Chapter 11: Pining for Pheely! (aka 'The Big Finale')-Get Psyched Everybody! Last chapter!
The days went by and Phil saw little of Keely. He seemed to find she was very good at avoiding everyone at the moment. He knew there was nothing he could do about this, and so tried to continue on his school weeks without blaming himself for her sad behavior.
The only time he had really seen her over the past couple of weeks was when she had her big breakup with Jake. It was a bit hard to miss, seeing as some amateur cameraman from the video department had captured it and broadcasted it as one of the morning announcements. This had finally confirmed the teachers' beliefs that the morning announcements weren't really that relevant to 'announcements for the morning', and instead had become a series of segments, including an amateur Big Brother segment, where Seth locked four people in a room with a camera.
Everyone in the whole school saw Keely on the monitor. Everyone saw Jake's lame apology, with Terra at his side. Everyone saw Keely's face fill with tears as she slapped him, yelled, "It's over!" and stormed away.
Phil looked at the image of Keely on the screen and sighed sympathetically. He wanted to help her, but at the moment there was nothing he could do really. This was her problem that only she could deal with, and Phil respected that.
He just hoped Tia was right in saying that she would come around.
Keely felt as though her life had stopped. Everything seemed to go so slowly, and she kept finding herself thinking about Jake. Realizing this, she felt even more depressed, and started spending a lot of time in the toilet cubicles. She was glad that she had enough strength within herself to not crawl back to Jake, but everyday, she cringed, remembering how pathetic she must have looked, bursting into tears, and crying like a baby in front of Phil.
She missed Phil so much at the moment. She needed to get over the problem with Jake so that she could just continue her life and hang out with Seth, Tia, April and Phil. Especially Phil, who she was so regretful about ignoring. She sighed sadly, and continued her walk home.
Every day she got a little better than the last, but she felt it would be ages before she felt okay again.
Phil was slowly starting to notice an improvement in Keely's mood. She was answering questions in English, and he even thought he saw her smile once or twice. He decided it was time to begin phase one of 'Operation: Make Keely Happy'. He had devised it himself a couple of sleepless nights ago, and knew he needed a couple more sleepless nights to get the plan ready.
First off, he needed to find one of the band kids.
"Phil, that'll never work. For one thing, that's way to cheesy, or corny…maybe cheese corn!"
"O…kay…no-idea what that means."
"Neither do I. Just made it up then." Seth replied.
"Anyway…I think it's a good idea. Keely loves music." Phil pouted, picking up the acoustic guitar he borrowed. "Now, which end is which?"
"…You never used that electric guitar you had in your room...did you?"
Phil nodded.
"That's because I could never tell which end was which."
Tia spoke up.
"So what song are you going to play?" She asked. Phil tapped his nose secretly.
"You'll find out when I play it." He smiled mysteriously. "Although you probably won't know it anyway."
Tia had a grumpy look on her face.
"Are you telling me I have no taste in music?" She asked angrily.
"Well, you do listen to Simple Plan…" Phil muttered under his breath.
Phil had to force himself to learn the basic guitar chords and strings to play his song for Keely. Her love for music, and knowing her friend worked so hard to play music for her, might make her happier. Maybe happy enough to start acting like herself. Phil could only hope this would be true.
As he sat in his room with the guitar, Pim appeared.
"So, who'd you murder for the guitar?" She asked.
"No-one. I borrowed it."
"Phil, Phil, Phil." Pim sighed. "I'm disappointed." She walked away without a word.
Phil was now convinced that if his sister did finally accomplish her lifetime dream of dominating the world, they were all doomed.
He didn't have time to worry about it though. He was planning to play the song for Keely on Friday, and so only had a couple more days to practice. It had to be perfect.
The couple of days flew by for Phil, and plodded on for Keely. She had become happier, but still, many things reminded her of the pain the Jake had caused her, which continued to get her down all the time. Phil's plan couldn't have come in at a better time.
