𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬... - 𝐊 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐫

17

Real Life

Phoebe sat in her bed watching the sunrise through her window. she'd spent the whole night putting together her childcare coursework to try and submit all but the last bit on Monday morning. it was a task and a half, but after getting home on Friday sitting down and just getting on with it, she had managed to get two thirds of it done over night.
she appreciated the distractions.

usually, when she was feeling like this she would message Kit and they would spend the day on the phone to each other keeping her mind from her thoughts, but given his odd behaviour of late, Phoebe wasn't sure if he still wanted to be near her. every time she went to see the heartstopper lot at set he actively avoided her and many times she had to pull Yasmin back from 'ripping him a new one' or watched as Will guiltily looked between the two wanting to spend time with both of his friends not just one of them.

she felt bad.

of course she did. Phoebe always felt very deeply and she couldn't help but feel like she'd done something wrong by kissing Kit back. if it meant he'd stop ignoring her and stop her friends behaving how they have been, she'd take it back in seconds.

"Phoebe love? what are you doing up?"

she spun round in her chair and was greeted by the tired look on her dad's face.

"morning dad." 

"you didn't stay up again did you?"

"huh? oh uh..." 

"Phoebe..." Peter sighed wiping the tiredness from his eyes. "what's going on?"

he stepped into the room knowing his daughter well enough to know something was wrong.

"nothing, nothing. i was just revising." she smiled at him, knowing full well he didn't believe her.

"mhm..." 

"seriously dad, i was just trying to get this finished." 

"and why not do it today? why did you do it overnight?" 

"uh..."

"look, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but you need a break. how about we go downstairs and rewatch young royals hm?" 

"how about Sherlock?" Phoebe grinned.

"even better, your pops won't be awake for a good few hours yet so we have plenty of time." 

Phoebe shut down her computer and followed her dad down to the lounge. it was rare for her to spend much time with him without pops being there. her dad worked at a big law firm in inner-city London, so he was often away on big cases or was busy working, so when he was home with free time, the three of them would always spend their time together as a family. Phoebe always liked it like that. her dads were very important to her, family became the most important thing to her after she was adopted by her ex-foster dads. 

of course, it was difficult, her childhood before being put in care was dreadful. to this day she had nightmares and panic attacks randomly due to the trauma. her dad's adopted her when she was 10, almost a year after she joined the Hart's foster house, they obviously, couldn't stay in their cul-de-sac in Ashford after they adopted her, so they moved. originally, the trio were going to move just a couple to towns over but then Peter got a job offer at a law firm in London, so they moved to Croydon instead. 

it was tough moving an hour away from the town she'd grown up in, but Phoebe was more than ready to start over, when she started high school after living in her new house for five weeks, she felt very overwhelmed as she sat down in her first ever science lesson, only to be seated next to a smiley strawberry blonde kid with lots of freckles. after the awkward ice-breaker, the two hit it off immediately.

it's a shame to think the same boy who made her feel such powerful welcoming was giving her the harshest cold shoulder she'd ever had.