Powder [phan]

XII

Didn't let me forget.

Something whispered very quietly in me and grew louder and louder. A voice that told me what secretly my greatest wish was, which would probably remain unfulfilled.

I wanted nothing more than that Phil was here now and put his cool hand on my boiling forehead. Gently stroked my skin until it no longer felt numb. Until my breath calmed down.

I wanted to get out of here, finally out, but I couldn't. Couldn't do anything without him.

My vision became increasingly obscured until I finally closed my eyes.

Phil's POV

In a few minutes the plane would land in L.A.

I had to show Dan that I would do anything and try to win him back and finally free him from hell. Forever. I looked wistfully out of the small, round window next to me and saw the ocean below us.

I had hardly thought that the announcement that we were about to land would soon have to follow, and it already happened and I felt my pulse start racing.

The hotel wasn't far from the airport, so it wouldn't be long before the hard truth would hit me in the face.

There were many options how this could end up, and most of them were bad.

I couldn't find him at all or be immediately dismissed by him so that I had almost no choice but to turn back.

But just almost.

Because this time I wouldn't let that thought stop me. I would no longer allow myself to even consider it a way to leave him alone because I thought I was forced to do so.

Nothing and no one could force me to leave him here to fly back to London without having him with me. Without knowing him in safe hands.

However, the likelihood that his condition would already be really bad was cruelly high and the closer I got to the resolution, the more the fear drilled into my brain that I might be too late. That maybe he was no longer alive.

My will to save him could be so big, but when it was over I was powerless. Then I would have to deal with the fact that he had sought protection in the deadly drugs that I had not given him for the rest of my life.

Although I was well aware of his longing and need.

I would then be responsible for it.

And apart from the unbearable guilt that would then weigh on me, I would be forced to live without him.

Spending every goddamn day without the man who just meant everything to me.

Suddenly I felt sick and I just prayed that I quickly had firm ground under my feet again and that I didn't have to throw up here on the plane.

I got through the last few minutes and struggled out of the airport as soon as possible, in front of which a long line of taxis were waiting to be used.

During the entire trip I took nothing, absolutely nothing, of the surroundings that, when I had last been here, had seemed so incredibly beautiful that I could not take my eyes off it for a second.

I loved everything here. The weather, the atmosphere, the many places to visit that are worth seeing.

Every day had been an incomparable experience, and yet all of that was just passing me by as I stubbornly concentrated on what lay ahead.

What if I wasn't strong enough to help him?

The taxi reached the hotel.

Of course, he could have been somewhere else by now.