Keely found Phil's handwritten note in her locker. As she picked up her science textbook, a smile crept up on her face. The note appeared to be written by someone sticking various letters from magazines instead of writing in the hopes of it seeming anonymous.
What got her smiling is that the 'mystery writer' had accidentally written 'from Phil' at the end, which defeated the point entirely.
The note told her that her guitar had been 'stolen', and the only way she would be able to get it back was if she went to the auditorium with a ransom of all her milk money.
Keely never knew that her guitar was worth $1.25.
Smiling a little, Keely headed towards the auditorium, wondering what wacky thing Phil was up to now.
Phil sat on his stool in the middle of the stage, beginning to hum. He wasn't the greatest singer- well, his sister had told him he was as good at singing as she was at gongs, so he assumed that meant terrible. The least he could do was practice. A small amount of people had gathered in the seats below.
Phil assumed these people had found out from Tia. No secrets were safe when she was around, and Phil made a mental note to remember that. Seeing a few more people filling the seats, Phil had half a mind to bolt from the entire situation, but stopped himself, knowing that Keely would have read the note by now and would be heading towards him at that very moment.
There was no way he was going to bolt on his best friend. Not when she really needed support from him.
As Phil tuned Keely's acoustic guitar, a familiar face appeared at the door to the auditorium. It was Keely, with a small smile on her face and a curious look to go with it.
Phil was so glad to see a smile on her face, even if it was just a small one. It had been a long time since he had seen her even vaguely happy.
"Phil…?" Keely asked. "…What are you doing with my guitar?"
Phil grinned evilly.
"I'm about to smash it."
Keely's face turned to shock.
"Oh! Please don't!"
Phil grinned, less evilly.
"Just kidding Keel', I know how much this means to you." He said, standing up, guitar still in hand, and walked down the steps of the stage to where Keely stood.
"…So…" he began. "…got my $1.25?"
Keely smiled a little more.
"No, I don't. I didn't want any milk today. The school milk is 75 water you know."
"Well," Phil said, about to give Keely her guitar, before pulling it back towards himself. "I guess you don't get your guitar back then."
Keely pulled a face. Phil pulled one back.
Phil walked back towards the stage, Keely's guitar still in hand.
"What are you doing with my guitar Phil?" Keely asked, with a little hint of concern.
Phil grinned, before sitting on the stool again.
"I'm just using it to pass on a message."
Keely was still confused.
Phil smiled.
"Keel', just listen to this, and it'll say what I want to say to you." He scratched his head. "I can't sing very well, but I'm sure it will be more interesting than a speech…"
Phil checked the guitar was in tune one last time, partly over nervousness. He shuddered. The large amount of people in the audience, which had risen to 40, was certainly not helping. Now he understood how Keely felt with her stage fright.
Phil took a deep breath and picked up the microphone.
"Welcome everyone." He began. "I wasn't expecting such a large turn out, in fact I wasn't expecting any turn out," Phil narrowed his eyes at Tia, who seemed to ignore him. "This is a song I didn't write, but I'm singing for my best friend…Keely Tesslow."
Keely looked shell-shocked.
"So…without further ado, here's the song...I apologize in advance for the terrible singing…"
And Phil began without another word.
Wherever you go I don't care if you don't mind Where there's truth I don't care if you don't mind If you should fall I don't care if you don't mind
You know I'll be there
If you go far,
You know I'll be there
I'll go anywhere,
So I'll see you there
You place the name
You know I'll be there
You name the time
You know I'll be there
I'll go anywhere
So I'll see you there
I'll be there not far behind
I will dare
Keep in mind
I'll be there for you
You know I'll be there
Amongst the lies
You know I'll be there
I'll go anywhere
So I'll see you there
I'll be there not far behind
I will dare
Keep in mind
I'll be there for you
You know I'll be there
To catch the call
You know I'll be there
I'll go anywhere
So I'll see you there
I'll be there not far behind
I will dare
Keep in mind
I don't care
I'll be there for you
I'll be there for you…
As Phil strummed the final chord he looked up at the audience, who were stunned. One person exclaimed out loud to break the silence.
