Next chapter. Review if you want, I guess. I'd like you too, but whatever. Anyway, yeah. The next chapter is almost done because I got emotional writing this, but I don't know when it'll go up. Because it's super important and... just yeah. I just want it to be good. Read this.

Falling to Pieces will be my next chapter I work on, but I don't know when that'll get up because I'm really disappointed with the response that one's been getting. I'm trying, but it's hard to find motivation when no one reads something. So it'll be up when I find it good enough to post. I'm honestly fairly sure Exiles will be the next thing posted, just because I'm still the most excited about that one. But I'm TRYING them all.

I know I'm an asshole about the reviews. And I won't stop writing guys, but try to look at it from my perspective. I put a lot of work into this stuff for you guys. It'd be nice if you could just take a second to be like, well... it was good. Or if you hated it tell me. I don't even care.

Chapter 5

SPOV

It was funny how safe she felt. That was the thing about being blind... it was really hard to feel secure. You couldn't see what was going on around you. You could judge so much based solely upon someone's body language, but she got none of that. Hell, someone could hold a gun to her forehead and she wouldn't even know it until they dislodged the bullet.

But she felt safe. It was largely due to Toby's presence by her side, because he had proven to her again and again that he would do what he could to protect her. She didn't want to need him, but sometimes she did; and he had done nothing but prove himself trustworthy. She trusted her other friends too, but it was just different with Toby.

"Toby, are you coming to the movies with us?"

She scuffed her toe in the dirt and slowed her swing down. Hanna wasn't trying to be a jerk, she knew that she wasn't. There was no point inviting her to something that she wouldn't enjoy, but did she have to talk about it around her? If she had invited her she would have come anyway. She could just listen and make up what was going on in her mind. That was how she watched TV. But she understood, she really did. She just wished that she didn't have to have the constant reminder that her friends were going to be off doing something fun while she sat at home alone.

"Nah, I have too much homework." Toby's voice wasn't where it was a second ago. He must have jumped off his swing like the idiot monkeys liked to do. They would break their necks one day, but at least they would have fun doing it.

"Ah man. Too bad!" She sounded genuinely disappointed as her footsteps walked away.

Toby didn't say anything for a minute, presumably he was waiting until she was out of sight. "Can I come over after school?"

"I thought you had homework?" She was confused.

"No, I was just saying that. I would rather hang out with you."

She stopped her swing and looked over in the direction of his voice. "Why?"

"Because you're my best friend, duh. Besides, the movies wouldn't be any fun without you." He was moving again. The chains squeaked as he sat back down on his swing.

She hesitated. "What would you want to do?" She didn't want him to be bored because of her. "Maybe you should just go with them."

"No way! I found this old box of cartoons that my mom used to watch when she was little, but it wouldn't be any fun to watch them alone. I'll explain everything to you, I promise. Please?"

She paused again, still not sure if he was just trying to be nice. But it did sound like fun so she nodded. "Okay."

She could hear the thunder outside. Usually she hated storms, but how could she right now? Whatever had just happened at her house was horrible, but that was so small compared to all the good in her life. It didn't really matter what her family thought of her when her friends were in her life.

"So then what happened?" Hanna laughed. "But let me just say, I'm not surprised the pervy perv was into you over Melissa, Spence. Melissa looks like what I imagine the witch from Hansel and Gretal looks like; all scraggly brown hair and big nose. You're way prettier."

She chose to ignore how messed up it was that she wouldn't recognize her sister, or probably even herself if she looked into a mirror. "Tyrion tried to rip his arm off," she laughed. "He screamed like Caleb does when he sees a spider. And there was blood everywhere."

"Hey now," Caleb interjected with a chuckle. "I can do spiders, it's just living spiders that I have an issue with. The way they get all twitchy when they walk... it freaks me out."

She rolled her eyes beneath her sunglasses. Her friends were dorks. She flopped back and rested her head against the flat, hotel pillow. This day was all too much.

The pillow shifted as someone joined her, but she didn't have to see to know that it was Toby. "I'm fine," she muttered, knowing that was what he was worried about. Toby was as predictable as he was dependable.

