Till The End [Phan]

The Great Escape

We stopped at a small hotel about forty miles from Cardiff in the early hours of the morning. We would've kept going but Sean was too tired to keep driving. The room was small but cosy although the radiators needed to be switched on.

I took a shower pretty much as soon as we got into the room; sitting in a car for hours made me feel hot and uncomfortable. I jumped when I heard Justin behind me,
"Could you be quiet, you're giving me a headache."
"Could you get out?" I said, pulling the towel over myself, "I didn't even say anything." He frowned at me,
"Dude, I read your mind; it's like a bomb's gone off in there. I'd ask you what's up, but I already know. Stop worrying about them. They're in America, they're safe." Justin was behind me, leaning against the locked door,
"Once again, could you get out, please?" He was in human form, and that made me uncomfortable. He'd been inside my head for the last four years, and now he was stood in the bathroom and I was only wearing a towel. Wouldn't you feel slightly uncomfortable with that?
"But seriously though, you should stop worrying about them. Just calm down. Being able to hear your thoughts as well as my own is weird. It's like, I'm thinking about what cake is gonna taste like and then all I'm hearing is "PHIL" and it's like 'I wonder what Phil tastes like' and that's weird. Please, stop." I snorted at that.
"Wait, so you don't have a separation between my thoughts and yours?" I laughed, "that must be so confusing."
"Yeah. I mean, I don't want to eat Phil. I want to try cake. There's a huge difference if you ask me." He frowned,
"Also, I don't like whatever it is that Sean's watching."
"Oh," I said, "that's gross. We don't need to have this conversation." I tried to change the subject,
"Woah," he said, "what was that?"
"What was what?"
"In your head! You just projected what I said but with pictures in your mind!"
"I just thought about it without words."
"That was cool," he said, "it was a pretty bad example. But it was cool."
"Okay. Now get out, I wanna shower." I said,
"Can't I stay in here?" He asked. I thought he was kidding, but when he didn't move I realised that although he'd been in my head for four years, he'd only ever been good at getting me out of situations. He'd never advised me on which ice cream to try, or which cake recipe would work best. He was like artificial intelligence- he had potential to be really smart, and he was. But he needed practice with the social aspects of things, and I guess being trapped inside my head didn't really help with that.
"You can't stay while I'm in the shower, Jus. In the same way that I wouldn't let Sean in. It's private. It's something you do by yourself," I said softly, it was weird having to tell someone why they couldn't be in the same room while I was showering.
"So why are the people on TV together?" I internally facepalmed and was momentarily grossed out.

"Let's tell Sean about you," I said after a few seconds, "then you can make yourself visible to him." Justin perked up a bit,
"Okay! Let's go." He went to open the door,
"Wait, wait-" I said, "I still haven't showered, and I'd rather not explain to Sean that there was a voice inside my head for four years while I'm wearing a towel." Justin stopped for a second and thought about it,
"Yeah, maybe that's not really all the signs of a stable human being."
"Yeah," I said, laughing a little, "go out, I'll shower and then we can talk to Sean about it,"
"I'm not staying in there while that's on TV- I'll go out for a bit. I know when you're out of the shower so I'll come back then." Justin seemed to just disappear. I wondered where he'd gone, but figured he was probably okay, considering nobody could see him.

I must've spent about forty minutes in the shower. Showering made me forget my problems. It was something I used to do to get away from everything with mum; now I was using it to get away from myself. To start with, it was pretty hard not to let my thoughts wander to the problem at hand, but eventually I managed to distract myself- and create a new hobby in the process. I sang in the shower. I know, I know- how very cliché of me. But in case you haven't noticed- I was a very cliché person.