Not A Game | Phan AU

Zoe | IX

The nurse and I left the hospital and walked to the small coffee shop on the corner. We ordered quickly and sat in a slightly uncomfortable silence, neither of us being brave enough to start a conversation with the other.

"Uh.. My name's Zoe, by the way." She said quietly.

I nodded slowly before replying with "Dan." She smiled slightly and reached out, placing her hand on mine. Surprisingly, I didn't pull away. This felt comforting in a friendly way. Like I needed her here to help me bear this burden.

"Well, Dan, can you tell me why I found you collapsed outside the bathroom, crying?"

"Uh, well, it's sort of a long story..." I mumbled.

"Dan, we came here for the reason of you being able to get that off your shoulders."

"I know, I'm sorry..." I whispered.

"Hey, don't be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for."

"It started with the bullying. I used to be dating this guy named Jack and he just ended up using me and telling the whole school I was gay. Obviously, they didn't react too well and Phil Lester was one of the ones that always showed me just how wrong I was."

"He beat me viciously after school almost every single day, calling me names and just slowly crushing me. Soon, I couldn't handle it and I started to cut. I knew it was wrong and that I would regret it but it made me feel so good after he said those things to me. One day, Phil wasn't at school and that was the day of club sign ups at school and I thought that maybe that was what I needed."

"So I signed up for the only one that sounded good to me, the video game club, and I was actually looking forward to it until I got there. Phil turned out to be the leader and when I walked in he was so nice and it scared me to death because I knew he was planning something. Since I was new, he let me choose the game, one that I'm normally really good at, and I failed."

"I ended up making friends with all the members of the group and I was sort of happy and then we left and I made the decision of waiting too long to leave and Phil took that short period of time to his advantage. He pinned me against the wall, choking me, telling me just how worthless I was and that I should just kill myself and I believed every word he said."

"As soon as he let go of me, I took one last look at him and ran out the school doors, straight into oncoming traffic. It took forever for a car to finally hit me and when it did I was happy. I was finally going to out of this place. Until I saw Phil's hair enter my vision as he cried over my broken body. I wanted him to leave me alone but I couldn't say anything and soon I heard the sirens and they pissed me off."

"I wanted to die and they were taking that right away from me. One of the last things I heard before they put me in the ambulance, was Phil Lester, my bully, biggest fear and worst hatred, told me he loved me and that he never meant it."