24 Hours - Phan

6:00am

Dan POV:

I refuse to let sleep happen. I've been restlessly pacing around for so long now that I've lost any sense of time. It feels like he's been gone for a lifetime already. How long have I been doing this? Hours maybe? But I can't stop. If I stop moving, that means I've given up hope that he's coming back home, and that's not something I'm willing to do. I keep walking from room to room to room obsessively, only stopping long enough on my pass through the living room to look out of the window to search for his familiar form. I need him to come back and I'm holding on to a tiny sliver of hope for dear life.

As I'm walking, I rehearse in my mind what I want to say to him when he gets back. Being scared was no excuse to break his heart like that. The look on his face when I told him to pretend last night didn't happen will stick with me the rest of my life and the feeling of regret is overpowering. I want to be with him forever. He's my universal constant and I don't want that to change. No matter how scary this is for both of us, I need for him to know that I'm committed to him. And now all I have to do is wait for him so I can tell him all of this. Of course, I'm going to have to get him to listen to me, which he may refuse to do. If he does, I guess I can't really blame him.

Feeling dizzy and sick, I stumble in the hallway and grab onto the wall to keep from falling on the floor. I stand still for a minute before I'm able let go and make my way back to the living room. Physically and mentally unable to keep moving, I finally collapse on the couch. My head is throbbing and my eyes are so swollen I can hardly see. The sun has already started to creep into the room, bringing with it an overwhelming sense of dread and the knowledge that he's been gone all night. Where is he??

The possibilities of where he might be right now flood into my head, and none of them are good options. I try to imagine him walking around alone and grief-stricken and it breaks my heart into a million pieces. I make a mental list of all of our friends and try to figure out who he may have gone to for consolation. But if he would have shown up at a friend's house, wouldn't they have at least texted me to tell me he was ok? But there are potentially worse alternatives than that. What if he went to someone else for comfort? A tormenting image of Phil kissing someone the way he kissed me last night sends a wave of nausea tearing through me. Is it possible he's in someone else's bed?

It's strange and frightening how you can go from not knowing someone even exists, to then loving them so totally and completely that you wonder how it ever was that you were able to live without them in the first place. Because I certainly can't imagine being alone and without Phil now. I want and need him in every sense of the word. Until we met, I led a life filled with nothing significant. Everything I did, said, and experienced left me feeling half alive. I dated a little bit, but to be honest, none of them made me feel anything. When they eventually left me, I felt nothing but indifference towards both them and the breakup. And then there was Phil, and suddenly the world around me had meaning and a purpose. He was my purpose. It's one thing to have someone leave you, but it's a completely different thing when someone like Phil does it. You don't recover from something like that. He is that person that comes along once in a lifetime if you're lucky.

But here I am.

Alone.

Not only am I alone, there is now the very real possibility that I'll be left behind. After what I did, surely he won't choose to stay here. The thought of roaming around in their half empty flat with all of those memories floating around causes me both physical and mental pain. I wouldn't have any choice but to move. I could never make another video without him, so that would be gone too. My my past, present, and future is out there somewhere. What is he thinking? Does he even want to come back? There are so many things I still need to say to him.

I curl up on the couch in a ball and close my eyes. I concentrate on every little sound in the flat. I listen desperately for the rattle of a key in the front door, but all I hear is a dripping from the leaky kitchen faucet and the occasional creak from the floor in the flat next door. Everything seems magnified and almost ominous. I frantically stuff down the fresh sobs that are threatening to start again, knowing that if I cry I might miss hearing him open the front door. Maybe this is what it feels like to lose your mind.

I force my eyes back open so sleep won't drag me under. Through my blurry vision, my eyes travel around the room, landing on all of our video games, books, and DVDs. There is no 'mine' and 'yours' in this apartment. In fact, everything has been 'ours' for many years now. A feeling of realization washes through my head. I understand now what I should have seen all along. I got scared last night because I thought I would be a failure at everything that being in a relationship would entail. Phil and I had been in a relationship all along and the physical part of it was just the last piece to fall into place. Intimacy wasn't just about sex, it was about making him a bowl of cereal in the morning, washing his favorite hoodie so it would be clean, and even letting him win at Mario Kart sometimes. It was the times he made my bed, always left me the last cookie in package, and made sure I never ran out of my favorite shampoo. It was there along, seamlessly woven into our thoughts and everyday lives.

I need to tell him all of this. I need another chance.

Phil never gets angry like this. Every now and then he'll get upset, but after a short time he's always back to his usual cheerful self. He's been gone for hours, and the longer he's gone, the less hope I have that he's coming back.

Please come home...