Hurts Like Heaven

Chapter Eight

Dan waited for Phil by the old factory that morning giving his all-too-familiar happy smile.  Phil had bags under his eyes and was in nowhere near chipper looking as Dan.  After the night they’d gone through, he didn’t sleep too well for the three hours of rest he actually managed.  Though they got away and no one knew it was them, he couldn’t help but fear they’d find them and ruin what life he did have.  “Good morning,” his friend called from under the written-over sign.  Phil smiled a bit to himself.  Is there anything graffiti Dan hasn’t had a part in? 

“Morning, Dan.”  He reached the boy still trying to recall exactly when he’d left last night.  It couldn’t have been before four; he thought remembered being awake then.  A feeling of impoliteness passed over him—he’d probably fallen asleep before Dan left.

They walked to school together, people giving them odd looks, as they seemed to those days.  Phil could feel their questions and negativity as they watched Dan, the popular “rich” kid, talk to Phil, the “weird” one that no one wanted anything to have to do with.  Dan never seemed to notice, but Phil heard them in the hallways and outside the school.  He couldn’t blame them, he thought.  It was still hard for him to believe someone like Dan had become his friend in the first place.

They entered the classroom and took their seats.  Dan had offered for Phil to sit next to him countless times and he always felt bad for rejecting.  His ‘friends’ (though Dan clearly used sarcasm when calling them that) were people Phil had dealt with before and didn’t want to come across again.  Even without him saying or doing anything, they would give hostile looks and sneer about him from time to time, though it happened much more a year ago or so.  He never did anything to them… it always made him wonder why they hated him so much.  He just accepted after time that he couldn’t fit in with them (or anyone for that matter) and kept to himself—which is when they started to left him alone.

He half-smiled and muttered some kind of goodbye and sat at his desk playing the cheap games on his phone.  It was boring but what else could he do?  The teacher droned on with lessons as usual; the material was too easy or something he’d already read about when he was bored.  Eventually, the class ended and he walked to his next one alone, as usual.  Dan was only in that one class with him, not like it mattered, though; he would probably decline Dan’s offers again for the next class.  Phil sighed and moved to his usual seat in the back of the classroom. 

The day passed rather quickly despite his exhaustion until lunch.  He normally sat at the empty table in the corner of the lunch room away from other people—even when he had Dan as a friend—and he was content.  He listened to the songs on his iPod and waited for the time to pass.  “You should sit at my table,” Dan smiled as he walked up to Phil. 

“I—uh, I don’t know—“

“Oh, come on, you can’t be happy sitting alone, can you?”  He looked almost sad to see Phil sitting by himself and kept a welcoming smile; Phil assumed it was because he was always alone.  It's probably pity, he mentally sighed.

“I manage,” he replied.  Phil knew Dan sat with the same people at lunch as he did at the first class; sitting there was a definite ‘no.’ Dan frowned a bit.

“Can I sit here, then?”

Phil’s eyes widened slightly.  “Why would you want to sit with me…?  No one really likes me here; people don’t normally want to be near me.”

“You’re my friend, stupid,” he laughed.  Phil still wasn’t used to hearing that.

“If you want, you can,” he smiled a little.  Dan sat across from him occupying the normally-vacant space.  They talked for a while, laughing at teachers and carrying on about school until some of Dan’s ‘friends’ came by.  Phil slouched, as if that would make him invisible or able to hide, at least.  Much to his dismay, it did neither.

“Lester,” one of them growled.  Phil flinched a little. Memories from previous years of hearing that slowly came back with all the name calling and teasing.  He hated it. 

“What do you want?” he asked as hostile as he could.  He was used to acting this way by now, which was sad.  It wasn’t who he was at all.  He acted as tough as they did and stayed out of people’s ways the best he could; it normally made them leave him alone.  It was a bad idea to let his walls down, anyways.

One of them gave him an evil grin and Phil tried not to let it get to him.  Another thing that was all too familiar.  He put on an unaproachable face and told them to get out of his face.  The first one shouted an insult at him before Dan spoke up.  “Leave him alone, he didn’t do anything to you.” 

“Why would you take up for him?"  They eyed him up and down, almost as if they were considering beating him up.  It made his stomach turn.  "Even better, why are you even sitting over here?  He’s a loser,” one spat.  He sunk a bit lower in his seat; words still hurt.  Dan gave them a harsh look—though he still couldn’t quite pull it off.

“He’s not.  Don’t you think it makes you losers to be bullying someone at your age?”  He sat by quietly listening to Dan tell off the people who talked to him.  A small pause.  Phil noticed the nearby tables watching Dan—who was normally quieter—belittle those they assumed were his friends.  “I thought so.  Fuck off,” he growled.  Phil couldn’t help but find it slightly funny; Dan really wasn’t the aggressive kind and he couldn’t sport it well.  They muttered something about Dan acting weird and marched off, defeated.

“T-thanks.”  He stumbled over the words, still a bit tense though the jerks had left.

“That’s what friends are for, right?”  Dan gave him a smile just as lunch ended and hurried off into the sea of students rushing back to their classes.  He spent the rest of the day trying to sort out the bullies and how Dan could stand up to them like that.