The Letters I Never Sent | Phan

Chapter 4

Well, this'll be the last chapter of the daily ones - I'll probably start uploading every Saturday or so, so look forward to Saturday (?) - but I wanna thank everyone that's been reading this story cuz it really makes me feel fulfilled. I really enjoy it, hope you'll like this chapter

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Phil didn't really have much time to ponder about these newly developed thoughts on the brown-haired boy he seemed to always stumble upon. They'd stayed in the shopping centre for a little longer than he'd expected it and, as soon as he came back home, his mum blasted him with questions of all sort until he retired to the quietness of his room to browse the internet until the drowsiness consumed him.

On Sunday, he'd been dragged out of his bed at midday because his father had some important lunch party that his boss had invited him and his family to and, since they were hoping for a promotion, there was no way in hell they'd be missing out on that. Phil didn't really like these company parties in which he never knew how to react and what to say and the pressure of expectations was enormous and all he wanted was to run and hide far away from all those piercing stares and empty smiles.

Thus, when he had finally escaped from that toxic environment, Phil used his remaining energies to finish up all his homework and make sure his mother would allow him to go on Tuesday's school trip before passing out on his bed.

The morning after, he'd been brutally woken up by the spontaneous alarm ringtone coming from his mobile phone and by the blinding light from outside his window. Phil had completed his normal boring routine, putting on his grey sweatshirt with an Aztec owl printed on the front. And after a bowl of Shreddies, he reluctantly walked to school, asking God what had he done to deserve maths so early in the morning.

He endured hours of seemingly insignificant exercises he wasn't really concentrated on and trying not to come across as completely distracted on whatever his teacher was rambling about. At lunch, Emma pulled him to sit at the table next to PJ and Chris, who were discussing what they were looking forward to see on Final Fantasy XIII. And, for a change, it was Phil who asked Chris where Dan was and after a surprised look and a short silence, he answered that the brown-haired boy wasn't feeling like eating and went to have a smoke with Josh and his gang. Phil wrinkled his nose at the word "smoking" but nodded anyway, looking away.

The rest of the lunch time break was spent with PJ and Emma (Chris had to leave for class) talking about how they wanted Louise to come back already because they missed her cheerful presence and how luckily she was already almost fully recovered and her mother was letting her come to the school trip. Phil wondered if one day someone would be sad and disappointed if he didn't come to an event and if he'd have friends who'd want him there as badly as they seem to want this girl called Louise.

Currently, he was more than halfway through sitting in his boring Geography class, which thankfully was his last period of the day, occasionally stealing glances at the brown-haired boy who was struggling not to fall asleep, his head slowly falling to his side before jerking back up in surprise, this cycle repeating itself too many times for it to still be funny. However, Phil couldn't rip the smile off his lips.

But soon the familiar tug of loneliness came out of nowhere and scrubbed the grin out of his face. He didn't understand the appearance of these feelings anymore, he wasn't back up in the north, he wasn't under those circumstances anymore yet those flashes of memories still took the breath right out of him and made his vision tighten more and more. And he had to stop to remember how to breathe again and calm himself down.

The unnerving flashes behind his eyes showed him all he was trying to forget. Breathe in. The pain on his stomach, his head colliding with the wall and then the ground, the endless bruises that marked his pale skinny body. Breathe out. The shouts of piercing words, the stares of disgust, the tugs, the questions. The past was slowly consuming his existence again and he wasn't sure why.