Homeless~Phan

Chapter 2

A/N:
I am so, so, sorry about the time it took me to upload this. There were family issues that I had to deal with, and I barely had time to write or even plan the story. But... Here I am! Hopefully something won't happen in the next week that will keep me from uploading on time! Anyways... Enjoy this chapter! :)

We're still sitting on the hood of the car, bag of crisps half gone, and laughing our asses off. Phil has crumbs all over his shirt, and I'm in tears from laughing so hard. We just witnessed a goose chase a small child and his mother across the parking lot. I felt sorry for the kid, but it was hilarious to watch.
"We're both going to hell," I gasp as I catch my breath.
"It's terrifying if you're actually being chased by the goose, but-"
"HEY!"
Phil is interrupted by a loud yell. We both snap our heads in the direction of the voice; and see a red faced, middle aged man striding angrily towards the car.
"GET OFF MY CAR, OR DAMMIT, I'LL CALL THE POLICE!"
"Shit, shit, shit, shit, go, go, go, go!" Phil abandons the crisp bag and jumps off the hood of the car. He grabs my arm, pulling me to my feet. I barely manage to grab my backpack before he breaks into a sprint, dragging me with him. As we run, I look behind me and see the guy flipping us off.
Phil lets go of my arm and darts around the side of Tesco, me a couple of paces behind him. He finally stops running across the street to the entrance of a park. He stops and catches his breath as I come up to him.
"What the hell was that?! I thought that was your car!"
Phil grins. "It wasn't."
"Why did you sit on a random stranger's car, then?"
"It looked comfortable. Better than sitting on the ground, I guess. Hope you didn't mind the fact that we almost got arrested."
"No, I don't mind, but... I can't believe you had the guts to sit on a random stranger's car."
He chuckles, looks down at his empty hands, and curses under his breath.
"I shouldn't have left the crisp bag. I promised Chris and Pj I'd bring them food."
Phil looks up at me and sees my confusion.
"Right. You haven't met them," Phil says. I shake my head.
"Well, Dan, today is your lucky day! For today, you're meeting the two most extraordinary beings other than myself to ever walk this earth. Come on, they're in here somewhere."
He begins to walk into the entrance of the park, with me on tailing behind him. A small sign reads, Grantor Park.
From what I can see, it's a really shitty park. I can see a good sized pond with a small wooden dock near the back of the park. There's rusty swing sets and slides here and there, and a walking trail that circles the park. It seems that the best feature of the park is the vast expanse of woods that surrounds the area. The sea of green leaves seem to stretch on forever.
"Before I left, they were by the pond, so they might be around that area," Phil remarks, when a voice shouts,
"OY, PHIL, YOU MISSED THE GREATEST THING!"
To my left, bustling out of the forest, are two tall, dark haired lads, laughing their asses off. One of them, who has curly hair, is holding an old, battered notebook in his right hand. The other boy, with stick-straight hair, looks at Phil's empty hands, and exclaims,
"Hey! Where's the crisps? You've been gone for half an hour and don't bring us any bloody food!"
"Chris, I'll explain later. We have one hell of a story to tell you!"
Chris, and the other boy(who I assume is Pj) turn and seem to notice me for the first time. I awkwardly wave a bit, and say,
"Hey. I'm Dan."
Chris turns to Phil, raises his eyebrows, and says,
"Looks like Philly here has gotten a new boyfr-"
"Chris."
Phil's cheeks are pink, and he's darting his eyes nervously from me to Chris.
"Wh-What-" I begin to stammer when Pj butts in and says,
"Chris, we have to tell them about the thing!"
Chris' eyes widen and he exclaims,
"Oh my god I almost forgot! Come on, I'll tell you at the pond; it's even better than the Firework Incident. Last one to the pond is an arse!"
He breaks into a sprint in the general direction of the pond, and I quickly follow in pursuit. As I run, I think to myself,
"What did Chris mean? Was he just teasing Phil or being legit? I mean, Chris does seem to be sarcastic, a bit. He probably don't mean it. I literally just met Phil today, he can't be hanging out with me because of that. He only feels sorry for me. God, I'm such a fucking idiot. I shouldn't get my hopes up."
I try to shake these thoughts off, but they stay in the back of my head. I push myself to sprint faster.
"Maybe if I run fast enough I can leave these thoughts behind."
By the time I get there, Chris is already sitting on the dock with his shoes off, bare feet hanging just above the water. He turns and pats next to him.
