Refound Love (YTSTMB sequel)

Epilogue 3/3

A/N: last ever chapter for this series! Enjoy :)

PJ P.O.V.

One year later

There's a smile on Chris's face. It resembles one he used to wear when he looked at me, but this time it's a little bigger and a little brighter.

He's sitting at the other end of the sofa now since we planned to spend the evening together for a catch up but we haven't really said a word. I glance sideways to take a minute or so to really look at him - I notice his complexion isn't a sickly yellow any more, and there's no dark circles to contrast against his pale skin. His eyes don't look hollow or empty now and he's put on weight so his elbows no longer jut out at an angle.

He had been going out a lot more recently, and when I wake up in the late morning and knock on his door before going in, his bed would be slept in but unmade, and he'd already be gone.

The deafening silence in the flat would make me think about him a lot. I knew I had tried my best to love him, but I was lying to his face and lying to myself and there was only so much of that I could take.

I hated to admit it, but I had fallen in love with Dan a long time ago and had used Chris as rebound when he rejected me. On reflection, I couldn't believe what I had done to my best friend, what I had put him through, and it was completely understandable that he didn't spend time with me anymore.

Even though it had been over 18 months since it all came spilling out, I still carried the burden of guilt to bed with me each night and the aching in my chest that said I still wasn't over Dan. I was suffering now after everything I had done to him, to Phil, to Chris - and I deserved it.

During my days I worked on my own projects. I tried to be as creative as I could, turning my pain into art or music or videos, but there was a void in which I felt disconnected to the world. Nothing I was putting out was really me any more, whatever that was.

I still watched Dan and Phil's videos though. I couldn't help it. A year ago, they uploaded the yearly instalment of 'Phil is not on fire'. They didn't explicitly announce they were together, but there were silver rings on both of their left hands and their fingers were interlocked for the opening sequence. In the bloopers was a shot of Dan looking at Phil like he was his entire world before cutting him off mid-sentence to kiss him. Even though I had seen them kiss in front of me plenty of times, I couldn't get that particular clip out of my mind.

I received an invite to their wedding a month later, addressed to both Chris and I. I didn't speak for a week. Chris still has it stuck on the fridge with a magnet.

"PJ," Chris's soft voice broke through my wandering mind's journey and I turned to look him and found I had missed him more than I originally thought. Just to be able to watch one of his favourite stand-up DVDs without fearing I would start an argument if I opened my mouth and without Chris sitting in a rigid position, flinching everything he saw me was something I had taken for granted.

"Yeah?"

"I've met someone," it's barely a whisper but that smile that lights up the whole room is back on his face and it stays there the entire time he talks about him.

-

If there's anything I hated shopping for, it was suits. I didn't like the one I currently had and it was too dark for a wedding. I had spent hours the day before trudging through various fancy shops I hadn't noticed before, but the activity of picking a few out when they all looked the same and trying them in tiny changing cubicles was tedious.