paper thin (phan)

t w o

tw// mentions of depression and attempting suicide

Phil groaned as he stubbed his toe on the door, cursing himself for letting out a yelp. His phone read after midnight, the taste of alcohol lingering on his tongue. He stumbled into the livingroom, tossing off his jacket and ready to go upstairs when his mother turned on the lamp.

"Phil? It's nearly three in the morning, where have you been?"

"Does it matter if I'm here now?"

"You're drunk."

"Just trying to be like you, mom." Phil smirked, making sure that sentence hit a nerve. And it did. She shifted her body in disapproval, and glaring, opened her mouth to snap back before shutting it. Phil smiled in achievement of getting the last word. "I'm going to bed now."

His mother sighed, exasperated, quickly kissing the top of his forehead in her own way of saying goodnight. "You're so annoying sometimes," she joked. But it stung in Phil's mind. They both went to their own rooms, Phil shutting his door and resting his back against it as he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

Phil Lester always hated that word. That eight letter insult. That rude adjective. It was practically his nickname in elementary school.

Annoying.

The scold ran through his head, hissing at him like a poisonous snake slithering in and out of his ears, taunting him.

Annoying.

He remembered when his teacher had first called him that in elementary. He had been talking too much, and finally his teacher was fed up.

"Phil stop being so annoying," his teacher had growled, and Phil Lester was never more embarrassed and shocked in his life. The whole class had started chanting it, while the teacher just stood there.

"Annoy-ing! Annoy-ing! Annoy-ing!"

He had snapped. He shot up from his desk, and punched the nearest person -who was yelling the insult- in the face. He went to the principal, then proceeded to be mute for a week. He wouldn't even talk to his mother. And that's when they found out he had ADHD. And soon after, the kids at his school found out too. They told him what the A stood for.

Annoying.

ADHD meant Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, but to his classmates it just screamed outcast. He lost friends so they could keep their popularity in check, his grades dropped as if the A's didn't wanna be labeled like they were in ADHD.

Annoying.

That's the only word that ran through his head when he opened the pills he was prescribed to, and took two every morning. His mother would stare at him while in the process, as if he were a small child with a big problem.

Annoying.

That's the only word that went through his head when he ran away that one summer before middle school. He was gone for a night and half a day until the cops found him, and his mother kept him on house arrest for a week in fear of him sneaking off again.

Annoying.

That's the only word that went through his head when he had held himself underwater in his own bathtub, hoping that if while underwater nobody could hear him, then in heaven nobody would have to hear him either. He was in the hospital for nearly a week.

Scary. Intimidating. Rude. Mean. Bully. Angry.

That's the only labels he has now in highschool, but no longer is it the 'A' word. Everybody fears him, only because on the first day of high school he nearly beat a student to death after they called him annoying. Nobody ever dared to label him as that insult again.