AN: None of this could've happened unless one of my close friends, Ethan, hadn't poured his heart over texts about his love for a girl named Zoe. Their love is a sad story but I still hope for their happiness because they both deserve it. To Zothan.

Love is stupid, isn't it? The way it drags you into a world, your head spinning, feeling nauseous, your heart thumping like a drum. It's a crazy ride, one that I wanted to risk for the perfect person. Surrounded by the other hopeless singles in a pool without any water, you see that perfect person who is either shining brighter than anything else or darker than oynx. It's funny how it works that way, because I never expected to fall for him. I guess it was when you see his bright smile, his beautiful blue eyes. The fact that he's so cute without realizing it. His adorable mismatched socks. His dark hair so messy after a long night. He looks good like that, attractive without trying to be. His special laugh, how he's always so fun and happy. Need I say more?

But love is stupid, it rules your life and overthrows you until you're beaten and half-dead, wanting, needing someone like that.

But the person, well, they're always taken.

It's not always in the sense of if they actually have a girlfriend or boyfriend, it could be anything blocking it. For me, it was he didn't even realize until it was too late.

There were so many good memories, so many. Video upon video we did together, always laughing always smiling.

I dreamed of a perfect world of just me and him, forever in eternity. I dreamed of our story like a book or a movie, but it was my fault. It was my fault for blurring the lines of fiction and reality and allowing myself to even think he might feel the way I do. And for that I am here in a pain indescribable. But it still does not make me love him any less. It's the choice of getting back up after being knocked down that keeps me loving him.

I wanted to say something. For years I've wanted to say something. About my feelings towards my best friend, not wanting to hold anything back. I wanted to say that the perception of an angel isn't actually someone in white with wings. It was him all along. I wanted to say that I'd rather be blind than not see his smile. I'd rather be deaf than never to hear his laugh. I'd rather lose my voice then never confess my feelings towards him.

I'd rather lose my heart and mind than to never have loved him.

I fell in love with a sweet and innocent guy years ago when I was young. It was a mistake. But oh how it was the best mistake I ever made.

I tried to push the feelings away, I tried to cope with the fact of losing him. But seeing him every day and seeing the real him was all it took for me to get addicted to my love for him again. I tried not to allow myself to think like that ever again. It just increased the pain. But the pain, I always told myself in the very back of my mind, might just be worth it.

It wasn't healthy, it wasn't good that I kept it in for too long. I asked myself why I kept loving him even though he would never feel the same way.

I doubted myself. I thought maybe it was worth the pain to love someone so helplessly and so uncontrollably even though I knew deep down in my heart that he would never feel the same way.

Sometimes I believed that he may love me too, deep deep down. But I'd seen it before. He didn't like me. He might've liked me in the craziness of 2009, but I missed my chance. He liked other people I could tell. I just could. Trying to not let the jealousy overtake you is hard. But reminding myself that he wasn't mine and the fact that he will never be keeps me on track. It hurt to remind myself about it but it was the sad truth. It's how the cruel world works. It's how love works. I loved someone and they didn't even mind me. It happens all too often and frankly I was just another victim to the stupid trap that was love. But it didn't matter. I love him. I kept loving him. And even when he moved on and (God forbid) I move on, there will always be a part of my heart set aside for him. It's hard to move on after you've met someone as amazing as him. I honestly don't want to move on. I can't bring myself to do it. I've honestly tried but I honestly just don't want to. I

Day to day I tried to speak my mind and confess how I felt, how I loved him beyond our tiny friendship. I wanted to play around with his fingers and lay my head on his shoulder and tickle him and cuddle with him whenever I wanted to.

I wanted him to love me like I loved him so desperately.

I would do anything, anything in the world for it.

But then it was too late.

The blood was shed, the tears were dried and I couldn't do anything to stop it. In a flash, my life had changed because I hadn't confessed my feelings and because I hadn't said that I was madly in love with him.

He had given me a piece of his soul when I was down, he saved me from his inevitable. He was something I never knew was missing from my life until it was ripped from my hands and was splattered on the ground.

I like to have thought that my love for him was like a fire. A wildfire that burned greatly, but as time went by the sparks started to go out and all I was left with on this sad, rainy day was burnt out coals.

Memories of him flood my brain every single day and I remember how I loved him looking back at the videos on my computer. I remember the Fantastic Foursome and all of the Phan posts and the Krave wars and the gaming channel and BBC Radio 1 and all of it. I looked back on those years of my life and it brings me tears to my eyes because there were no better years than the ones I spent with him.

