What Others Don't Know- Phanfic

CHAPTER TWELVE

^I'm honestly so proud of him for everything that he's overcome❤️❤️^
Dan's POV:

    I went down the carpeted steps of my house, going into the kitchen and grabbing a bottle of water. I went towards the door and grabbed my keys off of the island. Walking out, I locked the door behind me, mentally congratulating myself for getting out of bed today. Now just to make it through without going to the nurse, lying and saying I'm sick. I thought as I sighed, stepping off the stoop and heading towards the main strip of pavement.
    I took out my phone and unraveled my perfectly wrapped earbuds that I spent several minutes wrapping around my phone. I put one in each year and put on the song Broken by Lund, turning it all the way up and looking up at the blue sky. I sighed again, inhaling for five seconds and out for seven as I remembered the way to calm down. I drummed my fingers on my thigh to the beat of the music as I thought of what happened in years prior in the back of my mind although I never thought his name.
Thinking someone had yelled, I looked back to see Pj and Phil laughing as they shut the door to Phil's house. I snapped my head back before they could notice and continued to walk down the pavement, looking at my feet. My eyes, although, eventually wondered back up to the sky.
Typically I looked at the ground while I walked because I hadn't wanted people to see my face. At previous schools, I had been bullied loads and tried to avoid catching anyone's eye or being spotted by one of the jerks. Eventually it just kind of became a habit. I also did have one other friend, if that's what you'd call her. We weren't as close as I had been with him, but we talked and hung out a few times.
Her name was Louise and she's now quite popular on YouTube. I asked her not to mention me in her videos once she started growing popular and she said yes, knowing I didn't want attention drawn to myself. Nobody really knows I'm friends with a famous YouTuber.
    One of my goals is to survive until Christmas, she said she wanted to visit at some point before this year ends. Besides, Christmas is an okay time for me. My parents don't work as much and family comes over. My grandma had always been accepting of my mind reading, which is amazing.
    On Christmas Day we always have a party and host our whole family. Sometimes it's on Christmas Eve though, it depends on everyone's schedule. I typically go upstairs and clean my room before anyone gets there because my parents always yell at me otherwise. Grandma always comes earlier than everyone else and she comes into my room. I play music (usually Twentyøne Piløts) and we just chat, it's really nice.
    I snapped out of my day dream when I realized I was about to cross the street. As usual I didn't look for cars, I simply walked, looking down at my feet now that I was back to school. I watched as my black converse crunched over the fallen leaves, observing the crumbs of leaf that clung to the white laces like Velcro.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a guy who had been giving me nasty looks on my first day. It wasn't that Pj guy, this was someone else. He looked like the typical guy to give me a beating behind the school and leave me bloody or something like that. That had happened to me several times before.
This guy had brown fringe-ish hair. When I had walked passed him in the hall I thought I heard someone call him Chris, but I'm not totally sure.
I went up the steps to my third floor locker, opening it essily and hanging my backpack inside. Unlike my other schools, this one had full-length lockers instead of those pathetic half-sized ones. How the hell are you supposed to fit a winter coat in there?
I took out my morning class's books. I had first hour Science and second hour I had a class called Career Quest. Basically you switch to a new class every eighteen days. First rotation I had tech, eighteen days later Business, then F.A.C.S. (Family And Consumer Sciences), and after eighteen more days of that it starts over again. Third hour I had Global Studies, fourth hour Study Hall, fifth hour Maths, and then lunch. I grabbed my books for my afternoon classes before lunch because it doesn't really matter if you get to the cafeteria a minute late or so.
Lastly I grabbed my Harry Potter and the Order Of The Phoenix book along with my pencil case and closed my locker door. Walking towards the classroom I got a drink from the water fountain, realizing I left my bottle in my locker. I sighed as the cold slipped all the way down to my empty stomach, grinning a bit but trying to hide it so I didn't look like a total idiot.
I took my seat in the back of class, taking out the assignment we were supposed to do. I had, in fact, completed it before I went to bed the night before. There was just one problem that I didn't understand but I was to shy to raise my hand when he asked if there were any questions at the beginning of class.
I waited while others raised their hand to see if someone else would ask, no one did. I raised my hand, feeling weird even though it was just a simple question.
"Yes, Mr. Howell?" The teacher asked, gesturing towards me. I looked down at my paper, not wanting to see the class looking at me.
"Uh, could you go over number thirteen?" I asked and was relieved I didn't stutter very badly.
Oh yes, the answer to number thirteen is a covalent bond because the two atoms are sharing a pair of electrons. He replied, looking at number thirteen to read the question first.
"Okay, thank you." I said, looking down at my paper and writing a note down in red pen so that he would know it wasn't there until I graded it. I continued to wonder how people could cheat on tests, I was much to anxious. I had never cheated on a test of any kind, not even the spelling tests from first grade.
"Uh, excuse me?" I heard, assuming it was another student asking a question so I ignored it. "Dan?" I looked up from my paper, looking for the source of the voice. It was Mr. Joan.
"Uh, yes?" I asked, wondering what he wanted since I had just simply asked a question. Was I not supposed to write a note down? I thought.
"I, uh, didn't say the answer to number thirteen. Why did you say thank you?" He asked, not necessarily rudely but definitely confused.
"What do you mean?" I asked, becoming confused just as he was. And then it clicked. He hadn't said it, he thought it! Oh god, everyone is staring... I felt my face go red.
"He probably read your mind, Mr. Joan!" I heard a guy say from the front right corner of the classroom. I looked over, seeing that Chris guy that had glared at me.
"Yeah, freak!" I felt the red of my face burn into an even deeper shade in my embarrassment. Mr. Joan looked like he didn't know whether or not to apologize to me.
"Boys, nock it off. This isn't first grade, grow up!" Mr. Joan fired back at them. The boys continued to chuckle.
"Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Joan. Really sorry..." I said quickly, desperately trying to make my voice loud enough so that he would even be able to hear it.
"Now, now, Dan. Don't worry about it, that's fine—boys!" He reassured me and then scolded Chris and his friend again, they were still laughing.
I began to wish I had never asked the question in the first place, sighing because I knew this wasn't the only time this would happen.

