DAN P.O.V

"Why did you leave, Dan?" Doctor Henry questioned me. He'd asked me to call him Tim, to try and make things more casual and more comfortable, but in my head he was still Doctor Henry. He was my therapist, and nothing else.

"It felt… wrong," I answered slowly.

"What exactly felt wrong about it? Give me specifics. If you can."

I thought about it for a second but couldn't find an answer to his question. "I don't know. Everything," I said annoyed.

"Everything?" Doctor Henry raised his eyebrow questioningly.

I sighed. "Well… no, not everything I suppose. Some stuff felt normal, I guess."

"Like what?"

I rubbed my temples in frustration. Therapy required a lot of thinking, more so than I had expected. To get the root of everything I was being prompted to really dig through my mind. To scrape around the edges of my skull and leave nothing untouched. Thinking so much, and so deeply, was actually starting to hurt my brain.

"The apartment itself, I suppose. I grew used to that. And living in London in general I was okay with. And…" I trailed off, knowing what I wanted to say but it being too painful to actually voice.

"Phil?" Doctor Henry supplied, taking a shot in the dark and hitting the target precisely. Yes. Phil. There were moments when I was with Phil where everything was just… perfect. Those moments were like anchors in the middle of a storm tossed sea, keeping me grounded and giving me a second to figure out my bearings.

"Yeah," I mumbled. Any mention, however, any thought of Phil, now sent waves of guilt crashing over me. I picked uncomfortably at the chair I was sat on, tugging fruitlessly at a stray thread in an attempt to stay calm.

"Just an observation, but it seems that the things that you were comfortable with are the things that you gave up by leaving," Doctor Henry said. "I'm assuming, and correct me if I'm wrong here, that what felt the most alien to you is your online life, yes?"

I nodded slowly. Well, yeah. That and everything that came with it. "And did moving back home with your family help you to deal with that better than your life in London did?"

I scowled. "Are you saying that I made a mistake?" I was defensive, because it was something that had actually been plaguing my mind quite a bit. The answer to his question was no. It had made no difference so far.

"I'm not suggesting anything like that. I'm just pointing out that the only thing you accomplished by moving was changing your environment. But the environment wasn't the problem. Not really."

"Well, no," I argued, clutching at straws to find a reason why my decision was a logical one. "No, it wasn't the only thing I accomplished. I… I saved Phil."

"How so?" he asked, jotting something that I couldn't see down on his clipboard.

I closed my eyes trying to think of a way to voice my thoughts and have it make sense. "Phil… he kept expecting me to wake up one morning and suddenly remember everything. That I would suddenly go back to the Dan he knew. But that wasn't going to happen, so I… I let him realise that wasn't going to happen. I let him move on."

Doctor Henry nodded. "About this 'other Dan' idea that you have… Do you really believe that you've changed so much in the last seven years that you're now an entirely different person?"

This was the hardest part to wrap my head around. The other Dan. "It's not that I've changed necessarily. I just… I didn't do any of that. It feels like someone else did it all. They started posting videos, they gained a following, they wrote a book, they went on tour. None of it feels like my accomplishments. What, I'm just supposed to step in and take credit for everything?" I asked, genuinely needing an answer.

"Yes," Doctor Henry said simply. He uncrossed his legs and leant forward toward me. "Because in reality they are your accomplishments, whether you remember them or not."

He glanced the clock. My session was nearly over. "I want you try to stop disconnecting yourself from it all. You don't have to pick up where you left off, you don't have to return to that life, just try to accept the fact that it was your life. And be proud of how far you made it."

I sighed and leant back in my seat. Easier said than done.

I went back to my parents' house after my session with the intention of watching some more of my videos. Doctor Henry thought it might help if I watched them, and in my head or out loud remind myself that that's me on the screen.

I had a whole gaming channel that I hadn't yet touched that I thought I'd start with, but barely a few videos in and I had already stopped. Not because it made me uncomfortable necessarily, I just got side tracked. Before I knew it I was watching Phil's videos instead.

I don't know why I hadn't already caught myself up on AmazingPhil videos. They were something I watched before the forgotten period of my life. It was something I remembered doing, and it surprised that it wasn't until now that I considered returning to it.

What started off as a handful of videos quickly turned into a full blown marathon. I was able to put the guilt out of my head for a moment and just enjoy them. Phil was and always will be, in my mind at least, the epitome of YouTube culture.

Never had the doubts that I'd made a huge mistake been so strong as they were when I ran out of Phil videos. Why did I leave Phil? Why did I think that would be a good idea? I had Phil's contact in my phone and for a moment I genuinely considered calling him.

But to say what? I'm sorry, I was wrong, let me come back? That was ridiculous. And I had made my reasons clear as to why I'd left. I wasn't about to abandon them simply because I remembered how much I enjoyed Phil's company.

So I threw my phone into my desk draw and closed the YouTube tab on my laptop. I returned, instead, to the tab that I had open before I left for therapy, where I continued to fill out my university application.