Staring at the computer in the office just wasn't the same as making videos with him everyday, being by him, taking his cereal. Playing Donkey Kong and watching movies. Being in his presence with his love encasing me.

But I regret those days too. I regret never kissing his sweet lips, never blushing at the attempt of love, never seeing him on a wedding day, his blue eyes shining in the light. I never came into his room at night and slept with him, dozing off listening to the sound of his breaths. I never got to hold his hands and steal kisses, I never got to love him outside of the bubble I created for myself as soon as the feelings for him surfaced.

That quote 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all' is complete bullshit. The love I felt for him warmed my heart and kept me going, but the fire now was extinguished. Nothing left but a burnt match.

So I stand here on this rainy day, absently holding an umbrella, in front of a patch of what was once newly planted grass, in front of a slab that is supposed to represent what once was the glorious Phillip Michael Lester. The terrible day, finding him in the bathtub, his wrists slit, his tears dried comes to mind. I remember grabbing his face, crying, yelling at Phil to wake up. I shook him violently, splashing water on his face, knowing it was all useless. I took his face into my hands and kissed his cold lips. "I love you," I whispered to him, but Phil never got to hear those sweet, simple, three little words.

I never even suspected the depth of what he was going through. But as the videos were posted less and less often, and as he slipped away into his room without my notice, I never knew that AmazingPhil didn't feel all that amazing. But truth is, he was. He was a walking cluster of stardust, a walking explosion of nebulas, there were constellations rippling all throughout his body. He wasn't just amazing, he was a spectacular sight for us all.

I start to cry. Violently, my body rocking back and forth with anxiety. I sob out everything, a slurred apology for never being there for him and how this was ultimately my fault for being a stupid dumbass and how I should've just said I love you to him. My knees fall onto the muddy ground and I bawl out every tear my body can hold. I love him, I love him, I love him. Yet he never knew.

I try to compose myself, gasping for air. It's been 5 years but I still can't get over him because Phillip Michael Lester is not one you simply 'get over'. He's one you mourn over and cry over and wish to God and Satan to bring him back. He's one you question your life for, he's one you want to live for, he's one that lives inside of you. He's just simply one who makes you how you are today. He hardens you from the world and makes you cold. He makes you never want to date again because no one could try and live up to the legacy that the amazing Phil set out years before. He makes you worry that everyone else you love will end too and that… that's Phil.

I finally start to breath again, my hand squished into the mud that lays above his body. The white lilies set next to his gravestone are ruined, flattened against the ground. His name in bold print stares down at me like a hawk. A scribbled '1987-2014' gives me a agonizing glare along with the quote underneath it. 'It's a good thing to be strange, normalness leads to sadness.'

I guess Phil just didn't feel so amazing and just normal.

It was something I had wondered all these years and I never came to a solid conclusion. I never knew the reason behind his death, but it wouldn't help. Even if I went back in time to try and cheer him up, I would just stare at his face, longing to see a smile or hear a laugh. It would harm me more than anything, it would take away all of the progress I had made trying to deal with life without my flatmate. I would try, but it was just inevitable in the end, I couldn't help him.

I look at my watch, realizing I'll be late for court. The peak of a scar shows underneath my jacket and I quickly slip it past wrist. I stand up from the grave, trying to wipe the mud off of my pants. I stare at his name one more time and swallow hardly. With an umbrella in hand, I slowly walk along the grass, it crunching underneath my shoes. The rain pounds on the umbrella like the beat of a drum. I look down at my shoes and continue along the sidewalk, hurrying past the few people I see.

Once on the metro, away from the storm, a young lady sits next to me watching a video. I recognize it instantly, it being the last Phil is Not On Fire we filmed. "Is that AmazingPhil and Dan is Not On Fire?" I ask her, leaning over her shoulder.

She nods. "Yeah, I was a huge fan when I was younger. Too bad they both committed, isn't it?"

I nod, staying quiet after that. It was true that Dan Howell died, he died when his best friend did. An empty soul named Daniel Harris sits in his place instead, working in a office 9-5, a man with a shallow personality and keeps to himself. I am both of them, scarred by the death of his best friend.

If there was one thing that I learned from Phil, only one, it would be that love is stupid. The way it drags you into a world, your head spinning, feeling nauseous, your heart thumping like a drum. It's a crazy ride, something I could never truly experience again.

Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life.

-Leo Buscaglia