Chapter 11
Even though the day was warm and the heat still hung in the air, my whole body felt cold. I curled up on my bed - curtains drawn and the lights off, staring into the darkness. Guilt and sorrow raked my thoughts. I shouldn't have said those things to him - not like that. I should go to him and apologize, making excuses of adolescence and hormones and foolish rage. I should beg him for mercy and promise him I will never touch the substance again.
Instead I stayed where I was, watching darkness and feeling time tick by slowly. At any given moment, I swore I could feel the earth turn beneath me. It was as if it was mocking me with its granditude, leaving me feeling even less important than before. My pillow was damp and my cheeks felt stiff from the dried tears. I had stopped crying what felt like forever ago, but the damned traces still remained.
Empty promises and empty soul - that's all I was anymore. It was as if the only way I could please the people I loved was to lie to them - to fix my mistakes by spitting out false ambitions only to be followed up by fake repentances. Hollow words, that's all it was. It was useless, and though I really was apologetic, I didn't want to add more guilt to the conscious while expressing those feelings of remorse.
There was the sound of running water, and after a little while, my door creaked open. I looked over my shoulder and in the slither of orange light I could see a tall silhouette closing the door. I buried my face into my pillow again, and heard a bump followed by a soft, "fuck!". Ignoring the weight on my mattress, I continued watching the wall in self-inflicted isolation.
I felt a hand on my arm, softly rubbing circles, making the skin come alive where he touched me. Something was pressed against the base of my neck which felt like damp hair with small intervals of warm breath. We lay in silence for a while, just listening to each others breathing.
"I'm sorry," he managed after a while. "I didn't mean to make you angry, or sad."
I shook my head, not knowing what to say. I relaxed in his presence though, and moved a bit closer to him, trying to take some of the heat which I had lost earlier.
"I'm sorry too," I said breathily after I felt a small kiss on my shoulder. I turned around, his hand wrapping around my waist as I did so.
We were close enough to see each other in the darkness - our legs slightly intertwined as Dan lifted his hand to brush his fingertips along my cheek. For the first time since I had met Dan, he was completely defenseless - he wasn't trying to make me laugh and he wasn't putting on a persona of confidence and sarcasm. As I watched him in grey scale, as his eyes followed his own fingers and his lips parted slightly in wonder, I saw the person underneath it all. I saw the person which he was when he was alone and unthinking. Not even on nights when he came to see if I was okay did I see him like this, and in my head I made a mental note of what he was like, adding it to my personal bank of Dan for safe keeping.
Heat leaked from him to me - seeping deep into my pores and making my bones come alive. It was as if someone was scrapping a match across every inch of me, flicking the red tips of the sticks to light a blaze intensely bigger than anything before it.
The feelings which I thought would never go away in that moment did. Those feelings of dread, guilt and loneliness. They all melted in the glow of his compassion and replaced themselves with other feelings - feelings which I associated with a giddy schoolgirl freshly stocked up with loving lust. It was like innocence and youth, adventure and promiscuity, eternity and finity - all rolled into a big bag of emotions only meant for him.
"Thank you," I breathed.
His eyebrows furrowed a bit, eyes focusing on mine as his hand dropped. "For what?"
For making me feel. For making me realise. For allowing me to fuck up. For being you; for me being me, and Phil being himself. For letting me share in on your life.
For sharing yourself with me and allowing me to do the same.
"Just, thank you," I admitted lamely, when no other words would surface.
Reaching out, I took his hand in mine. We lay like that for what felt like lifetimes and I didn't feel any signs of growing tired. We were both used to staying up late into the night, and this was one of the times where I wished I was able to just fall asleep when a normal person did - simply so I could fall asleep entangled with someone else.
When our joints grew stiff and our limbs numb, we moved around, untangling our legs and arms and fingers. I placed my head on his chest instead, hearing the steady thumb, thumb, thumb of life and the rise and fall of breath as I did so. His hand brushed my hair and my back, just reassuring me in silence. And when silence faltered, he started speaking.
"Can we cuddle without fighting next time?" he said, twirling a curl around his finger mindlessly.
"Oh, there's going to be a next time, huh?" I said, putting my chin on my hand and looking up at him.
"I hope so," he said, looking at me with crinkle-corner-eyes. "Would it be stating the obvious if I said I enjoyed your company?"
