The Exchange Student ➵ phan

Chapter 15

'Good, be free small son.' I mentally whisper and flinch when I process my thoughts. Calm down brain. "Oh. That's nice. Do you have any suggestions?"

"Um. Something to do with plants maybe? I quite like plants." Phil shrugs, his cheeks puffed with a distinct white power around his lips.

"I can do that." I google up aesthetic plants and hum the song lyrics I have in mind.

Phil sits next to me and offers me a chip. I shake my head and fall back into my work.

The onscreen music changes from a soft dramatic melody to playful laughter and a crow's song.

"What is t-"

Before I can fully ask Phil has slapped his hand over my mouth and aggressively shushed me. On the TV is a show's logo surrounded by tree branches. 'Over the Garden Wall.' Alright then.

I go back to my scrolling and chose some of the pictures I think meld together the best.

"I have that plant. Named her Ryce." Phil notes and takes his hand away. Some shit Gatorade commercial is on screen and he looks over my shoulder.

I try my bet to ignore the way it makes my skin prickle and my cheeks grow red.

"That's... nice I guess." I start to create the separate files and Phil giggles.

"I like the file names. Birbs, kittens, holy shit why did I save this, totally not porn."

My body heats up and I quickly click away from my folders. "Those are known of your concern."

"Fine." He flops against the couch and his head hovers dangerously close to my neck. "They can't be that bad regardless."

"And why would you say that?" Suddenly I was filled with the need to prove Phil wrong.

"You don't seem like the hardcore smutty type guy is all." He shrugs and places his arms behind his head.

"And how would you decode that?" I ask, Phil is always doing this. He treats me like a child and it is so fucking irritating.

"I don't know." He shrugs and grabs a handful of chips.

"I swear to god if you say it's the way I hold myself I will fu-"

"I wasn't going to say that. I was just wondering how long it would take before you snapped."

"Screw you." My cheeks burn and I shut my laptop's lid.

"I knew it. How bad is it?"

"You are so fucking weird." I stare at my knees and refuse to meet Phil's eyes. This is such a weird conversation, this is such a weird time, Phil is so odd it hurts.

"Is it really that bad?"

"You're just trying to rile me up now." I claim. "You always do this and it's so irritating. You always go into these mega personal conversations and act like they mean nothing when in reality you know they make people uncomfortable. So what's up with it? It's annoying as hell! I want to have a normal conversation for once!"

"Where's your girlfriend?" Phil asks and I tense, our previous conversation from... what? days ago? Comes back to haunt me. My fingers tighten around the laptop and I force my eyes to meet Phil's, come on Howell. Time too put all those shitty community center acting lessons to use.