Song for this chapter: High & Low- EZA

I always thought I was an open person, sharing my emotions, thoughts and opinions with those around me, but I learned different by the ripe age of sixteen. It's easy to share what your feeling on the inside when all that exists is sunshine and blue skies; storm clouds and swirling hurricanes is a little different.

I, Dan Howell, am a lot of things, and sad just happens to be one of them. I don't quite understand the point of existence, specifically my own. I don't like the way I look or the way that my body has decided to operate. I don't like school, homework, teachers, or even most of the kids in my grade. I don't like hospitals, needles, doctors, or even any medical terms. I hate silence that is only filled with the worked sounds of my lungs, but I also despise any social interaction if it isn't with my close friends. I hate moths, trees, and the dark, yet I only seem to live at night. In summary, I hate a lot of things. The only things I don't really hate are the people sitting around me at this table, and the chocolate malt in my hand.

"Dan?" My friend Chris breaks me from my lost daze, "You in there?"

To my displeasure I end the staring contest I was having with the front bumper of PJ's car and turn back towards my friends to engage in conversation. The majority of the light-hearted group seems to be laughing at some cheesy pun Louise just made, with the exception of Phil. Looking around the table I take notice of the order of the seats, something only my brain would think to do. On my right is Chris, next to him is PJ, on the other side of PJ is Louise, and to my left is Phil. My eyes dropping onto Phil, I notice his wrinkled face and nervous eyes, "Are you okay Dan?" he asks under his breath so the others won't hear.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I blatantly lie.

But maybe it isn't that far from the truth. Anymore I feel as if I'm lost at sea, trapped between a coast of happiness and a coast of numbness. Most days I spend just off the coast of the numbness island, but when I'm with my friends I can use binoculars to see just the coast of "Okay" nation.

"Are you fine," Phil places air quotations around the word fine, and then drops his hands back to his lap, "Or are you actually feeling happy?"

When I really thought about Phil's question I decided to pull out the map. According to the nearly-impossible to navigate paper I was reaching the national waters of anxiety volcano. Even if I know that I'm not okay, should I really share this with Phil? Despite the fact that this emotional cruise around the troubling sea is nearly endless I decide that it wouldn't hurt to admit the truth to one of my best friends at least once. "Just feeling kind of nervous is all."

With my confession Phil looked up and peered around the table of our friends until settling his eyes back on me. Keeping his eyes trained on me, Phil began to reach the hand that wasn't holding his ice cream out to my free hand resting on my own leg. As Phil picked up my hand my heart began to race. Physical contact often intimidated me, and I began to wonder if Phil's intentions are going to be counterproductive.

"I hate Ms. Smith, she doesn't even teach us anything in that class," Phil and me's other friends continued on with their conversation, barely even paying attention to us two taller boys sitting across from them.

Phil's eyes met mine as if to say, "Is this okay?" and before I could think about it too much, I nodded my head. The soothing look of Phil's blue eyes allowed me to relax and squeeze Phil's hand back for reassurance.

This was okay.

Physical contact with one of your good friends is okay.

Relaxing into Phil's touch I felt his heart rate steady and my breathing even out. I released the tension from my shoulders and suddenly everything felt okay. No longer was I anxious for no apparent reason, I was sailing back towards the happiness resort found on "Okay" nation, and I think Phil could tell.

"So, ummm do you guys want to hear about how I turned down Chloe today?" I was immediately snapped out of my thoughts with PJ's words.

"What the fuck PJ?" Louise practically jumped across the table to PJ, making uncomfortably close eye contact with the confessional friend. "Chloe asked you out? You turned her down? The dance is coming up! You could have had a date!" Louise rambled on enough for all of us.

"Louise you might want to calm down and shut your mouth so that PJ can explain!" Phil said after turning to me to roll his eyes and squeeze my hand once again.

"Right, okay. Now spill!" Louise shouted, but returned to her seat while doing so.

PJ looked around the group nervously, we weren't exactly a group of friends with a lot of experience in dating. PJ had had an older girlfriend for a while, but the fact of the matter was they just didn't work together. Other than PJ I was the only one to ever have dated, if you could call what I had with Bailey a relationship. Neither Bailey nor I had ever dated anyone before, and were shy in making any calls in the relationship, overall leading to a loss of chemistry. To say I had been farther with Phil (when he accidentally swung his arm past my crotch while flailing limbs in excitement) than I ever got with Bailey wouldn't be a lie. Moving his hand around a bit before beginning, PJ finally gave us a recount of his day.

"I feel like there isn't too much to say." He paused for a brief second, "I was walking back from lunch by myself, cause all of you losers are in a different lunch, and she just kind of walked up to me and asked if I would go on a date with her." PJ seemed to have finished his story, all of our faces mildly disappointed, before he added, "And to specify, she asked if I wanted to go mini golfing sometime."

