Powder [phan]

XIX

WARNING: MENTION OF SUICIDE, NEGATIVE THOUGHTS

***

Dan's POV

For a few minutes, I just stared into the darkness, which seemed to crush me more and more, until it completely held me.

It clutched me, put it heavy, strong arms around me, so that it not only enveloped me, but also took possession of me, crawled into me and filled me from the inside until it closed it claw around my heart and squeezed it.

My breath gave way to it and I became so cold, so horribly cold, that I lay frozen in bed and the only movement of my body was the slight shaking that triggered the frost. I got goose bumps, my hair stood up against the cold and my eyes fixed on the blank black.

The infinite blackness that seemed to spread as the walls seemed to come closer and encapsulate me until they would finally crush me.

I looked aside, saw Phil lying next to me, sleeping soundly while my thoughts kept me awake. I could wake him up or just snuggle up to him, but something stopped me. What was stopping me? What made me cling to the bed sheet with all my might instead of just moving an inch and cuddling up to Phil's chest?

I looked back at the ceiling and hid my face in my hands as if to protect myself from the darkness, but of course it didn't change anything. It only intensified the feeling of confinement and slowly images appeared in my mind's eye, memories mixed with fears. A story that I once heard formed into a film that always rewound from the beginning.

A man who was terrified of heights and tried to defeat it by standing up to it and climbing the roof of the tallest building in the city. He climbed floor by floor until he was at the top, triumphing over himself.

A confident smile was on his face as he stood dangerously close to the edge from where he could look down on the street. A few cars drove along there and people, packed with large bags with the yields of their latest shopping tour.

They all seemed so incredibly small to him from up here and he felt big because he had managed to control his fear.

But now, when a tiny breath of air touched his skin that summer day, his facial expressions froze and panic crept into every pore of his body as if out of nowhere. The fear was back and struck like a hammer that made him stumble.

He could have turned back, descended the floors until he got to safe ground, but instead allowed the fear to fill him, paralyze him, restricting his field of vision to the infinite depth that lay before him instead of to fight this fear. And he jumped.

He had given up.

But not in the way that most of those who had to deal with such a fear did. Neither that he simply fled from it, nor that he defeated it.

No, he surrendered to it and used the only way out of never having to feel it again. He jumped into it and let it kill him.

I saw this man in front of me and I knew I was like him.

I dreaded the day Phil left me so much that I almost provoked it myself. I made sure he got closer because the more time I spent with Phil I felt more and more and that distrust made me crazier than the idea that he was gone. It started to get worse for me to expect him to leave me every second, just to steer it there and let it arrive.

It was clear to me that it was morbid and hadn't had much to do with the fact that he had never visited me in the clinic or what had happened to Tyler before. They were symptoms, but not the cause of the illness.

It was like standing barefoot in the snow, even though I had a cold anyway.

As if I was going to ride a roller coaster when I was already sick.

I was released the moment I jumped into the abyss.

He could no longer threaten me if I myself took the last step that plunged me deep.

But did I want that?

Did I want to give up and jump, or did I want to stop, just stare further down, with Phil's hand in mine until at some point he managed to tear my eyes away and I could turn my back on my fear with him? Or would I jump and take him away?

And the next day when I left the doctor's treatment room after another session in pain that the medication hadn't taken from me again, I wondered how long I wanted to look into the abyss.

My environment kept blurring around me and I just wanted to go home when I was surprised to find Phil standing at the front desk talking to the receptionist.

"Phil?" I said and he turned his head towards me.

"There you are already." He received me and hugged me, as he did every time, so that the security that he triggered immediately breathed more life into my body.

"Yes. We ended up a little earlier today because I'm not feeling too well." I let him know, whereupon his joyful expression changed abruptly.

"Oh, then let's go home first." he replied before saying goodbye to the black-haired woman with the piercing. He left the practice followed by me and as soon as the door was closed behind us so that we were alone in the stairwell, he took my hand to go down the stairs with me.

"What are you doing here? I thought you wanted to make a video." I asked while doing so.

"I can do that tomorrow too. Had no motivation today." he explained to me, which immediately brought my mood to zero. It was my fault. All my fault. And I hadn't uploaded a video in months.

Phil went out of his way to make everything look like the world was fine, but I knew how much he loved making videos. I knew how much he loved cheering up other people with his videos and I knew how important this was for him. But now he only took care of me. As if there was no place for other people.

We only spend every day in our apartment because I was simply unable to do anything else and slowly but surely it went over my head. I felt restricted, isolated from the outside world. As if Phil and I were sealed off from everything else.

It was okay for me as long as he was with me, but the desire grew to finally be able to break out of everything that held me captive, even though I myself wasn't even sure if it was really just the withdrawal put me in chains.

"By the way, the receptionist flirts with me everytime." Phil changed the subject as we strolled across the parking lot to get to our train station.

"No wonder." I replied and and looked at him with raised eyebrows. "But hopefully you won't let yourself go for it." I added jokingly.

"Well ..." he jumped on the irony train as we stood at the empty stop and suddenly hugged me, completely unexpectedly, and I felt his hands through the fabric of my thin jacket on my back. I closed my eyes, surrendered to the warmth that enveloped me.

He breathed a kiss next to my ear, let his hands wander down my back until he gently got away from me.

We sat together at the bus stop and waited for our train.

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, birds were chirping and landing on the platform. Phil was sitting next to me. Everything could have been so perfect, but something in my head told me that I couldn't have perfect. That I would never have it. Something terrible was going to happen.

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short. and idk what to say.
i'm on vecation right now. it's okay in germany, don't worry, i am save.
looking at the mointains right now.
ly.