unchained

fifteen

Phil's flashback
7 years & 5 months ago

Butterflies swarmed in the pit of my stomach as I walked down my front path and entered my hallway. I had just taken Dan for a ride down the motorway in my new car. For some reason, I hadn't been able to shake the look he gave me as I dropped him off outside his house. If it wasn't enough that I couldn't stop thinking about him, I wanted to spend every waking second with him and then some, now all I could picture was his stupid gorgeous smile. What was happening to me?

I dumped my bag in the kitchen wearily, greeting my dad who was hunched over the sink.
"How was school?" He asked.
"Can I ask you something?" I said.
"What is it?" He broke away from the sink, drying his hands on a towel and taking a seat opposite me.
"How do you...how do you know you're in love?"

He leaned closer to me, placing his hand on my arm as I twiddled my fingers nervously.
"Son, you just know." He smiled knowingly, the wise creases outlining his eyes forming once more. "Are you talking about Dan?"
A tear surfaced to the brim of my eye. "Yeah, I think so," I mumbled.
"I think I've known for a while, now. I've known longer than you." He chuckled.
"I don't know what to do," I cried, placing my head in my hands, my elbows pressing against the cold, hard counter.
"There's not much you can do, that's the cruelty of it."
"How did it feel with mum?"
He paused as he thought for a second.
"Mum would be so proud of you," he said. "When you're in love, that person becomes your everything- they consume you and complete you at the same time. They become your day, your night. You want to spend every waking second beside them. They provide stability in your chaos-riddled world and they can talk you down with simply the thought of their presence. Love has no depth or length, the feeling is absolute. That's how you know."