I looked around at the faces of my three other friends, all of them just as equally horrified as me. Chloe Clarke was possibly one of the hottest girls in the school, and yet, PJ had turned her down. "You have some serious explaining to do Peej." Chris spoke up.

"I just don't feel like I have enough time to be dating anybody right now unless it is Kylie Johnson." In almost perfect unison we all rolled our eyes at PJ's logic. Some crush on the most popular girl at the school wouldn't have stopped me from saying yes to one date with Chloe, even if I was pining for somebody else. What could one date hurt? That was like passing up a once in a lifetime opportunity, especially if you're me.

"But see the best part is that I turned her down by making a really bad Nemo joke."

PJ was met with four blank faces staring back at him. A Nemo joke to turn down anybody else would have been hilarious, but this was Chloe Clarke we were talking about.

"What was it?" Louise finally asked.

"I said, 'There really aren't that many fish in the sea if you think about, some eat others. That being said I'm afraid you aren't the Marlin to my Dory, so I'm gonna have to just keep on swimming.'"

As soon as the words left PJ's mouth I found myself retrieving my hand from Phil's to hold my stomach as I doubled over in laughter. PJ is an idiot, but a funny one nonetheless. After calming myself down slightly I looked to my left to find Phil with his eyes crinkled up at the edges from the wide smile he wore on his soft face. Catching his breath and reaching my gaze Phil and I held eye contact for several seconds before I finally looked back towards my other friends.

Eye contact scared me.

I was always so scared that if somebody looked long and hard they might find something about me they didn't expect, something to make them want to leave. I wasn't scared that Phil was going to stare into my soul, hell if he did that maybe he would find my feelings for him. I was always so terrified of letting the blinds, so forcefully held open, snap close so that all the light shining through faded. Nobody needed to know that I felt dead inside.

"Was my response a little out of line? Did I go too far." PJ asked after everyone seemed to calm down.

"Maybe a little, but it's okay. I mean it's not like you ruined any of our chances of going out with her or anything." Chris said, his voice ringing with passive aggressiveness.

Picking up my phone from the table we were sat at I checked the time to see that I was supposed to be home in less than twenty minutes. "Hey Phil if I'm taking you home then we need to go ahead and leave."

With everybody else sighing, Phil and I began walking to my car and waved bye to our three other friends sitting around the ice cream shoppe table. Unlocking the door and sliding into the driver's seat I stole a glance at Phil and turned the music down a little bit so that we could talk.

"That was fun." Phil simply mentioned, his body in the adjacent seat turned towards mine.

"Yeah it was, PJ is a complete noob to turn down Chloe Clarke though." Phil chuckled at my statement, his laughter warming my heart. "He really is though! No matter who you are, you should never pass up an opportunity to go on a date with Chloe!"

I carefully debated my next words in my head, silence filling the car in my absence of a response. "Ummmmm...yeah." Phil subconsciously said to fill the silence. Phil hated silence, somebody always had to be saying something. Deciding to just go for it, I asked, "Do you think there is a different reason PJ didn't say yes?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I don't know, maybe he doesn't like Chloe, because..." I trailed off at the end of my sentence, too worried of what Phil was going to think about me if I continued.

"If you're asking if I think PJ is gay, the answer is no. He is the straightest person I know!"

I peeked a glance in Phil's direction as I giggled to myself. After only three years of friendship Phil knew me so well. "I know he is straight as a flagpole! I just… It's Chloe fucking Clarke! Even if I were gay and not bi I would appreciate the looks of that girl!"

Phil and I both lost it. This was why I cherished my friendship with Phil so much. Phil was the one friend I had that I completely and undoubtedly be myself with, he knows everything about me. Despite the fact that Phil was one of my newer friends, meeting him at the beginning of high school, unlike my other friends I had met in elementary school, it was so incredibly easy to be myself with him.

Once again moving my stare from the road to the best friend sitting in my passenger seat I took in the way Phil's eyes scrunched up at the sides when he laughed, the way his cheeks were spread wide enough to reach his eyes. Phil's hair was perfectly plastered across his forehead in a smooth, black fringe. Making quick eye contact I took notice of the way that the afternoon sun shone on the blue of Phil's pupils to make glittering specks of yellow and green appear. There is no denying that Phil Lester is a beautiful human being.

"So, speaking of sexuality, any updates on yours?"

Phil rolled his eyes at my bluntness. "I'm still straight Dan, sorry I won't be able to go cute-boy spotting with you at the mall." I laughed along at the joke, but what people present on the outside isn't always what they feel on the inside.

Inside I felt myself drifting towards hopelessness sandbar. Phil was great and whenever I day dreamed of having a boyfriend my mind always lead back to him. But the fact of the matter is that he is straight, despite everybody else's questioning for him. I have no more than ten months to live and I plan on doing everything in my power to make the few things I don't want to miss out on in life happen. I want to kiss somebody, hold somebody, say "I love you" to somebody before I die, yet the only person I desire is out of my reach.

Thanks for reading! Please review and follow!

Alysha x