Sixty-Two ☼ Phan

Seventeen

I don't know what happened out there. But when they came back, they were different.

They found her. Turned out, she did run away. I don't know the full story. Details drifted around the following days, but Chris, Peej, and Phil refused to tell more than the fact she ran away, homesick, and got lost. Anytime I pressed Phil for something else he just shook his head.

"It's not my story to tell," he would say.

The three of them were also relatively friendlier with one another. Maybe they made up, or were cursed by a witch in the forest, but that was that. Whenever we went to eat, from then on, we went as a cabin. As a group of friends. Phil's past seemed to no longer matter, though I still didn't know what happened between the three entirely. The barriers had broken and merged together, a mound of multicolored play-doh that had just been combined. Fresh and delicate.

I had also yet to tell Phil everything. That I knew everything, more precisely.

My promise to tell him the truth had faltered, and only about a week or so later did I remember about it. I had just been so caught up in getting used to Phil's new involvement with somebody other than myself. Despite this, I hadn't told another lie, so that left less to confess to, supposedly.

The three of them had some torn up history together. They had been friends for longer, minus the recent hiatus, of course. But our relationship, Phil and I's, only grew, like new vines overtop an old bush. I remained Phil's closest friend. We walked together. We ate, talked, hung out together. Even in a group, with Chris and Peej and James, the two of us were always somehow our own person together. Seperate from them.

Maybe it was because I had reached out to Phil when everybody else cowered in the shadow of some old noose. Or maybe he just enjoyed my presence more. Either way, there was something between us, something nobody else could have.

I knew the most about him out of everyone in camp, and he knew the most about me. Even more than James, on some level. Knowledge was trust, and trust was irreplaceable.

Phil and I were walking one day, when it was especially cloudy out. My head was similarly clouded, heavy with the lies I needed to clear.

How could I tell him? Call me crazy, but "I know you tried to hang yourself and why" didn't really come off as a good conversation starter, in my opinion.

I felt myself tighten the grip on his hand as we walked. He didn't notice.

"Can I ask you something?" Phil spoke quietly.

"Sure. Anything."

And I meant it, this time.

"Where did you set that first fire? The one before camp."

I didn't expect that. Wasn't new, though. Phil always surprised me. Nevertheless, I answered without hesitation.

"At my house," I told him.

Melting plastic. Burnt paper. A fire truck siren in the distance, wailing as I sat in the middle of my bedroom.

Phil looked at me curiously. "Why?"

I turned my gaze downward, away from his. I felt a chuckle escape my lips without realizing it, as if it were a bubble, as light as air. He moved his fingers a little, readjusting them on mine and rubbing his soft thumb across the side of my index finger.

"Because I was sad," I managed to say.

Details blurred around, swishing through his eyes. I could tell he wanted more. He was tired of vague snippets of information. And he deserved more. He deserved my whole unwritten autobiography at this point. I basically knew his.