When the reception ended, Cabe drove Paige, Happy, and Tim back to the hotel. Toby, Walter, and Sylvester were still out drinking. Paige offered to hang out with Happy for a while, but the mechanic said she wanted to be alone, so Paige went back to her room to call Ralph.
After a lot of negotiation, it had been agreed that, while Paige was in New York, Ralph could stay home alone during the day as long as he went to Sloan's house at night. By the time Paige got back to her room, it was a little past five in East-Coast time, meaning Ralph would probably just be getting home from school. She pulled out her phone and dialed her apartment's number.
"Hi, Mom."
"Ralph, hi! How are you?"
"Fine. How was the funeral?"
"Oh, it was a really nice service."
"Really? It was nice?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Well, aren't funerals supposed to be sad?"
"Oh, yes, it was really sad for some people. But it was also nice that everyone got a chance to say goodbye to Toby's dad. Does that make sense?"
"I guess."
"Good. How's your homework coming?"
"I finished it during lunch."
"Oh, good! So what are you doing now?"
"I'm looking at the algorithm that Walter and I were working on yesterday."
"Oh, right. What does that algorithm do, again?"
Ralph launched into one of those explanations exceptionally-complicated, technological-jaron-filled explanations that Paige had no hope of understanding. She still loved listening to the animation in his voice, though, and she was almost sad when the explanation was over.
"Wow, that sounds like a complicated project."
"Kind of, yeah."
"Alright, well I'll let you get back to it, then. But it was nice to talk to you, sweetie. And don't forget, Sloan's mom is picking you up at seven, okay?"
"Okay."
"Love you."
"Love you, too."
"Goodbye."
After Paige hung up the phone, she went out into the hallway to go find Tim and Cabe and see if they were ready for dinner. On the way to their room, though, she ran into Toby.
"Toby!" she called, and, as he looked at her, she could see immediately that he was decently drunk.
"Hey, Paige," he said. He, at least, seemed happier than he had been at the tribute.
"How are you doing?"
"Good, just going to go lie down for a minute."
"Wait." Paige grabbed his arm; she didn't think Happy would be in the mood to deal with a drunk psychiatrist. "How about you come lie down in my room? I think Happy's napping."
"Oh. Okay."
When they got back to Paige's room, Toby sat down on the bed. Paige leaned against the wall, searching for a safe conversation topic, something that would not send Toby into the tears that had been so prevalent in the past few days.
"Happy said you were unusually humble at the medical conference last week," she said finally, a small smile on her face. She'd meant it as a sort of light-hearted joke, but Toby nodded seriously; he seemed to sober instantly. Paige braced herself for any possibly-impending sobs, but he didn't started crying.
"I guess."
"Hey, you okay?"
"Yeah, it's just…" He shrugged. "I'm glad I'm not living that kind of life anymore."
"What kind of life?"
"You know, being famous."
"You didn't like the notoriety of it?"
"No, that's the thing - I loved it. I loved people coming up to me and asking my opinion of things and acting like everything I said was the word of God. It made me feel invincible, like I was so much smarter and so much better than everyone else. And now, looking back, I realized it… it fed my addiction, I think."
Paige furrowed her eyebrows. She didn't mean to open up such an emotionally-heavy can of worms right after a funeral, but she didn't want to cut the conversation off now. "How so?"
"I don't know, I just… I'd go to the a poker game and think 'I'm ten times as smart as any of these guys, I can beat them in my sleep'. It made gambling feel less like an addiction and more like something I did because I was good at it, because it was an easy way to make money." He shook his head. "I don't know if I'm making any sense. I guess I just feel like part of recovery, for me at least, is learning to be humble. And going to that medical conference made me realize that that world kept me from doing that."
"There were a lot of 'that'-s in that last sentence," Paige said slowly, "but I think I understand what you're saying."
"And seeing Quincy there…" Toby shook his head. "I don't know, it just reminded me of who I used to be. How I treated Amy. How I used to treat Happy, and everyone else on the team, before I quit." He looked at her, eyes red, though she couldn't tell if it was from alcohol or tears. "I don't want to go back to that place again, Paige. You all deserve so much more than that. So much more than me."
Paige grabbed Toby's hand and squeezed it. "Stop, Toby. Don't do this to yourself. Don't go there. That I'm-not-worthy-of-my-love-ones headspace, it's bad news, not to mention not true." Paige wanted to point out the irony that Happy had said nearly the same thing a few hours before, but she didn't feel at liberty to reveal that.
Toby slumped forward on the bed, not responding.
"Come on, it's never a good idea to examine your life when you're drunk. If you want to have this conversation, we can have it when you're sober. But Toby, just remember this: you're not the same you you were when you were with Amy. You have a year of sobriety under your belt. A year of twelve-step work. That changes a person, trust me."
He looked up at her, his eyes looking miserable. "You think?"
"Definitely. But, seriously, you're too drunk to be talking about this. Let's just watch TV or something, okay? You need to do something mindless."
"TV sounds good."
"Alright then." Paige got up to turn on the TV while Toby lay back in bed. She flipped to the first exciting thing she found - it looked like some eighties' action movie - and sat on the bed beside Toby. Within five minutes, he was snoring quietly. Paige turned off the TV, flicked off the light, and slipped out of the room to let him rest.