narrative.
WHO: Toby Hastings
WHEN: After and as accompaniment to this, of course.
WHAT: The king has to hit rock bottom before he can pull himself back up.
So he was learning how to pick up the pieces of his life.
No big deal. Nothing serious, as he and Anne had been so fond of telling others. No biggie that it felt like everything had fallen over, like all the men and women lay scattered, skittering and lost across a board without direction. One step forward and one step back, as usual -- one nice night out with Kelly, and then he came home to an unprecedented argument on the compendiums. He fled to Scott's almost immediately, and it led to days of moping around. The students commented on how he seemed in a "funk", and they poked some gentle teasing in his direction, hoping to bring back the lively and chattering teacher they knew so well -- but Toby remained inconsolable.
Crumpled on the couch, a pillow over his head and one of his socks half-off, he realised how close this felt to his break-up with Noreen.
But there had been no argument this time. No yelling, and no pacing back and forth in apartments suddenly seeming ten times too small and claustrophobic. And not to mention: last time, he'd gone to Anne for comfort. Now, all he had was Scott, who was his best friend but he just wasn't her. After the fifth time he'd declared exactly that ("you're not Anne, for fuck's sake," in a voice louder than it should have been), Scott had thrown him a punch, and the two kings had gone down scuffling.
Then, fined the use of his pillow for a night, Tobias had tried to consider what he should do next. He lay catatonic on Scott's couch with a pillow made out of papers, a memo or two gluing themselves to his forehead. He lost track of time.
And then the conversations with Ryoko and Noreen -- trying to smack some sense into him, as everyone seemed to do nowadays -- but they weren't her.
He missed his best friend. He missed his TV, the ham in the fridge, his favourite mug with the Wilde quote on the side, the Einstein poster on his wall, the smell of Anne's perfume, the sound of her key in the lock, the way she made his tea, and how she knew how much sugar to add without even asking. He missed coming home to notes. Sarcasm and commentary traded over the journals, the light scrawl of her handwriting, meeting her for lunch between her appointments and between his classes. It had been domestic -- it had been everything that had frightened him away from Noreen. But a home felt natural with Anne. She wasn't his wife, but close enough. She was his best friend, and nothing more, but for fuck's sake, she was everything more.
Alcohol had not helped. A fruitless night out at the bar had not helped.
There was no closure, and he did not know which way the game had gone, nor who had lost the most pieces. Checkmate. It felt like him. Feet propped up on the edge of a couch too short, his arm awkwardly jammed beneath his head, it felt like him. He'd lost. Not only in the sense that he had not won, but he had lost something, someone, someplace, and it felt very much as if it would not be coming back. He'd heard somewhere that she was going back to Europe.
For the first time in a very long time, backwards memory did not help. He had no idea how this was going to end, and it frightened him.