Resistance - COMPLETE

Chapter 5

Dan sat in English Monday morning tapping his pencil along to the music streaming from his iPod while he waited for Mr. Hayes to get here. Dan purposefully arrived early in hopes to talk to Phil before class to give him his pencil back and maybe figure out what he did to make Phil so angry with him. About a song and a half later, Phil scurried in the room setting his things down and opening his drawing book immediately. Dan grabbed Phil's pencil from his backpack and sat in the desk in front of his on the chair backwards.

"You dropped this when you ran away from me." Dan told him holding the pencil up.Phil's heart immediately thudded in his chest. It was too early for this. Why couldn't Dan just leave him alone? Phil didn't look up but reached for the pencil.

"I wanted to return it because it kind of looks important." Dan continued. "But I'll only give it back if you tell me why you hate me. I'll leave you alone after that. I just need one reason. The honest to god truth, and this pencil is your's and I'm out of your hair forever."

Phil sighed inaudibly, opening up his sketchbook and flipping to a fresh page. He took the new pencil he got from his room and wrote his reason. 'I don't hate you. I just don't like people, okay?' Phil wrote, not daring to look at Dan's face. He wasn't sure what to think about Dan, he didn't seem that bad but he did get shouted at yesterday.

"You don't like people?" Dan scrunched his nose reading Phil's note. "So we had no chance at being friends at the start because I'm 'people?'" Phil's stomach churned at his words. He was getting more and more frightened as he talked to Dan. 'I'm sorry- I don't get "friends"' Phil wrote, hoping Dan would stop.

"What do you mean by that? Everyone has friends. And why are we still doing this note thing. It's not like anyone's here." Dan said waving his arms around the room. "I know you're shy and everything, but no one else is here." Dan pointed out getting upset by the one sidedness of this conversation.

'Why do you keep trying to speak to me?' Phil didn't understand - Dan was obviously popular, was this some kind of joke?

"Because! Because..." Dan stumbled. "I don't really know, okay? People say you're weird and stuff, but I don't want to listen to them. Can you just please talk to me?"

Phil couldn't take it any longer. He stood up, taking his sketchbook and walked out of the room before class had even started.

"Fuck, not again." Dan groaned standing up grabbing the stupid pencil he seems to keep forgetting. "Phil!" He called down the empty hall.

He got out of the room just in time to see Phil turn a corner. 'Great,' Dan thought, 'he's going to make me run.' Dan ran down the empty hall after him listening for his slamming feet and going in that general direction. Dan noticed he'd never been to this part of the school yet. He wondered what would be down here for Phil to run after. He saw Phil disappear into the library so he slowed his run to a walk knowing that Phil couldn't get out of here.

"Excuse me miss." Dan greeted the librarian putting on his best smile. "A boy with black hair just came in here. Can you tell me where he went? He's my partner for an English project and he ditched me."

"Back there." she replied rolling her eyes at Dan not buying his story, but not caring either.

"Thanks." He nodded walking towards the corner where he was directed to.

Phil's flipped through his sketchbook, trying to calm himself down. He was unable to draw due to shaky hands so his previous drawings would have to do.

"There you are!" Dan sighed plopping down next to Phil. "Jesus Christ, Phil. You made me run through this school before 8am so that we could sit in the library?" he joked deciding that being angry and yelling just pushes Phil away so maybe humor was more his thing. Phil didn't look up, slightly rocking himself back and forth. He always did that a lot - it didn't help, but he just did.