. . .

The rest of the day went by as it normally does. I went up to my locker to grab my folders and notebooks from my locker. I had sixth hour Study Hall, seventh hour Spanish, and then eighth hour English, my favourite class. I used to have it fourth hour with an eighth hour study hall but she wanted me to move into the advanced class so I now have it eighth hour with fourth hour study hall.
In English she said we would be starting our first unit of learning about presentation acceptations. We wouldn't actually be doing any yet, just taking notes about what to wear, proper etiquette, note cards, etc.
English flew by as it always had in all my other schools because I always got so interested in it. It feels more like an after school club more than a class. It would be nice if I knew anyone though, nice to have someone to talk to.
I went up the steps from the second floor to the third after hearing the bell ring, signaling the end of the day, so I could go to my locker. I put in my combination,
36-44-09, and opened it, putting all my folders, notebooks, and books into my backpack. I put my pencil case into the front section and pulled my backpack out. Taking my phone off the top shelf of my locker, I closed the door and began to unravel the nearly wrapped earbuds. I turned my phone on, went to my Twentyøne Piløts playlist, and put on Guns For Hands, one of my favourite songs by them.
I walked down the steps and when I reached the first floor I walked over to the vending machine and bought a Mt. Dew. I did this because I didn't eat much for lunch so I figured a few calories would be okay.
Pushing open the front doors of the school and avoiding the eyes of others, I started walking home for the day.

A/N: Hi again. Happy holidays to anyone who does celebrate them, and if you don't I hope you had a good week so far! Happy holidays to those who can't afford gifts, couldn't visit family, or didn't have an ideal holiday time. I'm reminding you that you are loved, don't forget that!
    If it ever says there was a chapter published or something, just know that sometimes I go back and re-read the book, sometimes finding grammatical errors, misspellings, or just things that should be changed so I change it and re-publish it. I'm not sure if it sends out notifications for that, but if it does there's the reason why.
Thanks for reading, I'm very happy that I'm almost at 230 reads. I hope you like it, I'll try to start chapter thirteen tonight. You've made it another day, congratulations. Stay alive, lovelies|-/❤️

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