Phan- You and Me (completed)

Chapter 12: Our moment of honesty

Dan's POV

We spend the majority of the night lying on Phil's bed in periods of comfortable silence and periods of silly banters. It was like any other night we spent when the both of us couldn't sleep. At first it was a bit awkward, mainly because of Phil. He struggled with where to lay down or what to do with his hands. I distracted him from the struggle with random puns and conversation topics he felt comfortable with. An hour passed and Phil was completely relaxed and himself, with stupid jokes and saying silly things that just pop up in his mind. The only thing that was different compared to all ourlate-night sessions was the physical contact. If it happened in these nights back then, it was immediately excused or never talked about.But now, we could freely lace our fingers together, not worrying about what the other might think about it. Because we knew.
It never felt more wonderful to hear Phil laugh. It never felt more right to see the little wrinkles around his eyes when he smiles brightly. This smile was the first thing that stole my heart. Still,behind all this light-heartedness, a question lurked around in mymind. Jace mentioned a girl called Audrey. Only her name made Phil tremble and by the mentioning of the incident he had left the room in  a pool of tears. As much as I hated to bring the conversation back to a downer, I feel like I needed to know. I wanted to understand why. Why Phil turned to be so shy when it comes to relationships. And so completely overwhelmed when it comes to sexual orientation. Why the thought of him being my subject of romantic (and sexual) interest blew him away so much and surprised him in the way it did.

"Hey Phil?" I interrupted a silence period, popping up on a elbow to properly look at him. "Hm?" Phil turned his head to look at me, laying flat on his back with his knees bent and his arms casually crossed behind his head. I licked my lips to safe time, as I didn'tthink through how the best way to approach this looked like. Eventually, I settled with the straight forward way. "Tell me about Audrey" Phil's eyes grew a tiny little and he left his comfortable position to sit straight. He stared intensely at me,probably trying to find out my intentions. Bluntly speaking I just wanted to know. I just wanted to know Phil better and understand him.

The request hung in the air several minutes and just as I thought I'dnever get an answer, Phil opened his mouth. "I was 17 when I met her. She was one year older than me and went to my parallel class" Phil never really talked about High School Life. All his stories feature University, but High School always had been a topic he said nothing about. So I felt actually honored that he decided to open up his memory to let me have a peek inside. "We met by accident,you could say. I just ran into her. All her books fell down and as I helped her pick them up, I saw that she had the 'Half-bloodprince'with her, so I started a conversation about Harry Potter." He paused to massage his temples, laughing a little. "God this sounds like the beginning of a bad high school romance flick" My best friend lend back at the backrest of his old bed in a sitting position. He closed his eyes before he spoke again. "I was kinda awkward around girls before I met her. I wasn't interesting for them as a lanky nerd with his nose mostly stuck in books or a nintendo"I smiled a little at the image of teenage-Phil. He caught my smile in the half-light of the moon shining through the window. It painted everything in a cold, yet cosy bluish-white light. The blue of Phil'seyes glowed in the darkness of his features. "We became friends. Like, best friends. I mean, not like us, but close" My heart made a jump. Our friendship was as special to Phil as it was to me."She was awesome. She was a bigger nerd than we both together,insanely intelligent, death-drop pretty and at the same time so tough that even the biggest machos of our year turned into little wissys when Audrey spoke up. Man, I really looked up to her. I really really adored her. She impressed me with the way she was when others were around and how she was a completely different person when she was with me" Just like me, I thought. That's your impact on people,Phil. You make us behave like we really are. Because you make us feel safe. "You could spend hours discussing with her about serious stuff or ridiculous animal facts. She impressed me with her knowledge and understanding of people.....she always wanted to study psychologyand change the world.... I really hope she did achieve her goals....the world deserves to be changed by her...." he stopped, thinking about what he had just said and about Audrey. It felt strange to hear him speak in a such affectionate way about a person I didn't even know existed. "No one was so nice to me before. She didn't see a weird kid in me. She didn't make fun of lion. I still remember, the time Jace told you about...the one where I cried because I thought I lost him and literary everyone laughed...well I told Audrey about it when we got back and the next day she came to School with her cuddly elephant and dared everyone to raise his voice against me and lion" Phil laughed, eyes still closed to drink in the happy memory. "It...it's been ages since I last thought about her." He opened his eyes to look at his mismatching socks thoughtful. "Still.....I still remember everything. She always cringed her nose in a funny way when she was thinking and twisted her blonde hair in a messy knot when she talked about changing the world. There was a small gap between her front teeth that made her "th" come out with a lisp. Something about her was so...beautiful"