Hurts Like Heaven

Chapter Fourteen

When Dan didn’t show up to school after the fourth day, he was worried.  His friend hadn’t responded to any calls and that only made things worse.  At the end of his last class, he decided to walk the opposite direction he normally did to visit Dan’s house and make sure he was alright.  It was a ten minute walk in the same direction as the intimidators from his class, which was slightly unnerving.  He pulled his hood up and tried to stay invisible, failing miserably as he tripped over a stray plastic bag.  They snickered at him, as expected, and carried on as he tried to untangle the bag from his shoes. 

“Need help?”  He looked up to see Dan walking toward him. 

“I… I think I got it,” he responded, tugging at the bag until it came up.  Dan grabbed his arm and helped him up from the ground giving a dark look to the kids who laughed at him.  He was happy to see Dan, but he blurted out what had been on his mind.  “Where have you been?”

His expression sunk a bit.  “It’s not good news,” he grimaced. “That’s kind of why I’m over this way, actually.”

“What’s wrong?”  Worries flooded his head, especially irrational ones like if he were dying or not.  He looks fine… what if something’s seriously wrong?  What happened?  Is he alright?

Dan looked down at his shoes for a moment, half ashamed.  “My parents kind of found out that I’ve been painting the town,” the boy admitted.  Phil’s heart sank.  “I think my dad found the empty spray paint cans when he was looking for something and made the connection.  They knew about the police thing and I didn’t exactly look innocent, so I confessed to it.”

He sat in near-shock, though he figured it would happen at some point.  He’d hoped it wouldn’t be this soon, though.  “How much trouble are you in?  Did they ground you from school or something?”  Phil realized how dumb that sounded and decided against ask anything else.

“They’re making me move in with some family on the other side of the country--apparently this place is ‘a bad influence,’” he stated, putting special emphasis his parent’s opinion.  “After Monday, they were signing paperwork so I would enroll in school there,” he sighed sadly.  

Phil could almost feel his heart hurt—his only friend was being taken away.  “When?”

“My first day is Monday.”  An uncomfortable, sad silence gripped the atmosphere around them.  “They’ve been moving my stuff out all week, I haven't really been able to call.”  His voice began to break, as if he was just then accepting it.   “I didn’t even know they could do this, I thought I was going to be stuck here if I was caught, why do they even care?  They never cared about anything I did until now... unless it was dealing with my future or something I mean…”  Dan cut himself off, sounding as if he were fighting off tears.  “I don’t want to go, Phil.  I want to stay here.”

He could hardly breathe; this couldn’t be happening.  He tried to say something, but all he could get out was “I don’t want you to go either,” with a small voice.  There had to be something they could do, something they could say, right?  He tried to come up with a way to avoid it but drew a blank.

Phil watched as Dan rubbed his eyes a bit, and mirrored the action.  Dan’s voice was much more controlled this time he spoke.  “I’m leaving Sunday, and I don’t know when I can get back.  They said once a month, but I doubt they’ll actually let me come back here that often.  I think my parents will probably visit me instead.”  Dan looked over at some of the graffiti around them almost as if it were a waste.  It hurt Phil to see that.  “I don’t know when I’ll see you again.”  It almost hurt worse to hear that, though.

“I…”  He didn’t know exactly what he was going to say, so he collected his thoughts and got a grip.  “We can still talk, there’s always phones and internet.  I’m sure I could visit you sometime, too, don’t worry.”  His heart kept sinking to the pit of his stomach; this was the worst thing he could possibly imagine coming out of this.

Dan smiled a tiny bit and nodded his head, lightening the depressing conversation to some level.  “I was wondering if you wanted to hang out… I’m only here for two more days, so…”

“That sounds great,” he smiled.