Outcast ✧ Phan

Nine

en·joy·ment
noun
the state or process of taking pleasure in something.

I groaned, the breath leaving a hot feeling against my pale palms as I sat on my bedroom floor in the corner. I had my knees scooted close to my chest and held my face in my hands.

Today was horrible. Worse than usual, too.

First, that oddly pleasant yet terrifying feeling. Second, Phil discovering my library place, and third, getting partnered together in the study program.

Fate must have some sort of unspoken grudge against me, because nothing ever seemed to be going right, nowadays and in the past.

I was kinda silently hoping Phil would be wanting to cancel or something, so I texted the number he gave me to increase the chance of him piping up and calling it off. I saved it into my phone quickly after hitting send.

To Phil: still coming?

The reply was almost instant, which had me vaguely wondering if Phil had been waiting for a text from me.

From Phil: yup! x

I eyed his text cautiously, mostly the x. The feeling erupted as I scanned the single letter, butterflies dancing inside of me.

To Phil: okay! x

I contemplated whether or not to actually use the x, but ended up agreeing and pushing send. He added one first, anyway.

I sighed, dropping my phone to my side gently. Its fine. Everything is fine. A voice assured me, and though it didn't specify what was fine exactly, I felt it didn't have to.

But, it wasn't actually fine. I wasn't actually fine. Nothing was fine. I used to be fine, not really stupendously joyful but still striving on. Then here came Phil Lester, the only fucking kid who actually notices me and, as unwanted as ever, he just had to cling on, with his pretty ocean blue eyes, and his drugging feeling given to me like a neon radioactive paintstroke against my blank canvas of an caven inside.

You know, if that even makes any sense.

I couldn't let him go. I wouldn't. It was selfish as hell, I know. It even reminded me of the antics of young toddlers, who would play with their small little toys and refuse to let them go at bedtime, grasping the plaything with the will of their own dear life, even if the effort itself was purely futile, because they'd eventually give up; pointless at its finest shining glory.

That's all this was, pointless.

I could feel anger rising stubbornly in the pit of my belly, clawing its way to the surface no matter how hard I pushed it back--which wasn't very hard, given I was not in the best of moods to begin with.

"Its not fair!" I whisper-yelled, resisting the urge to cry, though my eyes were beginning to burn with the effort. I gripped the air through my right hand, clenching my fingers together in a fist, then slammed it forward into an empty drawer of my dresser, which, being very old and fragile, had easily caved in under the strike. I stared, fist still clenched inside the drawer and silently fuming, at the hole in my furniture. Had I hit a drawer with clothes in it, it may not have broken, but since I didn't own a lot of clothing and there were only a few drawers holding some, I didn't.

I withdrew my hand from the broken wood, looking down at the limb when I began to feel a slight throb. Sure enough, my knuckles, which had been pale and clean before the attack on the innocent piece of furniture, were now bruised and red, blood dripping slowly down my fingers.