Bad Boys Don't Smile / phan

chapter seven

phil

Phil now understands, well, partially, why Dan is the way he, well, is.

Phil can't imagine a world like that; so full of hurt, anger, betrayal and neglect. The sadness inside of Dan is slowly eating away at Phil as well. Phil feels useless, he can't help Dan, Dan won't even look at Phil now.

It hurts Phil to know that Dan is so ashamed of his life, and what he is going through. He shouldn't be - in Phil's opinion, Dan is one of the strongest people he knows. Phil feels sorry for Dan, he can't imagine never feeling happy, and not feeling loved or cared for.

Dan is seriously misunderstood, yet he seems content to be that way. There is so many misconceptions in the school about Dan, and Phil feels kind of proud that he knows part of the truth.

"I heard Dan stabbed someone on the weekend over a bet," Caspar whispers to Louise and Phil as they watch Dan walk past.

Phil can almost feel the sadness when he looks at Dan now. His eyes, they look so lost and upset, everything Phil mistook for a sign of anger or aggression, was actually a sign of hiding the hurt inside of him.

"Really?" Louise asks, her eyes widening, "wow... Look out Phil."

"That's really rude, you don't know that!" Phil snaps, glaring at his two friends, well, trying to glare, "you don't even know him."

"Oh and you do?" Louise asks matter-of-factly.

"I-uh, well no, but-" Phil stammers, a blush coating his cheeks, "I just think it's rude to say judgmental things about people when you don't know them."

"Oh, sorry Saint Phillip, will you forgive us of our sin?" Louise says dramatically, giggling along with Caspar.

"Haha, very funny," Phil says, rolling his eyes at his friends.

"It's not like Dan would care anyway," Louise points out, "I mean, he's not exactly the most emotional being ever is he?"

Phil's mind flashes back to an image of Dan smiling so brightly it made Phil's heart soar as well, and then he sees Dan slumped over, his eyes filled with tears and the atmosphere around him so tainted with hurt that it would tear anyone's heart into shreds.

"You don't know him," Phil says again, his mind still seeing Dan, "everyone has emotions, some just hide it better than others."

"I don't know Phil, some people are just not wired the same way as everyone else," Louise says, biting her lip, "it's just fact."

Phil just shrugs in response, not saying anything. He feels hurt for Dan, that people say things like this about him, and Phil knows it's not just his own friends that gossip.

When Phil sits with Dan in English, up the back, while everyone talks over each other and 'works' on the projects. Dan leans back in his chair, just quietly observing the rest of the class, like you'd observe animals in the wild. And Phil realises everyone is wrong, Dan isn't the wild, dangerous animal, he's the quiet, smart, shy animal, lonely but alert. More like a... Tiger. Deadly, smart, lonely, but captivating, amazing, beautiful.

"What are you thinking so hard about?" Dan asks, snapping Phil out of his thoughts, making the boy blush slightly and avert his eyes elsewhere.

"Nothing," Phil replies quickly, looking down at his open notebook, the page blank of ideas for their project, "nothing important."

"Bullshit," Dan says, "what were you actually thinking about?"

"Um, animals," Phil says, blushing, "like, what kind of animal everyone would be."