She felt him lace their fingers together and lift them between the two of them. "Are you sure?"

Her stomach fluttered as she nodded. Even if she wasn't okay she wouldn't tell him, but she really was fine, largely because of his presence in her life.

What she wasn't sure of was when she fell in love with him, but what she did know was that she finally admitted it to herself when she realized how impossible it would be for her to let go of him. How was she supposed to live without him now?

Maybe she should tell him, but she wouldn't. Because she could never hold him back like that; even if he felt the same way by some unlikely chance, loving her would define his life. He would spend all of his time leading her around, protecting her. And she just wasn't okay with that. He deserved someone whole. He didn't deserve to be known as the guy who was held back by the blind girl.

She missed coloring. She ran her fingers along the pointy tips of the crayons that she couldn't quite bring herself to throw away. It was stupid. It wasn't like she was using them anyway.

"What are you doing?"

She jumped. The doctors told her that her other senses would eventually compensate to make up for her lack of sight, but if that were the case it hadn't quite caught up to her yet. She was embarrassingly easy to sneak up on. But it was just Toby, so she didn't mind. "Nothing," she muttered, fumbling for the drawer she found the crayons in.

His agile fingers snatched the box out of her hands, and she was sure that her face turned a comical shade of red in the silence that followed. "What do you have these for?"

"I just-" she cut herself off. "Never mind."

He grabbed her sleeve. "There's a coloring book under here too. Want to make a picture with me? I was just thinking about how my fridge is getting really empty. I haven't gotten an A in awhile. My mom could probably use a picture. We can make one for your mom too."

"Toby-"

She could practically feel suppressed laughter as he tugged on her sleeve. He lowered her into a chair and then sat next to her. "Okay so the coloring book is Disney. Who do you want? The first one is of Mickey and Minnie kissing under an umbrella."

"That's good," she said softly. Some kind of emotion she couldn't quite identify was churning in her stomach.

He passed her a crayon. "Okay this is black. Do you want them to be black like usual?"

She was nothing if not traditional. She nodded, but this time she was smiling. So he took her hand in his and helped her get the right spots colored in. It wasn't exactly the same, but in other ways it was so much better. Toby was the best friend that she had ever had, that was something that she was sure of.

She smiled softly to herself as she thought of the folded up, yellowed picture that she kept tucked away in the bottom of a drawer. She didn't know what it looked like, she didn't even know how well it came out. But what she did know was the it symbolized the kind of feeling that she never wanted to let go of.

"You two are super cute," Hanna laughed through a clicking noise. "Can I put that in Instagram, because I'm pretty sure some Internet savvy person would make an awesome meme out of that."

"Hanna," she groaned, but she wasn't quite annoyed enough to wipe the smile from her face. Things could have gone so differently for her, but these people made it okay. Yeah, she was still pretty uncomfortable over everything that had just happened. If anyone but Toby tried to touch her right now she might genuinely have a panic attack. But everything was fine. Everything was almost good.

Suddenly everyone groaned. It was almost funny. "What happened?"

"The power went out," Toby explained in his soft voice, the one he reserved for explaining things she couldn't see to her. She wasn't sure that he even noticed that he used a different tone with her, but she liked it. It was one of her favorite sounds.

"What are we supposed to do in a dark hotel?" Hanna complained.

She took off her glasses. If no one could see her eyes clearly it didn't really matter if she kept them on or not. Tyrion yelped like he just noticed that it was dark in the room and nuzzled his way between her and Toby. "He's such an idiot," she laughed, scratching behind his ears. He licked her cheek in response.

"A big old baby," Toby agreed. "Maybe we should just go get some snacks. And we can sync watch something on Netflix. I brought my laptop, and Em, you have your tablet, right? We can all fit that way."

"Alright," Hanna said. "Em, Caleb, and I will run to Walmart. You two stay here."

"Why?" She asked curiously. She didn't want to move so she wasn't opposed, but she was curious as to how Hanna made her decision.

"The dog," she laughed. "I've seen that thing in the rain. Oh hell no. But if he gets left behind he'll be barking after you, Spence. So basically the only option is to stay here with him."

