pyromania // phan

7

the following month was actual hell.

i got this aching feeling in my chest every time i saw phil; except it was the same feeling i always got when i saw him, but stronger. impossibly stronger. it's like every time i saw him in the streets, or in the shop, i felt like i was being pulled to him like gravity was a string forcing me to go to phil. every single day, when i woke up, i had the feeling that instead of doing my daily fire-play in the morning, i needed to go visit phil. and that's exactly what i'd do.

i'd only recently discovered what this feeling was. it was the same feeling i had with fire.

need.

the need to be with phil overpowered the need to light a fire for some godforsaken reason.

and that's exactly what i did. i went to be with phil.

i would come hang out during his lunch breaks, and we would just sit and talk at the counter, just about everything. a lot of the time, i liked to hear him just talk about what his hometown was like when he lived there. it was so entertaining to just sit and watch his eyes light up when he talked about a particular part of the town that he missed, or a particular memory he had. i could listen and watch for hours as this boy captivate my attention with his mad storytelling and descriptions of his childhood.

one afternoon, he asked me about my life.

"so dan, i'm sure you're tired of me talking," phil stated. no, i could never be tired of you talking. "what was your childhood like here in london?"

my smile vanished, and i zoned out for a moment, thinking of what my childhood was like.

my ten-year-old self skipped down the hallway of my school, excited about my first day of school that year. i was so pumped; i had gotten brand new clothes, shoes, pencils and crayons, the whole lot. and even better; a brand new pokémon backpack.

then, i tripped over something. i fell to the ground with a 'hmph', and looked up to see who it was.

it was a boy named chris kendall. a boy i'd learned to hate throughout the years.

"oh, i'm sorry," i spoke in a small voice, believing it was my fault and that i had bumped into him. "i was distracted-"

"stay down, loser," he kicked my side, and i cried out in pain. why weren't any teachers around? it was in the dead center of the hallway on the first day of school. don't you think somebody should've turned up and helped? but no. no one did.

though 'loser' wasn't exactly the meanest word in the world, being a ten-year-old, we both knew that was a terrible thing to call somebody.

"you look so stupid. what is that? an anime backpack?" chris laughed at my backpack, which i had felt a lot worse about at that point. he giggled, "what a freak."

he kicked at my side again, and i yelped as i could actually feel a bruise start to form in the spot where he hurt me. he then walked away, and i sat there on the ground, confused as to what i did wrong.

the whole rest of the day, i couldn't even smile at anyone. no one attempted to talk to me, except the teachers, and the only thing i would say is my name. nothing else.

that day, i walked home crying. my home was just down the street. i wiped my tears from my face as i got home and collected the key to the front door from a house plant on the porch and unlocked the door, stepping inside the empty house.