Till The End [Phan]

I'm Low On Chapter Titles and Nobody Needs This Jacket

Dan and Phil made me go into school on Monday. Everyone asked where I'd been and I made up some lie. The good part was, I got to see Jess, she was the only one who I told the truth. I enjoyed spending time with her. She made me feel happy in the same way YouTube and Dan and Phil and Tyler did. Maybe I should tell Jess about Tyler. Or maybe that would be weird considering I actually knew him now...

"So what did I miss?" I asked her when we sat down in the cafeteria at lunch. She smiled at me,
"Well... the president of the untied States came for lunch, there was a fight between Tom and Drake again, I got cast as Peter Pan and Mr.Phoenix smashed a coffee cup." I knew that the part about the president wasn't true. Neither was the part about Peter Pan, however Tom and Drake getting into a fight was hardly news. I rolled my eyes,
"Who won?" I didn't agree with fighting. But that didn't mean I wasn't interested in who won. Turns out, in the scheme of things, nobody won. A teacher tried to break up the fight and ended up being punched in the face by Drake. He hadn't meant to apparently, but the teacher he'd punched was the one that tended to give him bad grades and detentions, so it wouldn't surprise me if he had done it on purpose.

"Cool," I said, "miss me?" Jess smiled at me. Since the care home, she'd become my best friend. Sarah had offered to home educate me initially, but changed her mind suddenly and enrolled me with Jess. Not that I minded or anything, Jess was awesome to hang out with. She liked the same bands as me, we liked the same genre of films, TV shows, and most importantly- YouTubers. I never found out why Sarah changed her mind but she wouldn't tell me either. I wasn't stupid, I knew she'd been hiding something but I wasn't sure what.

"Of course I missed you, Jay! You're my best friend," She flicked a teaspoon of ice cream at me and it landed on Pete's face (I was wearing a Fall Out Boy shirt), "that's for abandoning me for three weeks." Although that had been a clean shirt, I was grateful it hadn't been my face that she'd aimed for.

The fact that Jess was a lesbian never actually crossed my mind after she first came out, and she hadn't developed a crush on anyone other than Hayley Williams so it didn't really come up in conversation unless we were talking about Paramore.

"You'll never guess what," I started, "I forgot my birthday the other day." She beamed at me.
"Well guess who didn't!" Had she seriously remembered my birthday...? But I hadn't told her. We didn't talk about birthdays. It just didn't come up.

I frowned at her as she pulled a small box from her Sleeping With Sirens messenger bag.
"It's only small. But I saw it in a catalogue and thought of you." She bit her lip in anticipation, I swear I nearly cried tears of joy. I'd been going on for weeks about getting snake bites and she'd bought me this awesome silver pair.
"Is it..." I looked at her,
"It's real." She smiled at me. How much had it costed?
"Fuck, Jess. Oh my god! How did you get it?" I realised Sarah must've upped her pocket money, she'd have been scrubbing the floors with a toothbrush to afford this! I mean, it was real silver, I'd never had anything so expensive in my life. Other than my video camera, that is. I walked to the other side of the table and hugged her.

I don't know what happened. The last time I'd hugged Jess nothing happened. She'd been crying and I felt as if it was my job to protect her. So what had been different this time? It didn't make a difference, right?

She wrapped her arm around my waist and pulled me closer until I actually had to sit down. I'm not really sure the hug ever finished. We just, stayed there. I didn't want to move, I didn't feel like I had to. I could feel the warmth radiating through Jess' Breaking Bad shirt and accidentally noticed that she wasn't wearing a bra. Hey, I hadn't intended to notice. It just sort of... happened. Anyway, Jess rested her head on my shoulder and picked up a chip that had been left to go cold on her plate. My arm was still wrapped firmly around her waist with my hand on her thigh. I honestly don't know how it happened. Something sparked inside me when I held Jess like that. Something made me feel warm and cozy, even though all the windows in the cafeteria were open. I liked it when Jess snuggled into me. It was like she fit perfectly, like she was supposed to be there. We stayed like that until the bell rang and neither of us said anything about it. This was just me being me. I loved Jess, obviously. But, she was like a sister... wasn't she? I mean, all that time in the care home together made us kind of sisters. That was the only thing I could think of to explain my sudden literal attachment to her.