I bit my lip as I watched him watching me. The corners off my mouth pulled up automatically into a smile and I quickly hide my face into his chest, muttering a quick, "I enjoy you too." He chuckled at my word choice, and started drawing random shapes on my back with his finger.
The moment was only fleeting, and as my eyes finally drew closed, I clung to him a little more, embracing the way he felt against me incase he wasn't there when I awoke in the morning.
The boys had started signing about three hours ago. I had told them I'd be down later to see how they were getting along and to bring them some coffee. They'd left at about eleven to get everything organised and finalised, leaving me to wander around the hotel and ground floor until the agreed time.
As I headed towards the long line of people waiting for Phil and Dan, I checked the coffee cups to see that they were the right orders. They hadn't had to tell me what they wanted, I had remembered their usuals like they had remembered mine. I looked up from the black lines on the cardboard cups as a loud scream broke through the air.
In front of me were a group of girls around my age, give or take a few years, and all wore one of the boys' shirts.
"You're Phoebe right?" one of them asked.
I nodded. "Yeah?"
"Oh my god - you're so lucky! I wish I got to live with them!" another squealed in a high pitched voice.
"Do you think you could get us to the front of the line?"
"Yeah, do you think you can get Phil to go on a date with me?"
"And Dan for me?"
I watched wide eyed as they all talked over one another. They requested stupid things, asked inappropriate questions and tried to be my friend to get to Dan and Phil. Not wanting to be a snub, I answered as best as I could. No, Phil and Dan were not getting married, and yes, they do act the way the do in videos sometimes. No, I will not give you our address, and I can't force anyone to be friends with anyone.
After a minute or so of being bombarded, I excused myself, and walked away, unable to take their pestering about if I was dating Dan or not, or if they were dating anyone at all, or anything else. They droned on and on, even as I politely turned my back and walked away, and it was frankly infuriating. I don't know how Phil and Dan put up with it all.
I power walked down the line, showing the guards which tried to stop me the lanyard and pass I had been given. They let me past, stopping others which tried to follow me. The guys were standing by a white table hugging someone who seemed extremely awkward and extremely excited.
I waited until they had walked away before handing them their coffees, earning me a huge smile from each of them.
"You don't know how grateful I am for this," Phil said, after having taken a huge mouthful. "The water just doesn't do it."
"Thanks Phoebs, you're amazing," Dan said. "This is like the holy grail of beverages."
"Don't mention it," I said after giggling slightly at their reactions. "Hey, did either of you bring your phone?"
Dan reached into his pocket while Phil greeted the girl who had just been sent forward. She looked to be about two years younger than me and had small cat whiskers on her face. She was smiling broadly at my godfather, and he held out his arms to hug her.
"Here you go," Dan said, handing me his iPhone. "It doesn't work for anything but games and like wifi and stuff, but that's good enough, right?"
"Thanks, now go look after your fans," I said, shoving him towards his best friend and their admirer.
I sat down behind them on the floor, making sure not to lean against the white and blue curtains or get too much in their way. Watching people come up for hugs and pictures and autographs for a while, I wondered what it must be like for them. How exhausting it must be to meet so many people who admire you so much for so long.
Eventually, I turned to the phone in my hand and unlocked it. I smiled as I noticed his background was a picture of the three of us from the party months ago. That was the night Dan had called me beautiful and it was the night I had kissed him on a the cheek in appreciation. It was probably the night I had started fancying him, in all truths, and it filled my chest with fireflies or butterflies or whatever insect you were meant to feel inside as I realised he remembered that night every time he unlocked his phone.
He had heaps of games and I shuffled through them all, trying to decide which one I wanted to waste my time on. I had just gotten onto my fourth round of a stupid racing game when Phil called out to me. I looked up, pausing the game with a press of my thumb.
"Lauren wants to know if you'd like to be in the photo," he said, indicating to the girl about my age with short red hair beside him.
"Oh yeah, okay," I said, standing up and putting Dan's phone in my back pocket.
I let her stand in between the guys and stood beside Phil instead, our arms all around each other as we smiled for the photo. She never stopped smiling as she turned to them and thanked them for the photo and for making videos.
"It was nice meeting you guys," she said, hugging first Dan and then Phil. "Would it be weird to ask for a hug?"
I shrugged and smiled at her. Opening my arms, I said, "Go ahead."
"I just think you look like an eight-year-old who forgot to change out of their pajamas," Dan said, as we walked down the hallway.
