Brothers (Phan)

1

Dan
I made my ways through the long, crowded hallways with my sketchbook clutched to my chest, glancing side to side skeptically waiting for Jason's gang to pounce out on me. I made a sharp right turn into Mrs. Higgins math class. I huffed a small breath of relief and flopped into my seat. I slid my sketchbook onto the desk and continued working on my current project-a drawing of my dad, sitting in his recliner, smiling like he just told a corny joke. I remember that day well, he took me fishing, we didn't end up catching anything, so we returned home defeated to find my mum cooking us dinner. I took a quick shower and he was sitting downstairs quietly talking to my mum about our trip. When he saw me he smirked and told me a stupid knock knock joke about fish. Mum and I laughed and he smiled warmly. That's exactly how I drew him. My dad died 3 months ago in a car accident, I miss him a lot. I'm making this drawing for my mum. She misses him a lot also. Right as I began working on his smile, someone snatched the book right of the desk. I looked up frightened and saw Jason with my book in his gorilla hands, a fake look of interest upon his ugly face that all the girls somehow love. "Well, Danny, I knew you was a faggot, but I didn't know you was a queer for your Dad. Sorry to inform you, but he wanted to die so he wouldn't have to deal with his homo son." Rage consumed my body, I wanted to punch him right in his ugly, screwed in face. Instead I just sat there, like a stone, not moving, speaking, or retaliating. "Where's your pink shirt, Howell? We all loved it." I rolled my eyes, he was talking about last week when I borrowed one of my sisters shirts, it was plain pink, to support breast cancer awareness since my aunt was recently diagnosed with it. And I don't see how it was different than usual. I usually wear soft pastels colored shirts and colorful skinny jeans. They always make fun of me and call me "girly" because of this. He slammed my sketchbook shut and tossed it across the room. He sat on my desk and leaned in until he was almost touching my nose with his. "Faggot, just do the world a colossal favor and just fucking kill yourself. I wish your dad would have died before he met your skanky mum so you would have never been born." His group of asshats standing behind him laughed like hyenas and fist bumping each other, while I felt like crying. Class begins in ten minutes, so I have at least seven minutes of torture before anyone comes in here and chases them off. Just as I thought no one would come in here, in strutted Phil Lester, the schools fuckboy. He had a hoard of girls following him, so he slammed the door in their faces. Shit, he'll probably join them in the daily "Let's beat up Dan until he's unconscious." All of them turned around. Jason smirked and waved him over. Phil scowled and shuffled over to us. Jason grabbed onto the back of my shirt and shoved me towards him. I cowered a bit, because let's face it, Phil is threatening. He has black hair in a similar style as mine, but the fringe is dyed dark blue. He has tattoos all the way down both of his arms, snakebites, pierced ears, nose, tongue, and eyebrows. He wears a lot of eyeliner and is a jerk to everyone. I think he's even been to prison a few times. I guess it's just my raging gay teenage hormones, but he actually looks pretty fucking hot. Jason saw me shy away in fear, so he shoved me into Phil, and spoke in a hateful voice, "Say Phil, how would you like to throw the first punch at the faggot?" Phil smirked and nodded his head. I braced myself for the pain I was about to experience, but I never felt it. Instead I heard the awful crunching sound of Phil punching Jason in the nose, breaking it. Jason's hand flew up to his bleeding face and screamed, "WHAT THE HELL MAN?! I SAID PUNCH HIM, WHY DID YOU HIT ME?!" Phil smiled a sickly smile and cocked his head. "No, fuckwad, you said punch the faggot, not the innocent guy you bully because his dad's dead and may like guys. First off why would it matter to you anyway, and second of all, if you're gonna make fun of him because he has a dead parent, make fun of me too. My mum died 3 months ago in an accident." I sat in shock because he was defending me, and because my dad was in an accident at the same time. Jason and his crew of idiots just cowered away and walked out. I turned to Phil and whispered "Thanks for defending me, sorry about your mum. I'm Dan. " His expression softened slightly. "Hi Dan, It was no problem, I've been itching to punch