“Spencer? You awake?”

                Toby watched through the darkness as Spencer’s shoulders shook a bit with laughter. “No,” she answered mockingly and drowsily. “I’m still dreaming.”

                His lips curled up in a grin and he began to lightly trace his fingertips up and down along her spine, making little patterns against her skin. “I know you weren’t asleep,” he confessed lightly. “You haven’t been sleeping much lately.”

                Her shoulders rose and fell with every breath. With her sigh, Spencer turned around to face Toby, not bothering to fake a smile right now. If anyone could see what was truly beneath the surface, it was him. Even in the dark night, his eyes looked very green the second they met hers as if some deep fire within his soul was igniting them from behind. “How did you know?” she wondered.

                His fingers grazed he cheekbone and she let out a breath that she didn’t know she was holding. Toby’s cool fingertips brushed her overheated skin, almost soothing her to sleep, but for Toby, Spencer would stay up…just to be able to feel his touch and hear his silky voice. “You’ve been so depressed. Don’t act like you haven’t been trying to hide it.”

                Sometimes, she hated how well he knew about her. “I don’t want to drag you down with me,” she admitted sullenly.

                Toby’s handsome eyes dulled with concern, his fingers lingering at Spencer’s lips. “I’d rather get dragged down than left behind.” His voice was gentle, but it was clear that he was worried about her. She frowned; she could feel it. “I want you to talk to me. That’s what I’m here for.”

                “I just…whenever I close my eyes, I see headlights,” she explained, her voice darker. Toby listened to her intently, lingering on every word. “I still remember, vaguely, the woman who hit me. I didn’t see her face but I heard her scream. She…she must have been the one to call 911. I think I heard her crying hysterically…but I don’t know. I don’t remember much from the actual crash. I was in and out.”

                “She was. It’s a good thing she was fine.” Moving a little closer to provide comfort, Toby rested his head on her shoulder. “They said you were conscious but unresponsive.”

                “It’s all mostly a blur,” she said. She loved the way Toby rested against her at the perfect moment, the way any touch managed to slow her nervously-paced pulse. “But I just keep thinking about what would have happened if I actually died. If they hadn’t saved me. The people I wouldn’t have been able to say goodbye to…wouldn’t be able to apologize to…”

                “Like Melissa,” he finished with a solemn tone.

                “Like Melissa. It’s just a haunting thought. One second you’re here…you’re alive. The next…you’re just not. What about you? How would I be able to tell you that I loved you one last time?”

                Those words chilled him to the bone. “It doesn’t matter, Spencer. Because you’re here. Right now, you’re here with me. Someone was looking out for you that night.”

                When Toby reached down to grab her hand, she managed to hold his too, staring down at their connected fingers. She wasn’t paying attention to the fact that she was doing it, though; no, she was trying to get a mental image of Toby’s fingers mingling with her own. “When was the last time I told you that I love you?” she asked in a low voice.

                He wanted to remove that solemn look from her face, wanted to let her know that she was in fact there, that she had been given a second chance at life. But she knew that. How could he blame her for getting scared, when even he sometimes ends up going back to that tragic night, wondering what if? But truly, none of that mattered. She was here. She was alive. “Every single day,” he answered. “You tell me every single day.”

                Spencer lifted her gaze from their hands to look into his eyes again, and he was more pleased to see that her smile had returned. This time, it was real. “I love you,” she whispered to him, in that quiet but loud voice of hers that she only had for him.

                “I know,” Toby commented. He gently ran his thumb across her bottom lip, easily getting lost in her eyes despite the darkness. When the rest of the world was asleep, they were wide awake, and happy to be awake. “I love you too.”

                This time, when Spencer leaned her head forward to kiss him, he kissed back, but softly it was replete with bruising tenderness and strange sense of friendship that could never be replicated. He’d never felt closer to her, and in her arms, enclosed in her kiss, the thought of ever having spent away from her loving hold seemed preposterous. This was where he belonged. In Spencer’s arms. Through thick and thin, the good and the bad.

                She felt the same, and he knew it. He knew it.