"Yeah, well you look like a serial killer," Phil retorted. "Like a hamster serial killer. Disgusting."
"And so concludes this round of 'Daniel-and-Philip-are-actually-four-year-olds', tune in next time for more bullshit," I said said, pressing the lift button. They both laughed and even playfully shoved each other a little. "Seriously, are you adults at all?"
"You can't talk," Phil laughed.
"You literally have a sloth on your shirt," Dan pointed out. "Who are the adults now?"
I looked down at my shirt. It was a cream colour, with a cute little sloth clinging to a branch and on a twirling ribbon read, 'Nap all day/ Sleep all night/ Party never.' I pointed at it, raising my eyebrows.
"How does this not scream adult and responsibility to you?" I asked.
"I think it's its cute little nose," Phil said, looking closer.
The lift made a ding noise and the doors opened, allowing us to step in. I pressed the button for the right floor and we descended. We ended up in one of the blue-lit guest rooms, surrounded by other youtubers - what seemed to be Dan and Phil natural habitat.
"So like, what was the point in coming all the way to America," I said, as we passed a group of people who I recognised and smiled at, "when there's British people everywhere?"
"Same people, different place."
"Ah, famous last words."
It was the last day of vidcon and after they had all gone on stage and done their thing, we returned to the guest room, where everyone deflated in a state of exhaustion. The three of us retreated into a corner, huddled around a phone as we tried to organise our schedule for tomorrow
We had decided to stay in LA for a few days longer, but instead of staying in Anaheim, we were going to stay in a hotel in Santa Monica on the coast. We were going to fly back to London on Thursday, and the days flew by, in a blur of restaurants, wax museums and stupid touristy hangouts captured on phone cameras. The heat kissed at our skin and turned us a rich shade of tan, apart from Phil, who seemed to be permanently pale as hell. The view of ocean and palm trees and beach from the hotel window didn't grow tiring, and I was disappointed when we got to boarding the plane again.
"It better not be the baby plane like last year," Phil said as we took our seats.
He had insisted on the window seat, leaving me in the middle again since Dan wanted to stretch his legs into the aisle. I didn't mind though, as I would probably end up spread out across them like I had on the flight here. I twisted a red string bracelet around my wrist as I looked around the craft. The people on the plane were diverse - old men with white hair and middle aged women on business, screaming toddlers and bored teenagers with too much eye make up to care.
As we made ourselves comfortable for the hours we were to spend here, I noticed the little rituals of pre-flight. A mother was telling her little teary-eyed, blonde-haired girl that if she ate her coloured chocolate buttons on take off, the sky faerie would look after her. Phil was adjusting his seat as much as he could so that the person behind him was comfortable and so that he also had enough leg space. A pre-teen boy was asking his dad if he could play games on the flight anytime soon. Dan was stretching his legs out leisurely and drumming his fingers subconsciously along to a Muse song which only played in his head. I was tucking the soft toy Phil had gotten me at DisneyWorld in between me and the armrest as I unfolded the blanket which was provided.
"Goodbye, America," Phil said with a sad wave out the window as we took off.
"Thanks for the great times," Dan added on.
"See you next time, or whatever," I joined in.
As we rose higher and higher into the sky, climbing up into the clouds - a calm silence spread throughout. It was as if everyone on the plane had stopped to take a breath for a moment as our ears popped and the engines roared. It was a collective peace which I had never before, and probably would never again experience, but in that moment I had never felt more in touch with so many people yet also felt so isolated. And all too soon, we were leveling out and the first person spoke, and the bubble of awe burst just like that.
I got out my iPod when we were informed electronics were once again allowed, and as I unwrapped my headphones, I noticed Dan scrambling in his carry on bag madly.
"Don't tell me I left them at the hotel," he said exasperated.
"What?" Phil leaned over to look at him.
"My headphones - I was going to listen to some music to try and sleep, but I think I left them in LA."
"Get Cat to pick them up and bring them with her next week when she comes," I suggested.
"Do you think she'll do that?"
"You don't know unless you ask," Phil agreed.
Phil fell asleep with his own headphones in, his face pressed against the small window leading into the void of sky. All of us were exhausted from our time in America, and I ended up giving Dan one of my headphones - letting him pick what he wanted to listen to. Unsurprisingly we ended up on Muse, Undisclosed Desires playing as his sleepy hand found mine on the armrest between us.