Nothing Special

Chapter 1

*Phi's POV*
"Okay," I thought, "Just get through the day. That's the main goal. No one needs to know a thing."
I was sitting on my bed, my head in my hands and my elbows on my knees. It was the first day at a new high school, and all I could do was hope that no one would figure it out.

"Relax," I whispered to myself. As a distraction to the rising tension in my stomach, I checked my backpack for supplies and just as I finished zipping it back up, mum called me from downstairs.
"Philly ! Time to go. Let's not be late, love,"
"Coming, mum !"
I slung my bag across my shoulders and checked my appearance one last time.
Black hair falling in front of blue eyes. Navy blazer and trousers. White shirt and navy tie.
Nothing special.
I sighed and ran downstairs, to the garage, and into the car where I sat passenger to mum, nervously playing with the end of my tie. We pulled out of the drive.
"You're going to be fine. This school is known to do quite well academically and has no tolerance to bullying. By the end of the year, you won't even care who knows,"
I nodded, but not fully convinced. My mum was amazing; always accepting and always understood, I guess, but things like this were so terrifying that you can't really feel what someone who is going through it is feeling without going through it yourself. It must really suck to watch your kid go through it though, so I tried to be positive.

Within ten minutes, we'd arrived and were sitting in the parking lot. It was 8:15 and we had to be there by 8:30 but I didn't want to seem like I was too early but I didn't want to be just on time either so I decided to go and wait outside with everyone else at 8:20. Five minutes can make anxious people cry. Time dragged on whilst we sat in silence, my heart pounding, until mum checked her watch and confirmed that it was 8:20. I took a breathe and exhaled deeply.
"Bye, mum," I muttered.
"Bye ! You'll have a great day, I promise," she beamed while I got out of the car. She drove off and I was on my own.
"No one needs to know.."
"No one. Needs. To. Know."
I walked silently up to the doors where about fifty kids were standing, most of them talking and enjoying themselves, a few sitting off in corners with fewer people or completely alone, and even back by the woods surrounding the school. I decided to go to the woods and sit in a tree to watch people and observe just what exactly the kids here were like. I wandered over to the trees closest to the lawn, and climbed a quite tall one, sat on a branch (on top of a notebook-don't want to be known as the kid with dirty trousers on the first day,) and watched.
A few girls were stood by a puddle, laughing and talking; not a care in the world. A group of boys and girls were sitting in a circle in the grass with music playing lightly below me while a boy with a shaved head pored over a book.
Everyone seemed to be off in their own little world.

*Dan's POV*
I hated everyone.
Every single human being attending this school. The teachers, too, faking kids into believing that this school was so perfect and a positive environment.
Horse shit.
If you were "different" then you were fucked.
And everyone knows it. But does anyone do anything ? No of course not. So the few like me do what we can:
Go to school.
Don't fuck about.
Get good marks.
And somehow while doing this, I've become basically teacher's pet to every teacher who teaches me.
But if they actually knew me ? Haha, no.
Because who wants a semi-closeted gay seventeen year old who has no idea what to do with his life and cries and listens to strange music and never sleeps ?
No one. That's who.
I checked my watch: 8:28.
Ugh. Two minutes until it all starts again.
Now one...
Damn.
I sighed and tied up my tie.
Here we go again..
This was literal hell.
Another year full of the same over dramatic idiotic teenagers.
The bell rang. 8:30. Looking up, now probably the entire school was here.
We all rushed to the door and filed into the building, everyone having their own conversations, while I catch bits and pieces of all of them. Some boy is being called gay, a teacher is having an affair, and some thirteen year old named Eden was already vomiting in the bathroom from nerves.
"I wish I could be vomiting in the bathroom right now," I thought.
I passed a couple snogging. Now this was the weird thing:
While everyone was freaking out and telling them to stop, I smiled. They were cute. They were happy.
They were off in their own little world.