The Darkest Of Days

Chapter 20

3 months. He couldn't believe it had been 3 months. Every morning he woke up praying it was all a dream. That it never happened…

Dan sat on the floor in his bedroom at Phil’s and his old apartment, lost in his thoughts. He never thought he’d find himself here again. Not since the Sims video…

He was shaken out of his memories by the sound of the front door opening. For a fraction of a second he thought it was Phil coming home, and then his heart stopped when he realized that it couldn’t have been him. A tear rolled down his cheek as he pushed himself off of the floor and went to go greet Phil’s family.

When he got to the door he only saw Katherine.

“Oh Daniel. Thank you so much for doing this with me,” she said as she hugged him tightly. “Sorry I’m the only one here, it….it was too hard for the others…” she pulled back and gave him a small smile, tears in her eyes. “Shall we get started then?”

Dan just nodded and followed her to the one place he had been avoiding since he got there 3 hours previous. Phil’s room.

An hour later finds them still going through Phil’s things, sorting what to keep (which so far has been almost everything) and what to get rid of (mostly candy wrappers).

Dan was going through many of the items and telling Katherine stories related to each one. Soon they were laughing over the stupid things Phil has bought.

The lighthearted mood continues for the rest of the sorting until Dan finds something soft under the bed. He froze as tears instantly flood his eyes, quickly spilling over.

Lion.

He pulls him out and stares at him as memories from when they first met fill his mind with a depressing nostalgia.

Katherine looks up at him and stops sentence of another story of Phil, smile falling. “Dan, Hun? What did you find?”

Words failing him, he lets out a sob and hugs Lion tightly, rocking back and forth. He felt Katherine’s arms go around him and hug him tightly.

And that’s when he made his choice. The one that had been in his head ever since the funeral. Sitting there, on his best friends bedroom floor, with his best friend’s mother hugging him tightly trying to comfort him, that’s when he decided.