"Why not?!" Phil looked at Dan incredulously as he yelled, "We've been dating for three years Dan. Three! I love you and I'm not ashamed of it! Why can't we just tell everyone?!"
"Because I'm not ready! I don't want people to judge me! I'm afraid of losing subscribers and I'm afraid of people hating me!" Dan yelled back at Phil. He didn't want to yell but he just wasn't listening. They had been arguing for the last thirty minutes and Dan was tired of it. Why couldn't Phil just accept that fact that he wasn't ready yet?
"You don't think I'm not afraid of that? Because I am. I just so happen to love you enough to get over that fear. You clearly don't feel the same." Phil's voice was lower now and he was practically glaring at Dan.
Dan took a few shuddering breaths and replied, "Don't you dare say that. Don't you dare. I love you. I do. I love you more than anything but I am not ready. Why can't you just accept that?"
"I can't do this Dan." Phil shook his head and ran his hand through his hair, "I can't be with you if you're always going to say you're not ready. I feel like I'm wasting my time loving someone who doesn't care enough to get over his fear of judgment."
"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" Dan could feel the tears welling up in his eyes ready to spill over at any moment. Phil couldn't do this to him. He loved Dan he couldn't mean that.
"I'm saying we either tell everyone about our relationship or we breakup." Phil leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, his face giving no indication of what he was thinking.
"Y-you can't make me choose." Dan shook his head, "I can't lose you. But I can't tell everyone about us. Not after everything I went through in school. Phil you know how fucked up I was. You can't make me choose." By the time he had finished talking tears were sliding down his cheeks and he was staring pleadingly at Phil hoping he would understand and let it go.
Phil sighed and walked over to Dan, engulfing him in a hug, "You're right, I can't make you choose."
Dan looked up at Phil and smiled despite the fact that tears were still finding their way down his face, "Thank you." He leaned up to kiss him but Phil turned his head so the kiss would land on his cheek.
"I can't make you choose, so I'll choose for you." Phil dropped his arms and stepped away from Dan, "We're over, I won't move out and we can still be friends but I have to move on."
"What?! No you don't y-you… can't do that." Dan grabbed Phil's hand, "Don't do this to me. I love you."
Phil looked at Dan sadly and leaned in to kiss his forehead, "I still love you too but you had a choice and now it's too late. I can't spend the rest of my life waiting for you to be ready." Phil squeezed Dan's hand once and let go, turning around and walking towards his room.
Dan turned and walked to his room with tears still running down his face, and the numbness stared to set in. That couldn't have happened; Phil wouldn't do that to him. Dan was just dreaming he would wake up and everything would be okay again. He sat down on the edge of his scarcely used bed and waited to wake up. He sat there for two hours staring at the clock hoping he would wake up. He didn't.
Phil had really broken up with him. The only person he thought would never leave him, had left him. Just like everyone else.
What was it about him that made it so easy to leave? His parents, his old "friends", everyone he had ever cared about. Every single one left him. And he never blamed them. He was crazy after all, who wanted to spend time with a depressed self-harming teenager?
He had never gotten along with his parents, he had never been close to them and they had kicked him out. He didn't blame them; they had tried to get him help but were tired of wasting money on a therapist he never said a word to.
Then there were his old friends, he had pushed them away. They had tried to help him get over the fact his parents didn't want him anymore. They had tried to help him stop cutting. They had tried to tell him he could turn to them instead of a blade but he never listened. They had tried to comfort him but he never let them, preferring to sit in silence and think of everything he had ever done wrong and what made it so easy for his so called family to cut ties with him. In the end they got tired of him pushing them away and just left.
The same thing happened with every relationship Dan had ever been in, he wouldn't let them help him and they would get tired of it and claim he wasn't worth the effort. He agreed with them.
Then there had been Phil; he had never left, he had stood by Dan since the first time he met him. He had never taken no for an answer. He had encouraged Dan to make videos, helped him smile again, and taught him to trust again. Most of all he had managed to get Dan to throw away the razors. He had helped Dan do the one thing he never thought he could do, stop cutting. Dan hadn't cut for the last three years, not since Phil first kissed him.
He had promised he would never cut again and even if Phil had left him he wasn't about to break that promise.
Dan lied down on his bed, not bothering to get underneath the covers, and hid his face in the pillow. He didn't want Phil to hear him. Dan screamed into the pillow and let himself sob. He had just lost the only person who really meant anything to him; he had a right to breakdown.