him forever, he's a fucking ass." I decided to be a little bolder, "By any chance, did your mum die in the crash on Lexington avenue? And did she have a black Lexus?" He looked appalled for a second, then his face darkened. "How did you know that?" I shrugged, "My dad was in that accident too." His face changed, he looked somewhat sad. "Man, this sucks. Sorry about your dad." I shrugged again, "Sorry about your mum." I looked away as he walked off. I turned around to go sit back in my seat, but my back was poked. Thinking it was Jason, I jumped and whipped around. It was just Phil, clutching my sketchbook with a death grip. He blushed and handed it to me, then briskly walked away and threw himself into a seat across the room, burrowing his head into the crook of his arms. Strange. I turned back and sat in my own seat as the other students filed into the classroom while the bell rang. Mrs. Higgins walked into the room a minute after, and began teaching. She wasn't really teaching anything interesting so I continued my drawing, sneaking occasional glances at Phil. Halfway through the lesson, Mrs. Higgins began yelling at someone so I sat up to find out who. It turned out to be Phil. "Mr. Lester, what about Mr. Howell is so much more interesting than learning algebra? Stop staring at him and pay attention." The rest of the class began sniggering as he blushed furiously and laid his head down on his desk. My cheeks turned pink as I kept working on my drawing. I lost track of time while drawing, because suddenly the bell rang and I jumped a foot in the air. I gathered up my things and stood up just as Phil did. He glanced at me with a soft expression, but the second he got to the hallway he scowled, his signature look. I shook my head and began walking about ten feet behind him towards my locker. Along the way I saw a mass of people surrounding Phil like they usually do, but most of them were asking questions about earlier. " Hey Lester, did you really punch Jason in the face?" Phil kept his head down and simply said "Fuck off," but the questions kept coming. "Did you do it for that faggot Howell kid? Because that's what Justin said." Phil turned around and yelled to everyone surrounding him, "I SAID FUCK OFF!" Everyone stood like a deer caught in headlights for a few seconds then walked off, muttering things to their friends. Phil shook his head and kept walking. I quickened my pace and soon caught up to him. I poked him on his arm and heard him mutter, "Holy fuck, what now." He turned around and saw me, his expression changing to one of slight joy. "Oh, it's just you." I walked next to him in silence. I thought popped into my head and I just had to say it. "Phil?" He turned and looked at me. I cleared my throat. "Why didn't you beat me up, and why are you letting the gay kid walk with you." I said, mentally facepalming myself for telling him that I'm gay. He got a look of interest upon his face. "Well, first of all, no one deserves to be bullied, and also because I hate homophobes, they're just selfish assholes, second of all, I've never had a friend that wasn't all, no offense, very popular, so they would ditch me to hang out with other people, and it doesn't look like you have many friends." I just nodded my head, content with his answer. He placed a hand on my shoulder and stared me in the eyes. "Wait, are you actually gay? If you are, that's cool, I won't tell anyone." I hesitated a little, but this guy saved me, he deserved some answers. "Well, yeah." He nodded and smiled at me, then looked around as if seeing if anyone was watching, and pulled me into a hug. When he pulled away I asked him why he had to make sure no one was watching first. He shrugged, "I didn't want Jason to see, he would harass you and ask who your boyfriend was because he's a dickhead like that." Oh wow, I never really thought about that. I reached my locker and pulled it open, grabbing my books for the next class, History with Mr. Urie. I swear sometimes he must be drunk when he teaches us. I ducked into the classroom and set my stuff on my desk. I pulled out my sketchbook since Jason and his gang got suspended for a week due to constant bullying and harassing, while Phil was let off with a warning. I continued working on my drawing, the corner of the page a little wrinkled from where Jason threw it across the room earlier. Phil didn't have this class with me so I had no one to talk to. Instead I drew the whole time, my mind wandering to the boy with the ebony and indigo hair and striking, deep blue eyes.