"Sit, mate. Don't put your feet in the water, though; you never know what you'll find in there. Whether it be a dead fish or a piece of shit, it'll scar you for life."
I laugh, and sit down beside him. I look up and notice Phil and Pj are just now reaching the dock. Pj is clutching the notebook to his chest, and Phil has both hands in his pockets. They're talking to each other in hushed voices, and I catch the tail end of Phil's sentence-
"...so that's why we couldn't get the crisps."
Phil looks up, and catches my eyes. He smiles and proclaims,
"We're here!"
Chris notices them approaching. He turns and shouts,
"You're both arses, you fucking slowpokes!"
Pj looks at him and smirks. "I guess we are. We were discussing why Dan and Phil didn't bring us any food."
Phil plops down beside me and takes off his converse, setting them neatly on the dock. He then takes off his mismatched socks and puts them in his sneakers. Pj follows in pursuit, taking off his red Vans and purple socks. Now I'm the only one on the group without bare feet.
"Oh my god, Phil. You missed what is possibly the best incident to happen in the history of The Notebook. So me and Pj were sitting right here, yeah? Then, we-"
"Guys, Dan doesn't know what The Notebook is," Pj interrupts, noticing my confusion.
Phil raises his eyebrows. He begins to explain,
"Alright, Dan, so when we became friends in the 6th grade, Pj, Chis, and I didn't really have a place to hang out without being surrounded by other people. So Chris told us about this park by his house, he told us that practically no one went to it. As you can probably guess, this is that park. We started to hang out here, and after awhile, we noted that this was no normal park. Every other day, something strange would happen; whether it be a drunk person stumbling in here and passing out, or a couple coming in here to get high in the forest and then getting arrested. We realized that we needed to record these strange occurrences in order to preserve the memory of it. So, The Notebook was born."
Chris patted the notebook, resting behind him.
"This little shit has been with us for five years. It's actually almost full, I might actually cry when we complete it."
Pj grins.
"Now you know the origin story. Anyways, back to what Chris was saying."
Chris resumes his story,
"So we heard a loud commotion by the entrance, and we were like, 'oh, shit, it's the police or something'. Pj and I took off towards the woods, and stayed low at the tree line to watch. There was this guy, he looked like he was in his twenties. He was high or drunk or something, because he was walking funny and stumbling. He was yelling all this rubbish about his ex, because he was like, 'LIZA! I'M SO SORRY BABE IT WAS A MISTAKE!'. He started crying, too, and I felt sorta sorry for the fellow. But then, he must have almost blacked out because he started stumbling and then it happened. HE FELL INTO THE POND. FULL FORCE, TOTALLY INTO THE POND!"
Everyone is laughing, including me.
"Oh my god, that's terrible!" I exclaim.
Chris is laughing too hard to finish his story, so Pj tells us the ending.
"Meanwhile, Chris and I are trying not to burst out laughing while he gets up and leaves. Literally. He crawled out of the pond and left." Pj snaps his fingers. "Just like that."
He howls with laughter again, and Phil asks,
"Did you guys record it in The Notebook?"
"Yeah, incident number 126 is right here in black and white, mate. We may need to invest in another notebook, because this one is almost-"
Chris is interrupted by Phil, who gives a loud yelp as he accidentally dunks his left foot into the murky pond water. Phil scrambles to his feet, and runs to the grass in an attempt to wipe his foot off.
Everyone, including the mortified Phil, is choking with laughter.
"I've been deprived of my dignity, now that that's happened," Phil says in mock sadness as he plops down beside me.
"You're part of the lost dignity club, now. That was the induction ceremony," I grin. Phil locks eyes with me and giggles, his tongue poking out from in between his teeth. I blush and smile back. Pj suddenly takes Chris' shoe and chucks it into the pond.
"Pj, you motherfucker!" Chris scrambles to grab the shoe before it sinks. When he brings it back up to the dock, he says,
"I'll get you back when you least expect it, douche."
Pj sticks his tongue out and blows a raspberry. Phil's smiling, and I'm smiling, and I'm happy. This is the first time I've laughed this hard in a while. It feels like I'm carefree, and that I can take over the world.
And, for this little sliver of time, it feels like everything is normal.