"Solid decision making." She listened to them gather their things and head out the door. As soon as the heavy door to the outside thumped shut she tilted her head in Toby's direction, knowing he'd want to question her further now that they were alone. "I really am fine, and I really don't want to talk about it."

"Just give me one piece of reassurance then," he muttered. "It stopped at that one kiss, right? He didn't do anything else?"

"No. And if he had I think that Tyrion really might have chewed off arm." Karma really was a bitch. You don't do things like that without asking, she didn't care the circumstance.

She could feel him shaking, and she didn't like it. "Are you okay?"

"You don't want to hear it," he said in a quiet, tight voice.

"Toby," she implored, tightening her hand around his.

He paused, his thumb brushing over the back of her hand. "I could literally kill him for doing that to you. I know it was- it was small, but it was still so not okay. Especially to you. And it could have been so much worse if Tyrion hadn't been there... or if I hadn't come over-"

She cut him off. "You're cute. But I really am fine, and dwelling on the maybes isn't going to do any good."

"I know Spence, but-"

"And I'm not worth any more than any other girl. Maybe Tyrion about ripping his arm off will stop him from doing that, or worse, to someone else." She hadn't thought about it that way, but it was so true.

"In the grand scheme of things you might not be more important, but to me you are. I just- God, Spence it was so small, but it's just making me think of what I would do without you. Where would I be if I did't have you in my life?" He sounded emotional. And she got it. Even though she was sure he didn't feel the same way about her, she knew that she was one of his best friends.

"I'm fine," she soothed. "I'm here, and I'm fine."

"No," he muttered. His gentle hands wrapped around her upper arms and carefully pulled her up. "That's not what I'm saying, Spencer. I'm so glad you're okay, but that's not what I mean." His fingers brushed her hair out of her face. This felt different somehow. "Spencer, when I saw what he did to you, when I saw how they reacted... and even just sitting her while Emily recounted the story... All I could think about was losing you. And I can't do that. I can't lose you. Life is so uncertain. Every single day people die. Things happen that we can't come back from. And I don't want that to happen to us without you knowing how I really feel. I just- Spencer I love you. I've loved you every single day. I don't even know when I realized it. It was slow, and then it hit me all at once. But what I do know is that I can't live without you anymore. When- God, when we first met I had no idea how important you'd end up being to me."

She was frozen. She wasn't even sure that she was breathing. She could hear her heart beating. Hell, she was pretty sure that she could even hear his heart beating. She could hear everything and nothing. She didn't know what to say, but as always, Toby took care of that for her. He always took care of her when she didn't know what to do. "You're smart. You're the smartest person I've ever met, and I know that means you're probably too smart to love someone like me back. I probably shouldn't have said anything, but I don't think that I could have held it back any longer. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be manipulative or-"

It was funny how when he was talking about herself she could feel so unsure and confused, but the second his insecurities creeped in there was nothing but certainty in her mind. She leaned forward and hoped with everything in her that her lips didn't end up on his eye or something. By the grace of God her lips met his and she kissed him gently without much confidence. It took him a second but he responded enthusiastically. One of his hands buried itself in her hair and the other supported her waist, his fingers grazing the exposed skin where her shirt had ridden up.

Tyrion whined and nudged her arm with his wet nose causing her to giggle into Toby's mouth. There was something about this moment. Right here, right now she felt complete. Nothing had ever felt like this before. It was like this was where she belong, where she was finally whole. It didn't matter that she was blind. It didn't matter that her whole family probably hated her now. All that mattered was that Toby didn't. Toby didn't hate her, and that meant everything in the whole world.

She didn't know how long they had stayed like that. It felt like forever and like no time at all had passed. She was exploding with emotions. She wanted to scream and she wanted to keep him here in this room and never leave again. How could something feel so personal and so exciting all at the same time?

He pulled away and rested his forehead against hers. She slid down and buried her face into his neck. His ragged, hot breath warmed her neck. She closed her eyes and smiled, any lingering fears in regards to what had happened earlier were gone. "I wasn't expecting that," she whispered.

"Me either."