Eyes full of stars | ✔️

Chapter 28: Incomplete

"I pray for this heart to be unbroken

But without you all I'm going to be is incomplete"

-Backstreet Boys

*

A part of me still couldn't accept my real feelings for Toby. Maybe it was my fear, maybe my logical mind, I had no idea, but I felt so unsure about myself and the situation. We were friends, and this could have changed everything... especially because I didn't know whether he felt the same way or not, regardless of what Felicity - or my heart - said.

As the weeks passed, the two of us went back to work and restarted our daily lives as much normally as possible. I stayed in touch with Sebastian and we actually met a couple of times to have a drink after work, but I hadn't heard from Toby yet. Sebastian told me that he would hardly come to their office but was apparently very busy, he even had long meetings with Mr. Pierce himself.

"Only God knows what they're plotting" Sebastian had commented once.

I kept on painting and most of my artworks included starry skies, representing Toby's eyes full of stars. Whatever I was feeling, he was my biggest inspiration and my art couldn't be stopped by such things as disappointment, sadness and anger... actually, while my positive feelings were the ones creating the ideas in my mind, pushing me to fulfil them, these darker feelings gave energy to my hand, moved my arm and chose the colors to use. By mid September, my bedroom was fool of canvases!

"You should try and sell some of them" Felicity suggested, examining a small canvas picturing a pink and orange dusk.

"I need to create a website for that" I mumbled, cleaning my brushes. "I'll ask Sebastian to help me."

"I'd love to buy this for Christine's birthday" Felicity added. Christine was her four-year-old niece, Ben's daughter. She looked at me. "How much is it?"

I shrugged. "I... have no idea" I laughed. "You buy substantial take away food for dinner and we are good. What do you think?"

"Deal" Felicity agreed and we high-fived.

My mobile phone rang and I took it out of my jeans pocket. I gasped. It was Toby.

Felicity saw the display, looked at me, gave me a smile of encouragement and got out of my room, closing the door behind her.

I took a deep breath, sat on my bed and I answered the call. "Hello?"

"Hi" his soft voice replied. "What's up?"

"I'm fine" I breathed. "What about you? It's been so long..."

"Yeah" he said. "I'm sorry, I--"

"You have been busy, I know" I interrupted, not without a little bit of sarcasm.

He sighed. "I hoped I could make up for that. Would you like to come over for a tea?"

I glanced at the clock on my night table. It was 2 o'clock. "Okay, just give me the time to take the bus."

"I have got a car now. Picking you up in one hour, okay?"

***

Toby pulled over in front of my house building. His car was black, big, looking extremely expensive and new. Once that I got inside I found out it also smelled like new.

I looked at Toby, almost holding my breath. His hair was pulled behind his ears, he was wearing sunglasses and a green t-shirt with short sleeves that showed a big black star tattoo. He smiled, but I couldn't say how deep that smile really was, because Toby was one of those persons who fully smiled only using their eyes too, which were invisible to me at the moment. As much invisible as many other things about him, about us, that, before that night in his house, I hadn't suspected they could even exist.