Part 35 - The Sun and The Moon

Night time came back around much sooner than I had thought it would, and all through the day I had been taking small naps, each lasting half an hour to an hour. So as I then lay awake, recharged and feeling much better than I had been during the day, I found myself looking upon Toby, fast asleep next to me. His face as peaceful as an angel.

The only problem that I could find was that now my sleeping schedule would be thrown off, and all because of one day's recuperation, leaving me nocturnal, and Toby as his usual diurnal pattern. And I just couldn't let our life together become that way. Me, the moon, and Toby, the sun, forever chasing each other around in an endless orbit. So close, yet never meeting.

Closing my eyes, I decided to give sleep one final try, counting sheep, stars, whatever it would take.

Eventually after about a thousand sheep had been counted, I fell into a light slumber, stuck in the world between sleep and being awake, but it was still good enough for me.

I began to dream, and quickly found that they were fairly odd. It was Toby and me, and somehow, we'd both ended up in Kentucky, facing my favorite bookstore. Though just as I was about to reach the knob on the door, all of these homeless men were on the ground, sleeping. When I first saw them, I jumped up like a jack-in-the-box, and hopped my way over to be with Toby, who seemed to be ignoring the sleeping men.

At his side, I held onto his arm, freaked out by what had just happened, whispering, "We can just skip the bookstore for now, and we'll come back a little bit later."

Smiling he nodded his head, and began to guide us both away from the store, before either of us knew it, however, the stars were out, and we were standing in the middle of a dark parking lot, where there were only a few street lamps lighting the way for us, making it somewhat difficult to see.

Yet Toby was still there, and knowing that made it so much easier for me not to be afraid.

After we'd been walking for a while, a few stores, with their lights still on, came into view. Looking up at Toby, we silently decided to check them out, but what was on the inside of one of the tiny stores, wasn't what either of us expected.

It was an entire mall.

Complete with a HotTopic, GameStop, F.Y.E. and so much more.

Heelying off, Toby entered into the GameStop, and I wondered if I had my Heelys with me in this weird, but nice dream as well. Kicking off with my right foot, I found myself gliding effortlessly after him. The game selections were phenomenal, nothing like what I'd ever seen a GameStop carry at just one time. There were games going back to the PlayStation, along with old PC games that I had played when I first got a computer.

One of which, I found and happily picked up. It was a Windows 98 game, and I knew by heart what its title was, and what sort of plot it had. It was Carnivores, and it was one of those hunting games where you have to deal with big prey. Dinosaur big, if I had to be precise.

Holding it in my arms, I was going to buy it, if just for anything, the memories that I had of the game.

"Hey, Brixta, you'll never guess what they've got over here!" I heard Toby call out from somewhere within the store. Following his voice, I quickly found him standing next to a tall pile of new, never-been-opened copies of Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

Was this a good dream? Or was it a nightmare?

I slowly reached out and grabbed a copy, in my hand I noticed that it was lighter than it should have been. Could it have been a bad copy? A game case with no disc?

Not wanting to find out, I set it back down, as well as chose not to get Carnivores.

We left GameStop, the mall fading away into the store that was meant to be there all along. A common conventional store, with its many aisles divided up so that the merchandise was nice and neat and very easy to find.

Taking my hand in his, Toby and I both Heelied up and down the rows of goods, looking at the things that we might need, like toothpaste, coffee, tea, while skipping the things that we had no use for, hair dye, pay by the minute cell phones, or soda. Since neither of us seemed to drink much of it. We stopped at the small collection of movies and music that was stocked on the shelves.

Mainly all that we saw were movies that went straight to DVD and CDs that were meant for small children, and I didn't know about Toby, or how he felt, but I myself just wasn't ready to have a child of my own. And I probably wouldn't be for another couple of years. I at least wanted to be married first, with a stable job.

Gently tugging on my arm, we continued to wheel our way through the rest of the store, me tripping once over my feet, and falling down on my butt. When I fell, Toby stopped, offered me his hand, whispering as he did so, "Are you okay? Didn't get hurt did you?"

