24 Hours - Phan

3:00am

Phil POV:

I furiously slam the door behind me and blindly run down the nearly empty city sidewalks, slowing only to look for cars. I'm so angry that I just left, desperate to get away from him and everything he was saying. After I'm a few blocks away from our flat, I finally have to stop, gasping and heaving for air, taking big breaths and trying to calm my burning lungs

I look around, attempting to get my bearings, not quite sure what direction I ran in or where I've ended up. The bright lights from our busy street have given way, and now I'm engulfed by the inky darkness of a residential neighborhood, which honestly seems sort of appropriate all things considered. I didn't have a destination in mind when I left. I just knew I couldn't stay there and look at him when I felt so hurt and betrayed.

I briefly debate going to a friend's house so I could have someone to talk to, but what would I say? It turns out that Dan and I have had feelings for each other for years and an hour after something physical happened between us he told me we should forget it ever happened? I snort and shake my head at how ridiculous it sounds even to me. Plus, I didn't need someone telling me that I wasted all of that time just sitting around pining over him. Friends had tried to fix me up with people for years and I had turned down every offer, staying true to Dan. The thought of being with anyone else made me feel like I was cheating on him.

As I walk down the quiet sidewalk, my initial anger finally starts to drain away in the blackness surrounding me and is replaced by resentment. I feel a pang of guilt for leaving Dan behind like that. The look on his face when he begged me to stay was almost enough to make me give in, but I wasn't in the proper mindset to even try to listen to him right now. How could I fix his emotional breakdown when I couldn't even handle my own? He was just going to have to figure this one out on his own instead of depending on me like he usually does. In my mind, I start replaying how everything had unfolded, trying to figure out where things went wrong.

I was so terrified earlier when I thought that he was dating someone else. It felt like my world was ending and I would have given anything at that point for it to be anything but that. I was ready to put my heart on the line and confess all of my feelings if it meant that I never had to see him with someone else. Everything changed when I saw what was in that folder and knew that he had spent all that time saving those photos and screen shots, going through and looking at them over and over, I just couldn't believe it was happening. Did I make the right decision by letting him know I felt the same way? Should I have waited?

Part of me feels like a complete idiot. I was lying in bed thinking we were finally a couple and wondering how we were going to tell people, and he was apparently already having regrets. If he didn't want this why didn't he just stop me when I gave him a chance? How could I have been so stupid to think that he wanted me the way I wanted him? But that's the thing, he did kiss me back. What happened tonight was definitely not one sided. I just don't understand why he wants to pretend it didn't happen.

If I had done nothing, would I have regretted it for the rest of my life?

Yes.

That first kiss....my god that kiss! At that moment I needed it more than I needed air to breathe. For years I had wondered how that would feel. I don't know how it's even possible that it was better than anything that I had ever imagined. Even now, my heart still feels drunk with his kiss. His smell, his taste, the way he felt in my arms and pulled me to him, what if I never experience that again? If I don't, is that worse than never getting a chance to experience it at all?

I stop walking and stand in the middle of the sidewalk, looking back in the direction I just came from. Despite what happened and how devastated I am right now, I still feel a pull to go back to him. He's like a magnet that's always drawing me in. Maybe I should go back and see how he is, confident that he's hurting almost as much as I am right now and hating the thought that he's alone. Dan hates being alone for any length of time. I always know when I've been gone longer than around three hours because he starts texting to see when I'm coming back home. Anytime I go to visit my family and he's not able to go, he holes himself up in the apartment and pouts, calling and texting me almost constantly just to see what I'm doing.

With a sigh, I turn and continue walking, getting further away from the apartment with each step. My head is spinning and I need some time to think before I can face him. The pain has been mildly dulled by distance, but it's still firmly there, prodding at me to relive everything that was said tonight.

And what's he going to do when I come back home?