Eleven O'Clock Number

MUSICAL #11: THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

11: AND THEN HE VANISHES AND IT'S SAD AND STUFF

« all i wanted was to be loved for myself. »

"THAT WAS possibly one of the most stressful things I've ever watched," Allison announces as the credits begin to roll down the screen.

"Stop being melodramatic, it wasn't that bad," Toby rolls his eyes.

"I'm sorry, did I just hear right?" Allison cocks her head in mock confusion. "Did you just call me melodramatic?"

"Whatever," he brushes off, clearly for lack of a decent response. "You're literally the only person I've ever met who has watched The Phantom of the Opera and not been super emotional afterwards."

"Probably because the only people you've met who have watched Phantom of the Opera are theatre geeks," Allison retorts snippily.

"Oh, is that what I'm being called now?" Toby questions with mild amusement, getting up and heading towards the kitchen.

"Yes, and it's not like you can deny it, either," she follows him.

"Whatever," Toby repeats. "Hot chocolate?"

"Yeah, thanks," she hops onto the counter and watches as he retrieves two mugs from the cupboard. "Anyway. I didn't like it."

"When do you ever?" Toby questions drily, and something about his harshly sarcastic tone raises her brows.

"What's up with you?"

He pauses, teaspoon of brown powder hovering precariously between the container and one of the mugs. "Nothing," he says finally.

"Toby."

"I'm fine, I promise," he shakes his head and turns to her, now with a smile on his face.

"Uh-uh," Allison replies, shaking her head in return. "You're not doing this again."

"What?" he goes back to distributing equal amounts of the chocolate powder between his cup and hers, then starts to turn around to get the milk from the fridge, but she catches his wrist before he can go far, and forces him to look at her.

 "You know, it's kinda insulting that you're making me watch all these musicals but when something is up you don't even tell me what," Allison points out, raising her eyebrows at him. "I mean, I know we're not exactly BFFs, but even though we're not close or whatever –"

"It's not that," Toby interrupts quickly, drawing back, but she keeps her grip on his wrist firm. 

"Then what?" she asks, her tone soft but urgent. 

From here, she can see Toby's face clearly, and the dark circles under his eyes make her distinctly uncomfortable, if nothing else. Looks like she's not the only one who hasn't been sleeping very well.  "Toby," she murmurs, frowning. "C'mon, just - you can tell me."

He holds her gaze for a long few seconds, before returning  to the fridge, his back to her. She lets her grip slip from his wrist with a sigh. There's a heavy drawn-out silence between them, before Allison says in a high, shaky tone of voice: "Toby, where's your mom?"

He stops short, back still to her. "Wh - what?" he asks, voice slightly hoarse.

"Your mom, Toby. Where is she?"

"I..."

Allison slips off the counter and round to Toby, closing the fridge door quietly. "Where's your mom, Toby?" she asks, still insistent. She thinks that maybe the stricken look on Toby's face is a big hint for her to stop, but she isn't sure she can. Their conversation in his car a week and a half before still lingers in the back of her mind, and at the end of the day, she talked to him, she told him stuff that she doesn't usually tell anybody, and he doesn't want to reciprocate, and Allison feels childish for being upset about it,  but she's still upset about it.