"Your singing might have stunk Diffy, but that song was so…beautiful!"
Everyone in the audience took this as a sign to start applauding. Phil smiled. He wasn't paying much attention to the audience though.
He was more interested in the genuinely happy smile on Keely's face.
His plan had worked. He had made Keely happy again.
Phil grabbed the guitar and handed it to her.
"Well…I don't need this anymore. I think my career as a singer is officially over." He grinned. He stopped as soon as he noticed Keely beginning to cry. "…Keely? Are you okay? Was I that bad?" He asked, worried he had just made her worse than before.
"…No, that's not it Phil." She replied, wiping a tear from her face. "You helped me feel better about that whole stupid Jake thing. That's the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me."
She grabbed him in a big hug, and Phil couldn't help grinning his face off.
Phil then had a thought, and pulled himself away from her. This had to stop.
"What's up?" Keely asked. Phil had never acted like that before, even when he was sad.
Phil took another deep breath. He was kind of sick of taking these large breaths before a plunge, he hoped things would calm down soon and he wouldn't have to use every emotion possible over a small amount of days.
"Keely," He began. "I have to tell you something."
Keely cocked her head to the side, having no idea at all what Phil was talking about.
"…Uh…sure Phil…what's on your mind?" She asked curiously.
"You." Phil replied, feeling the awkwardness between them.
"Huh?" Keely asked nervously.
"Keely. It's you. You're always on my mind. You always have been. From the very first moment I saw you in that algebra class over a year ago." Phil looked down at his thumbs that he was twiddling nervously. "Keely…I…uh…" He gulped.
"I'm in love with you." His face went an odd colour at this point. Between red and purple.
Keely opened her mouth in shock. Although, when she thought about it, that made a lot of sense. In fact, when she thought about it, it seemed to some extent, quite obvious.
"I don't know what to say Phil." She replied. She honestly didn't have any idea what to say. At some points before the whole catastrophe with the DNA projector she had considered a future with him, but not to the extent that Phil had been with her.
"Uh…well, I'll always be there for you Keel'." Phil said, his voice sounding sad, but more like his normal self. "Whether or not you feel the same way."
Keely smiled. Phil was so sweet.
She found herself thinking about the fact that she was so upset when she found out that she and Phil were related. In the corner of her mind she had been hoping they'd hook up, but that ruled the possibility out completely. So she tried to replace him with Jake.
And evidently, he tried to replace her with April.
But both relationships failed. And it turned out they weren't related.
Maybe it was a sign.
'Phil has helped to pick me back up so many times.' Keely thought to herself.
And as she looked at Philip Diffy, 16 year old from the future, she realised that what she really wanted was right in front of her the whole time.
"Phil…I…" Keely grinned.
"What?" Phil asked.
"I think I'm in love with you too."
And she kissed him.
And this time neither of them pulled away. At least not until they heard Tia making annoying squealing noises behind them.
"Do you think we would have ended up together if we hadn't used that DNA scrambler all those weeks ago?" Phil asked Keely as they walked down the road towards the restaurant that they first hung out in together.
Keely just tapped her nose mysteriously.
"I think it's all relative in the end."
Phil chuckled at her lame joke.
"Exactly."
The End. :)
Tadaaaah! The end of my story! My long, LONG story! So, how did you guys find it? Good I hope. I wasn't that satisfied with the ending, but I thought I might as well finish the story before it go too long. (random fact: My story has the most words out of all potf stories, so I guess it was long enough already.)
Phil ended up with Keely! ...Duh...
Last chance to leave reviews with any questions about the story (and about anything else if you like.)
The song I used was "Poprocks & Coke" By Green Day. I reccommend this song to people who like those boppyish pop tunes. It's one of the ONLY Green Day songs that doesn't have swearing :D
Anyway, I'll postup a whole thingy about the story in a couple of weeks maximum!
I hope you enjoyed this story, and I hope to start another story soon.
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