Sanctuary (A Dan Smith/ Bastille fanfic)

22. Chloe

Just when you think you’re making progress with someone, something comes along and fucks things up.

Usually when something goes wrong I know what it is that’s wrong; me.

My fuck ups, my wrongdoings, my slightly strange tendencies.

This time though, I’m clueless.

Everything was fine between me and Dan. I was a bit worried that I had fucked up whilst drunk on Monday night but it seemed that I did nothing too embarrassing that I didn’t remember about. Then this whole week we’ve spent together and I really thought that I had found a friend in him.

But then came his strange behaviour.

It started with him lying about having to do work to me. I knew he had no work to do because we both take practically the same subjects and even if he did have work to do he never does it anyway.

But then he lied about feeling ill. I assumed he just wanted be alone for some reason. Thoughts crossed my mind about him having other plans and not telling me about them, but he’s just as lonely as me when I’m not with him.

And then he ignored me all weekend. All bloody weekend. All of my attempts to get in contact. The texts, the calls, the visits to his house. All of them he ignored.

Then Monday morning he didn’t wait for me to go to college with him and instead he just drove himself in. I ended up being late and arriving at our history lesson a sweaty mess from walking the whole way in.

Dan’s face dropped as he saw me. It actually dropped. I made him that angry or upset about something that he was actually going to such an extent to ignore me. I wanted to sit in any other seat other than the one next to Dan but seeing as I had walked in late there were no spare seats other than my usual one.

The awkwardness was as prominent as it was on that first day. It was like this whole 2 weeks hadn’t happened, like we weren’t beginning to be friends. I’ve never felt rejection like it. He doesn’t speak to me throughout the entire lesson; instead we sit there in the most uncomfortable silence that I’ve ever felt in my life. I shouldn’t have felt that awkward with him.

At the end of the lesson he turns to me and exhales a long knowing sigh. He knows that I’m about to question him on why the fuck he’s been a twat this weekend and he knows that it’s highly unlikely that I’m going to hold back and listen to his bullshit excuse.

“You okay?” Dan asks as people around us begin standing up and leaving to go to break.

“Do you think I’m okay?” I remark as I stand up and start putting my notepad into my rucksack.

“Um.. Yes?” He replies, trying to sound optimistic but his natural pessimism is seeping through with each word he speaks.

“Well you’re fucking wrong.” I angrily zip my bag up to make a point of my feelings being hurt.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Dan mutters as he fumbles about with the zip on his own rucksack, attempting to shove the jumper inside further but it keeps catching on the zip. It’s infuriating just to watch.

“Fucking hell, give me that.” I snatch Dan’s bag from his grasp and undo the zip slightly and gently pull the jumper away from the zip which has been causing it to catch. “There you go.” I sigh whilst doing it up and handing it back to him.

“Thanks.” He mumbles whilst he swings it up onto his right shoulder and we begin to walk out of the room.

“Now are you going to tell me what the hell was up with you this weekend?” I realise at this point that I’m sounding like a complete and utter moany bitchy psycho. I sound like a whiney girl, which is something I am certainly not. The silence between us is sickening as Dan stays quiet, not answering my intrusive questioning. So what if he didn’t want to see me this weekend? Is there some written rule that says we need to spend all of our time together? He’s used to being on his own and I’ve completely taken that part of his life away from him. Perhaps he just needed a bit of chill time without me. Perhaps he’s realised he doesn’t actually like me and thinks I’m a freak. Not that I’m helping myself exactly.

“I dunno.” He shrugs but I feel he’s not telling me something. “I gotta go, I wanna get to politics early.” He mumbles before turning left in the corridor and leaving me walking towards outside on my own.

What even was that? I don’t understand? Am I being too over the top? Too keen?

Dan just said he was leaving early to go to his next lesson. That’s not like him at all. He barely makes it to his lessons as it is, let alone getting there 20 minutes early. What, does he want a good seat or something? Has he somehow got this new thing where he’s going to try and be a teacher’s pet? I begin to panic of the prospect of him becoming a better person and leaving me stranded behind.

I’m angering myself at these thoughts. I have known this guy for 2 weeks. 2 weeks, that’s it.

So why is it that the thought of him losing interest in me is hurting me more than I could ever imagine?