*Long chapter because I didn't want to divide it into two, that's also why it took me a bit longer… Thanks for reading everyone!*
I couldn't sleep again that night. So I repeated my little adventure to the living room couch. Toby was once again on his laptop, annotating some video he had just uploaded. On the bridge of his nose a pair of half-rimmed glasses perched. I hadn't realized he was wearing contacts before, but I liked the glasses. It made him look more timid and intelligent.
He had in some Apple ear buds in so I tapped him cautiously on the shoulder. Toby simply looked over and nodded so I crawled into the same spot I was in the night before with the same pillow under my head.
Eventually he finished up annotating and reached down to rub my shoulder.
"Am I doing alright, Anita?" He asked me in a whisper, not looking down.
"What do you mean?" I was startled by the question.
"I mean, are you happy? Is there something I shouldn't be doing or should be doing?"
"I think you're doing an amazing job. I like it here, Toby, I really do."
He sighed in relief and leaned down to press his cheek against mine in a tight embrace, "Thanks."
He didn't return to his work on the computer, but instead just let the glow of the screen wash over us as he stroked my hair again.
"Toby?" I muttered tentatively, pushing up so that I leaned against my forearm.
"Mm-hm?"
"Can we watch some of your videos? I want to see them."
I learned a lot about his sense of humor that night. He laughed at his own jokes along with me and I couldn't have loved it anymore. We started with some of his new ones, going through Cute Win Fails. Then we watched literal trailers, and slowly the videos got older and older until they weren't even HD anymore. He skipped over a few in the end, one's he wasn't proud of anymore or had some language I couldn't take, and ended with one called, "Tag."
It was almost midnight when we finished, the latest I've ever stayed up. My eyes drooped half way through the epic rainbow chase scene, and the world slowly faded away.
Throughout the next two weeks I adapted to life with Toby. I still fell asleep each night on the couch and woke up each morning in my bed, but it became only routine to the both of us.
Toby spent a few days off to shoot a video with a friend named Jack, some other YouTuber that I hadn't had the privilege to meet yet. Meanwhile Olga babysat me. But neither of them called it that.
She liked to take me out shopping, and I discovered that her way of vlogging and how different it was from Toby's. Instead of short clips of his day, she vlogged as much as possible every minute and threw it all together for the next day. I ended up in there a lot. Olga liked to treat me with little things while Toby was working like a new shirt or pair of sandals. When he finally got to meet up with us again, we would go out for ice cream or buy a pack of M&M's.
With Gryphon on a leash, we would take the candy with us to the park and practice throwing each chocolate piece in the air and try and catch it in our open mouths. I quickly learned to master the technique while Toby liked to exaggerate his failures into completely falling over.
It was hot those summer days, hot enough that you could literally feel the sweat bead up on your forehead. Hot enough that sometimes when you open the fridge you stand there for a second to let the cold air wash over you. But they were good days. I became a proper daughter to Toby.
One particularly hot day Toby was home but the thermometer said it wasn't a good idea to go to the park. Instead he drove the two of us to the post office, where he left me in the car for a minute to return with a large box of envelopes balanced on top of a bigger cardboard package.
I twisted myself around to watch as he opened up the trunk to relieve his load onto even more mail.
"Is that your fan mail?" I asked him in astonishment.
"Yeah, I'm really bad at keeping up with it," he sighed as he closed the car door to come in. "It's too hot to do anything that requires moving so I thought we could go through some of it, usually it's a lot of fun." He smiled at me encouragingly.
"Okay!" I already had my eyes on that big package.
In the garage I realized that the reason I had thought it cluttered before was because of the large amount of boxes. Toby opened the trunk again and transferred the burden onto some shelves.
"Wait!" I cried, something catching my eye, "Can I see that?"
It was the package I wanted to open before. But there was something more than just the fact that it was large, I thought I had read my name. In fact I was quite positive that I had.
"Antbuscus?" I immediately connected it to Toby's main username, Tobuscus.
"It's addressed specifically to you. Why don't you take that one in? I'll get a stack of some envelopes."
"Okay," I said, still in wonder.
We settled in the living room. I patiently waited for Toby to return from the kitchen with the scissors while sitting on the beanbag. He settled on the black sofa and used one of the blades to slice through the packing tape.
"OHHHH!" He exclaimed, pulling out the contents. A giant mass of copper colored fluff emerged from the cardboard. It was a worn out teddy bear, almost as big as me. Its brown fur was matted around the face and its stuffing sagged in its legs and arms. But it was perfect.
I opened up my arms and Toby handed him to me, I squeezed the stuffed bear like I'd known him for a long time.
"There's a letter," Toby said and fished out a folded up piece of paper from the bottom of the box. It said in perfect handwritten letters, "To Ant."
He passed it over to me as well. I adjusted the bear so he hugged me around my waist as I leaned over him to open up the letter. I read it in the slow, tedious way a little girl does.
Hey Ant! My name is Kristy. I live in Belmont, Massachusetts and I'm 17 years old. You are one lucky duck, getting to live with the amazing Toby Turner. But you probably have had to go through a lot to get there.
I want to give you my best friend. His name is George and he's helped me through tough times of my own. You see, I'm very sick. I've been very sick for a long time. My body has to fight this nasty kind of cancer called leukemia. Isn't that a funky name? I've had it ever since I was eight, about your age as far as I can tell. It makes me feel gross and I often spend my time in the hospital.
I've always wanted to send Toby something, to try to tell him what he's done for me. But I could never thing of anything worthy enough to give to him. My boyfriend showed me his videos once, and he's put a smile on my face ever since every time. Toby kept me from giving up and has become part of my daily medicine.
I don't know you very well, Ant, but I can tell you're way too grown up for your age. You've been through too much when you still deserve to be a kid.
Take good care of George. He's old but he's a great listener.
And tell Toby I said hi.
Love,
Kristy
I suddenly had one of those moments where everything bad that's ever happened to me comes crashing down, striking me into sobbing. Halfway through the letter I felt my lip begin to quiver, so I bit it down. But the connections suddenly made between me and this girl hit me so hard I broke. It was messy. My tears poured out and I buried my face into George's fur to wipe the snot that was beginning to come out of my nose.
Toby had been looking through some other mail, but his smiles at the fanart vanished when he heard the choking noises I made. He crawled over and folded me into his arms. I still grasped the giant stuffed bear to my body as Toby cradled me, whispering softly.
"Shhh, it's okay. It's okay. Just let it out," he murmured into my hair, pressing his lips into the top of my head, "Oh, Ant, I'm sorry."
I heard him take a deep gulp, like he was fighting back tears too.
But I wasn't with Toby. I was deep into my past, where death and depression surrounded me. Where I apparently grew up too fast to cope with the terrible things that happened everywhere around me. Where there was no George to hug or Toby to protect me. Where there was only me and a life to push through.
