"We're both still here."

"Yet I still miss us. I miss who we were before you got sad again, before I got high again. I miss the less fucked up versions of ourselves."

"That sounds like something we can fix, doesn't it?"

"Don't kid yourself, Mars. You're always going to be sad, just like I'm always going to be high. It's in our DNA. It's written in the stars."

"What the hell are you talking about, Toby."

"I want to say the same," Toby replied, "I want to tell you I love you and miss you and that we're never going to go through anything like this again. I want to shout it from the rooftops that you're my person and my drug and that nothing can compare to you. I want to tell you that every moment I was gone, I was thinking about you and how much I wanted to come back."

"Then do it."

"Oh god, I wish I could. But I've never lied to you before, and I'm not going to start now."

"But at the same time, I wanted to get high to forget you. But I'm fucking loaded now and all I can think about is you. It's never going to not be you."

"You say that, but you don't love me?"

I didn't understand. Fucking addicts, they never made sense when they were high.

"Words are just sweet nothings, Mars. You know that. You feel so much all the time, and you need someone to match that. I can't be that for you, because I spend my life running away from any feeling at all. I walk a fine line between healing and self-destruction. I've never known any other way."

"I don't want you to match it, Toby. You calm me down, you make me normal. I need you. You told me I was addictive."

"That's the problem, sweetheart. Drugs aren't good for you."

I stopped breathing for just a moment. I was the one drug he didn't want?

"You don't want me, you need me," Toby continued, "you don't love me at all, you never did. You made that clear. You just need me to feel real. You used me, and I let you. But now that I think about it, there never was anything real between us. You were a crazy mess when we met, and I was just another junkie. Our minds just wanted a little bit of sanity and calmness in the storm, and while we got it, it was just a cover for our own fucked up peace of mind."

"I'm in love with you."

The words came out before I could stop them. It might have been my mania talking, but it didn't matter. It was said.

I couldn't look at him at first, and I kept my head down. I didn't know if I wanted to see what he was thinking, and he was always so bad at hiding it. Whether it was in shame, or simply to hide my blush, I didn't know.

I didn't want to know his reaction to my proclamation. He didn't believe me, and I wasn't sure if I did either. But I couldn't keep it in anymore. To me, he was everything. He was the reason the sun rose every day and the only thing keeping the stars in the sky. Whether I knew how I felt or not, I knew I couldn't go on thinking that he didn't mean anything to me.

I needed someone to know. I needed him to know. I just didn't want to look.

But when I looked, God, I really looked.

The way his hair still looked too long, even with a fresh haircut. The way he scrunched his eyebrows when he was deep in thought - like he was doing now. The way his ridiculous denim jacket fell over his shoulders in an almost comical way, because he had lost so much weight in the past few weeks.

It wasn't comical, it was sad. But I didn't want to cry, and the only other option was to laugh.

He wouldn't meet my eyes, and that hurt more than the silence.

"What a tragedy," he finally muttered.

"Call me crazy," I whispered to myself.

"We were playing a game, Mars. Come on, we're in a psych ward for god's sake. I was ahead for a while, but then things got too real and you came out ahead. You got me to feel something, to stop messing with you, and then you left. Emotionally, anyways. And now I'm leaving you physically."

I didn't know what to say. The rumors were true, he really was leaving. I knew I should be happy, this was what I wanted. I wanted him to go, to get better, to be alive. But I didn't think about how it would mean he was leaving me behind, and I sure as hell didn't think he'd actually do it.

"So congrats on your win, you earned it."

I watched Toby get up and start to walk out of the room. I knew he was going to slam the rest of the dope he had hidden underneath his mattress, before he was stuck in a room where he had no choice but to get better, and I couldn't stop him.

I didn't want to.

"I'll see you in 21 days, right?" I asked, hesitant to speak.

Toby just looked at me, sadness in his hollowed out eyes.

"I'm so much weaker than I've ever wanted anyone to see, Marina."

"You don't have to stay," I whispered, tears in my eyes. I hoped to god he would anyways, though. I hoped he would tell me that even though he didn't have to, even though he shouldn't, that he would. For me, for him, for us.

He didn't.