Weeks passed. Tom smiled and laughed like he always had done. Tom pretended to be put-together, and for those moments-the moments when he and Becky stared at the sunset, when they held hands and talked with their friends, when they walked home together-he was. But when he got home, smiled at Aunt Polly, and went back up to his room... He felt the vacuum.
His room, in its emptiness, in its dirtiness, reflected himself. Here, where he was alone, he could see into himself. He was allowed to see the dust in the sun-filled air; he could see the scratches and cracks in the floor and the walls; he could see the parts of himself that no one else could.
Tom knew he was trying his best, but it felt like it wasn't enough.
What they wanted from him was perfection. What they wanted was a different person-not that rowdy, living boy he had always been. They wanted a dutiful, responsible, stable man, and he couldn't be that anymore. It wasn't him. It would be dutiful and responsible and stable to only think of Becky; to stop adventuring like he had done. To not dream of something more- a life away from all of this where he was gone; To not think of Huck every time he thought of Becky.
He did his best to keep it going: Wake up at dawn, go to school, spend time with Becky, go home, do homework, try to sleep.
It was all he could do to not give up and take a break, because if he stopped, his life was over.