From what I could tell, all was fine. I took his hand and back on my feet, was surprised when I felt myself being brought in for a tight hug. His arms wrapped around me as far as they'd go, Toby pressed his lips to my cheek, his voice in my ear, whispering, "I love you!"

Filled with bliss, I softly told him the exact same, my mouth forming into a smile. "I love you too, Toby! Far more than you could ever begin to guess at! You're the dearest, the most absolutely wonderful thing that's ever happened to me! Around you, I feel more than I could ever thought possible for me." I began to blush, though the reason as to why was beyond my understanding. "You could never fully know what it is that I feel when I'm around you...Yes, you are my sanctuary. But you're so much more than that! When you, as little as just hold my hand in yours, can you feel me tremble with overwhelming joy? From the first time you and I met, you've had me under your binding spell, working it slowly so that I'd never want to escape it. You leave me craving for more time to be with you! I just can help but to feel this way, and I must tell you, that I love feeling the way that I do! After all, I would still be feeling nothing, if it hadn't been for you!" I realized that what I'd just said sounded poetic, but if that was how I could convey my emotions to Toby, then I'd use it for all that it was worth.

As long as the words were true, the way that they were told shouldn't matter.

His eyes were on me, it seemed that they might be looking at my very soul. A smile, wider than I'd ever seen, working its way onto his lips, the very smile that I so desperately loved. "You don't have any idea about how it makes me feel, hearing you say all of that!" Slowly he began to bring his lips to mine, while holding onto me with just one hand.

In a moments time, the scenery of my dream zoomed through dozens of different scenes. We were in my old bedroom, looking exactly the way that I'd left it. We then appeared in a meadow, unlike the one that we had stood beside yesterday afternoon. Soon the scenery flew by too quickly, and I couldn't tell where we'd gone, or where we were going. Then as soon as it had started, it stopped, and I could no longer see Toby.

I was now alone in an unfamiliar place. Looking down, I saw that I was in a wedding dress, and came to the conclusion that I must've been inside of a church. A rush of excitement flooded through me, as I hopefully thought that it must be Toby waiting for me on the other side of the large wooden doors. Waiting for me to walk down the aisle, ready to take his name.

As I lowered my veil, I took the few steps that were needed to close the gap between me and the doors. Opened them slowly, and instantly caught sight of a tall man with brown, nearly black hair, it was neater than what was normal for him, but I figured that Toby wanted to look good on our special day.

Getting closer, I took my place beside my groom, who when I turned to smile at him, saw that it wasn't Toby after all. I didn't know who it was that was standing so closely to my shoulder, where my skin was exposed due to my wearing a strapless dress.

Out of instinct I demanded the one question that I could think of, "Who are you?"

He laughed, the sound not quite reaching my heart the way that Toby's laughter did. Nor was his smile nearly as effective on me, and when he spoke, though he did sound nice, I could tell that it just wasn't the same. "You know who I am. We've been engaged for almost a year!"

Staggering back, I whispered, "I'm afraid that I don't know you. I'm already seeing a great guy, his name is Toby Turner, now if you'll excuse me, I really need to go find where he is..." I turned to leave this man that I knew nothing of, ready to leave him far behind me, my only thoughts in my mind were the ones begging to know where Toby could be.

Though he didn't follow, the man called out, "You won't find him. He's moved on, so have you. Or don't you remember, you left him for me."

I froze in my tracks, what he'd just said, there was absolutely no truth to it at all. Never would I leave Toby! Never! He was all that I needed, after all, he had saved me...What kind of person would I be to throw that all away? Not looking back, unable and unwilling to face whoever it was that stood behind me, with as much venom in my voice as I could manage, I harshly whispered out, just loud enough for him to hear. "You're okay looking, with your Harry Potter get up going on, but I grew out of that stage in life a while ago. Sorry to say, but you're a day late and a dollar short! I'd honestly be crazy to leave Toby!" Continuing to move forward, I heard him call to me once more.

"It will happen! Just wait and see!"

No matter how hard I looked, I couldn't find Toby, and once again, we had become the sun and moon, forever chasing each other around in an endless orbit.