Special Boy // phan

-33-

It took me three weeks to get to a stable enough condition to leave the hospital. They didn't know what to do with me. With no known weakness, healers couldn't do anything but wrap bandages around my open wounds. But they were only getting worse.

I didn't really know what to do with myself, either. What's going to happen to me now that I'm so broken? I was bleeding on the inside, and moving from the stagnant position on my bed hurt my muscles and bones, and even my head. I could barely get up to go to the loo or the kitchen, let alone school. I was wishing more than anything that I had attended those few days that I missed after my Phil revelation.

That was another thing too. Phil. He's been almost avoiding me since I discovered my power, and I understood on one level, and wished he'd stay on another. Phil thought that I was his weakness, his alone. But since I discovered that I was essentially everyone's weakness, he was rethinking our first night together. I was too, but that wasn't the point. I'd never forget it, but the Phil I knew, the Phil I steadily started loving as time went on, the Phil that started organisations to help people like me instead of flaunting his Big, the Phil that worked tirelessly to help me keep up with the school work I was missing as I laid in my hospital bed, he's the one I wanted to think about. The Phil that I kissed in my car. That's the Phil I wanted to remember.

I sat up in my bed, slowly, feeling a groan force its way past my lips. My body was sore, but it felt at least a little like I was healing. The process was much slower than it had ever been before in my life, and slower than it had been with anyone since the beginning of existence. I pressed my palms into the bed beside me , trying to force myself into a sitting position despite my entire body screaming in protest.  I glanced to my right where Phil had fallen asleep the night before, but he must have gone home. He wouldn't spend the night with me, even though I asked him to so many times. What I would give to be able to reach out and press my fingers into the rough fabric of his shirt when the pain got unbearable in the night. What I would give to be able to ask him to  fetch me something from the fridge when I couldn't move without pain shooting up and down my body.

But he said he couldn't. He shouldn't. He said he didn't trust himself, and that I shouldn't trust him either. So PJ and Chris stayed with me, and sometimes my mom would too. She kept asking me to come home but I said that I should stay here, much to my roommate's displeasure, because, after all, I payed for this housing already. And being closer to campus, and my friends and Phil, whatever he was to me, really helped me cope with these difficulties I was facing. PJ and Chris and Phil could all bring me the school work I missed and keep me up to date, as well as sometimes just coming over to help me get up or just keep me from going insane here by myself.

I groaned again as I reached over to my bedside table, grasping my phone and glancing to see the notifications. Thankfully, Phil was one of them, and I opened the message.

I'm heading to to the store before I come over. Want anything? I chuckled.

All. I replied simply, and set my phone down. I stared up at my ceiling and tried to take shallow breaths; though the healers at the hospital couldn't tell exactly, I was pretty sure I had a broken rib. Or at least fractured. It hurt like hell to breathe.

But I was optimistic, as optimistic as one could be in this state. At some point, I would find my weakness, and then I could be healed. All this pain and anguish would finally be over, and Phil would realise that maybe I was his weakness after all, or maybe I wasn't, but who cares anyway. I just wanted him to hold me.

There was a knock on the door, but I hadn't been getting enough breath to shout to let them in.

I grasped my phone in my hands and held it up to my ear after quickly pressing Phil's contact.

"Come in," I moaned, and he chuckled.

"How did you know it was me? Could have been a murderer. Or the pizza guy."

"I didn't order a pizza. Or a murderer. Do you have food?" The door clicked and Phil came into my room, PJ and Chris on his tail. I felt myself smile in spite of my situation. It was always a treat when all three of them came to have lunch with me. I missed hanging out with them around campus and during class, but this was definitely the next best thing.

Phil placed a plastic dish of sushi and rice on the side of my bed, and two glowing light-sabor shaped chopsticks alongside it. I smiled at him, and he leaned a little closer to me, like he might have been thinking about kissing me. But then he just pulled away, sitting down at the end of my bed as PJ took the desk chair and Chris took the beanbag.

"Thanks, guys," I beamed, pulling my lunch toward me as I sat up. They all three nodded, opening up their own lunches as Phil pulled out a few bottles of Ribena. "Anything important happen in class yesterday?"

"That one kid got yelled at. The one with the wind powers. He kept blowing up ladies skirts so Boomer sent him out. That was hilarious. Not the skirt thing. But the... getting sent out thing." Chris shoved a bite of pasta into his mouth as if shutting himself up.

"They miss you at GMM. Every time I go in there, they ask where you are. Which is funny, because they don't know your name. Just 'where's the brunet?' And I'm like 'sick' and they're like 'aw man, here, give him this pass for a lifetime supply of free pastries' and I was like 'thanks' but secretly.... I'll never give it to you." PJ laughed and held up his hands. "Joking! Only joking. Yeesh." He reached forward and rumpled my hair. "Can't take a joke, can you, flame boy?"

I narrowed my eyes and reached up to pat my hair, but Phil reached out to do it. It was more of a lurch than anything; he desperately flung his arm out to touch my hair. I chuckled.

"It's not as soft as it used to be. I haven't showered in, like, four days." But Phil plastered it down on my forehead again, messing with the part and tangling with my curls.

"Why don't you ever part it the other way?" he asked softly.

"I dunno. It's just always... fallen this way, I guess."