The New Guy // Phan

2

I smile at Dan and get lost in his beautiful brown eyes. I look at the lines and swirls of gold lining in them. I look at the way his lips form a perfectly straight line except on one corner that is folded down in thought. I notice the way his nose twitches a tiny bit without him even knowing. I take in his tan and his rosy red cheeks.

I suddenly notice a change in his expression as he looks at me expectantly.

"Oh. Sorry. What?" I ask, realizing he probably said something.

"I said; when are you free after school to work on the project?" Dan repeats himself awkwardly.

"Umm.. Pretty much every day! You could come to mine tonight if you're free? Or I could come to yours if you're more comfortable with that!" I speak quite quickly out of nerves and Dan chuckles. "What? Why are you laughing?" I ask him suddenly extremely self aware.

"Nothing. Why are you speaking so fast?"

"Sorry.. I don't know.. Nerves? I guess..." I answer.

"I think I'm free. I'll text my mom and ask her at break." he says and I nod. "Anyway, nerves? why?" He smiles bemused at me.

"Umm.. I don't know. I guess I get quite shy around new people." I say.

No I don't.

It's him.

He makes me nervous.

"Ah. Makes sense for someone so popular." He smirks at me. It's like he knows.

"Hey, we don't have new people every day you know!" I defend myself and he rolls his eyes.

"Okay, fine. So how are we actually going to make earthquakes funny?" Dan asks and I shrug.

"I don't know, but we'll figure something out!" I laugh a bit and quickly cover my mouth to hide the way my tongue pokes out at the side of my mouth when I laugh.

"Cool, so we could get footage of an earthquake and put it on some news thing if you like and then one of us could be an interviewer and one of us a victim of the earthquake and do an interview about it. Then we could add an explanation of how they happen and stuff so it has information. I don't know how to add humor in there but that will most likely be in the interview somewhere!" Dan explains. "Unless you have a better idea, you probably do." He looks down to the desk looking almost ashamed.

"No no, that's a great idea. I love it." I assure him.

"So. You can write the interview if you like and I will write the information?" I ask and Dan nods in agreement.

"Great." I say and the bell for the end of lesson goes. "What do you have next?" 

"Umm.. Music." He says.

"Oh. I don't do music but err... I'm sure Ria would show you the way, I'm pretty sure she does it.. Ria!" I explain and call her from the next table.

"Phil!" She responds, giggling and I ask her to take Dan to music to which she agrees and I head off to English with some of my 'friends' in my class.

I don't actually do anything in English. I can't concentrate over the thought of Dan. It actually dragged so much more than usual. 

"Hey, Phil!" Louis calls as we get ready to leave English and I look up at him, "Why were you talking to to that Dave  loser or whatever his name is?"

"Dan? Oh, because I figured we need to do something more extreme?" It comes out as more of a question than a statement but I continue as Louis, and Reece who has now joined us, look at me confused "You know, it's always just insults or abuse with these things. We should.. like.. take it to the next level! So like a personal betrayal." Why am I saying this? I don't want to victimize Dan! I want to get to know him and be friends with him! I just... Can't! I can't get bullied again!

"Great idea Phil! Why have you never said this before? Actually, never mind. So, plan?" No. Forget it. I don't want to do it.

"Umm.. I become close to Dan.... He will like..." Stop it Phil. You'll hurt him. He'll never forgive you. "He will trust me. I will say I ditched you guys and he can trust me. Then when his trust is earned and he's at his most vulnerable, I will tell him the whole thing was a lie.." But it wasn't. Be friends with him. Real friends. Ditch these guys!  "And then he will be really down and alone and our words will hurt him more because of me being in on it!" No. Forget it. Turn away now. Don't do this to him! You don't want to. Stop. Now.

"Okay. We're in his next lesson right?" Reece asks and I nod.

"Get the plan into action then. We'll walk in looking stroppy and act like we're bitching about you and he'll believe it. We might even insult you a bit to help it. Okay?" Josh adds after joining us when I was explaining.

"Yeah, Great!" I give a fake smile as we entered Art. His favorite lesson.

"Hey Phil!" Dan sings as I enter.

"Hi.." I sigh as I sit down. My entire mood has actually dropped even thinking about how this is going to end but I have no choice now.

"Are you.. okay, Phil?" Dan asks warily as he sits next to me, away from the populars where I normally sit.

"I'm fine." I mumble, looking over to the populars where I normally sit but have moved for the plan. They think I'm acting all down because of it and we are supposed to have 'fallen out'. I see them mumbling to each other and pointing over here before laughing and Dan leans over to nudge me.

"Fallen out with them? Don't worry about it! It'll be okay. You have me now anyway!" Dan says sincerely. I turn my head and look into his eyes, a pure look of sympathy as we make eye contact.

"But it's all going to happen again isn't it?" I state. The populars will assume I made this story up for Dan and that's what I will tell them but in reality, I'm just opening up to him.

"What's going to happen again?" He asks and I look down to the desk. "Phil? It's okay if you don't want to talk about it. I'm not going to force you into this." He says and I nod.

"No no. It's fine. I will tell you. 

I only moved to this school last year. It wasn't a random move. I told others that my previous school wasn't helping me and wasn't good enough for my education because it was a pretty crap school anyway. But that wasn't the truth." I pause as a tear slips down my face and I quickly brush it away before anyone sees.

"Phi-"

"I was bullied Dan." I snap, looking up at him as more tears fell. "I was bullied because my little sister died. She died. (A/N I know this is not true but it is for the story!) I was bullied because my sister died. She was only 7 and she died. They found it a great weakness. I was different from everyone else. I had a dead 7 year old sister and no friends. I had no one." I sobbed into my hands. I have never told anyone here about that. What was so different with Dan? Right, he was going to end up just as broken as the rest of them.

"Phil, Phil it's okay." Dan tries to comfort me but I just shake my head as I sob into my hands.

"No it's not! IT'S NOT FUCKING OKAY!" I scream and I can feel everyone's eyes on me as I remember where we are.

"PHILIP! GET OUT OF THIS CLASSROOM NOW!" I hear the teacher call. He was normally a really nice teacher but he couldn't tolerate swearing. Neither could I most of the time. I nod my head as I stand up and keep my head down as I walk out the room, the populars mock sneering at me as I leave. 

"Loser" Reece coughs as a way to go along with the plan and I let more tears slip down my face.

But you are a loser Phil.

It wouldn't be a joke if he knew who you really were!

Maybe he knows.

Maybe they all know.

I try to ignore the voices in my head. The ones who had gone after I left my previous school and I had improved. I guess they've come back for me now I've opened up about it. I continue to walk down the corridor. Mr Crey probably expected me to wait outside the classroom but I can't. I need to get away somewhere. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere I can go to block out these voices. To clear them. 

I enter the empty toilets and stand in front of the mirror, looking at my reflection. My mess of a reflection and burst out into tears and sobs. Once again. Just like old times.