It was the summer before his senior year.
That knowledge felt... surreal, like understanding how much time he had left before he met the person he'd spend the rest of his life with, or how, exactly, he would die. He imagined if a random stranger told him he would die by bus crash. He would go his whole life avoiding bus rides, utterly terrified each time he saw one pull up the street, obsessing over types, jolting awake from bus nightmares-- these thoughts were strange. He closed his eyes tight, willed them away, pressed a smile to the surface instead. It was the summer before his senior year. Why waste it with such dread?
Still, Toby couldn't help but let his gaze drift over the ceiling, the crown molding of the old fraternity house he stood in. He let his weight bounce down the hardwood stairs, creaky but sturdy. He absorbed every voice, the energy and atmosphere of the house as it geared up for another night, another party, another sea of new faces and stories. Each of these things he seared into his memory. Anything in limited quantity was precious, and Toby knew this was his final summer. His final football season. His final year. This was all there was left.
Perhaps it wouldn't have been so frightening if he had a sense of what the future held-- if he had something to look forward to-- but Toby had never been much of a planner. He preferred to live from one moment to the next, and while he wanted to have constant faith that the next moment would undoubtedly occur, there was this persistent fear that... perhaps it wouldn't.
After this, he might have to grow up.
But for now, he didn't. For now he could simply be among his brothers, among these moronic shenanigans. He could laugh the night away and be none the wiser to his fate. So he cracked open a keg (or whatever the fuck happens with kegs), shouting to his early partygoers-- "Let's make this a legendary night!"