Broken Rules - Phan

Part 19 - end

I sat down. I sat down quickly due to the heavy heart that was weighing me down. I saw him, his face bruised with worry. I couldn't gage any physical distress but I noticed tinges in him that were wrong. His eyes had washed out, his hands restless and his glance stuck to the floor.

"Phil?" I managed to choke out. My voice was obviously needy, verging on desperate. All the reaction I got was his hand slowly slip to the corner of the pane of glass separating us. Phil let his graceful fingers slide open slightly and he waited. I pressed my hand to the pane of glass, my heart banging and my eyes welling. I put my hand on his and felt the slight transfer of heat. "Phil..." My voice was quieter and, I thought, inaudible.

Lifting his head up slowly, I braced myself for it. Our hands still together, he cautiously looked at me. Pain. There was so much pain. The emotions and ghosts swirling in his eyes physically pained me. I would've given my life for those burdens to leave him.

"Phil, I- I'm going to talk to you for a minute," his glance looked worried, "just let me talk at you for a minute. Please." He looked at our hands and gave a small solemn nod. "I'm leaving the country. I'm going to Switzerland," I clenched the hand that wasn't on the glass and pushed myself on, knowing I'd regret it if I didn't. "I'm going to become a writer. I'm going to write. You can come visit me. When you're- you're out of course... Wow that was insensitive wasn't-"
"I won't," the sound that left his mouth was harsh and cold. He leaned as far forward as he could and I did too. "They want to kill me."

Those five words hit me. They hit me in all of my vital organs. I looked at him, his eyes escaping mine.
"Wha-"
"I'm not joking Dan. This isn't a joke. I got on the wrong side of some bad people. They know. They were sent here I know it. Dan please, please no listen,"
I'd started to cry. My hand leaving the glass and cupping my own face. I couldn't handle all of this information at once. The thought of never seeing Phil made me want to break things. Burn things. Kill things.

"Just... Just promise me that you'll stay safe. You'll be a great writer. And you can use some of my drawings as covers," I felt sick to my stomach,
"Phil, I need to tell you. I lo-"
"Dan. Put your ear to the glass," I closed my eyes and felt the cold glass on my ear.
"I-"

What happened next shook me to the bone. It's the reason this interview is happening. One of the reasons anyway. That was the day Philip Michael Lester died. The blood from his neck emptied on the glass and on the table in front of him. My ear warm from his insides. It hit me harder than any bomb could've, tore me up more than any blades could.

The thing that still gets me now, at the ripe old age of 63, is that I was so close to telling him he was the love of my life. And I thought he was going to say it back. But a lot of stories start with 'I'; I would know through writing so many. But now justice is served. And in the society we have now, I can say I loved Phil Lester.

But love dims. Don't get me wrong, I'm still plagued by the scene of his death and I will always remember him. But his potent scent has fallen from my memory, I can no longer document the feeling of his skin and I will never be able to feel now, what I felt back then. I wouldn't be able to describe it perfectly to you now, no matter the extensibility of my vocabulary or using the many words available in the dictionary. But Phil and I, we had our time. And, maybe, it ended too soon. We broke so many rules, created many too.

If I could say one thing to him? Well, I'd probably tell him:
This is the most fun I've ever had.

- Daniel James Howell acclaimed author speaking about Philip Michael Lester who was wrongly accused of the murder of his abusive parents. It was stated that the stepfather had perverted the course of justice and had inside men kill his stepson as he knew about the drug industry present. The parents ran away before to hide the drug incident and blamed the boy for murdering them, written in 2055, journalist: Emily Carlson.