New To Me (Phan)

Chapter 8

I was not having fun. I knew that I wouldn't and I still decided to go anyway. Because I'm an idiot.

I thought that with Chris and PJ there it would be slightly bearable. Except that they weren't there. Not the ones I was used to anyway. No, they'd been replaced with drunk Chris and PJ, which was a very different thing.

PJ was talking absolute nonsense. Nothing he said had any relevance to what was going on around him. And Chris took to pointing at random people in the room and saying to me "I dare you to dare us to make out." To which he would then dissolve into a fit of giggles.

It was all very amusing to start off with, but then it got annoying when I realised it was hopeless trying to hold a conversation with either of them.

I wasn't really in the mood to join in on the drinking, and I figured at least one of us should remain sober enough to see that everyone made it home alright.

Phil had spent the start of the night with us but left around the one-hour mark. Charlie had come up behind him, whispered something in his ear, and grabbed his hand. Phil smiled apologetically at me before allowing Charlie to lead him upstairs.

So I sat myself on a couch, arms crossed and scowl in place, as I stewed in my own moodiness and tried very hard not to think about what they might be doing.

"Woah, who stepped on your sandcastle?" I jumped at the sound and looked up to see a girl who I vaguely recognised from school standing there, drink in hand and smirking down at me.

"What?" I asked, blinking uncomprehendingly. Only half of my brain was focused on her, the other half having followed Phil upstairs. The girl sat down next to me.

"Why the pouty face?" She rephrased. I didn't answer her. I was too distracted trying to figure out who she was. I couldn't for the life of me remember her name, but I was almost certain that I had talked to her before.

"Cat." She said. Cat? Now she was beginning to sound like drunk PJ.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

She laughed. "It's my name. You looked as if you'd forgotten so I thought I'd help you out."

"Oh... right." I said, laughing awkwardly. I remembered her now. She was the girl from my maths class that I talked to that one time, when I was in a particularly good mood.

Except now I wasn't in a good mood. I was torn between my desire to be left alone and my reluctance to be any ruder to this girl, whose existence I had literally forgotten about until that moment. As I hated being rude (to anyone but Charlie) I faked a smile and continued the conversation.

Cat was friendly enough. She did most of the talking so I just politely smiled and laughed where appropriate.

Between the unnecessary arm touches and the way she gradually inched her way closer toward me I was about seventy percent sure she was flirting with me. And after she grabbed my phone without my consent and saved her number into my contacts that figure rose to one hundred percent.

She didn't ask me to call her, and I didn't promise her I would. It was the perhaps the vaguest and least pressured way anyone had ever asked out another person before. Not going to lie it actually improved my mood a little bit. It was nice having someone flirt with me. I felt wanted. And it made for a good distraction from Phil.

But the distraction came to an abrupt end when I heard a loud crash coming from upstairs. Although they were probably tonnes of other people upstairs as well, and anyone of them could be the source of the commotion, my thoughts immediately went to Phil.

Without saying a word to Cat I took off running, taking the stairs two at a time. I could sense other people following behind me out of curiosity but none were as panicked as me.

When I reached the landing I discovered that Phil was indeed at the centre of all of the noise. To my horror I saw that he was slumped against a broken cabinet amid a pool a shattered glass. His left arm from wrist to elbow was smeared red with blood.

Standing over him, with a look of complete shock and horror, was Charlie.

I decided to deal with him later and ran to Phil's side, taking his face into my hands. "Phil!" I said urgently. "Phil, look at me!" He blinked up at me, taking a moment to register who I was. He was conscious at least.

I gingerly took hold of his arm. It wasn't as bad as all the blood would suggest. A few glass fragments were embedded in the skin, but I figured they shouldn't be too hard to remove. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"I – I'm so sorry Phil. I didn't mean to – I didn't, I don't know what came over me." Charlie stuttered from behind me. He made to move closer to Phil but I stood up and shoved him back. I didn't even ask for context. I didn't need it. I could put two and two together.

"What the fuck?" I yelled at Charlie, taking the opportunity to shove him again, this time with more force. Charlie's face immediately turned from shock to annoyance.

"It was an accident. I didn't mean to do it!" He said defensively.

"Oh you accidentally threw Phil into a glass cabinet, is that what you're saying?" I asked sarcastically. Uncontrollable anger started bubbling to the surface. I had reached a whole new level of fury that I had never before experienced. "How does one accidentally manage that?"

"It was just a little shove. I didn't mean to do it that hard." He spat at me.

And that was it. I launched at him. I full on threw myself at Charlie knocking him over with such an extreme force that I didn't even know I was capable of exerting. I pinned him to the ground and without thinking sent my fist flying into his jaw. A satisfying 'crack' sounded into the air as his jaw dislocated.

Far less satisfying was the sudden pain I felt radiating from my knuckles. I had never punched anyone before. Fucking hell, it hurt.

In my momentary distraction Charlie managed to throw me off him and stand up. He grabbed a fistful of my shirt and swung me into the nearest wall. Hard. My head collided with it painfully, which caused the entire room to start spinning and the bitter, metallic tang of blood to fill my mouth.

It all got a bit blurry from that point onwards as the fight grew more violent and more senseless. I could vaguely hear people shouting, whether they were telling us to stop or egging us on I couldn't tell.

After a particularly vicious tackle from Charlie I dizzily staggered to my feet using the wall as support when his fist made contact with my stomach once, twice, three times. I gasped as all of the air left my lungs. Black spots began obscuring my vision and my brain was banging painfully against the sides of my skull.

I fell to the floor and as a last form of defence huddled up in a ball, readying myself for another blow. Which I never felt come. Because it was at that point that I passed out.