Paper Hearts (Phan)

The day of

I'd called into the attendance office sick, even though I wasn't sick but I was surely and most definitely dying.

The heart wrenching, stomach churning, and nausea inducing feeling in my chest had gotten worse as soon as the day started. I didn't even want to get out of bed until the feeling passed.

This was stupid. I never got sick. I wasn't even sick.

A while ago, Cat told me alcohol never failed to upset Dan's stomach on a rainy day. Maybe I had something similar with Chris' chocolate chip cookies. But that would mean I'm sick, and I refuse to admit it.

I bet Chris accidentally poisoned them. I know for a fact that he owns rat poison, because his couch became the birthplace to a couple dozen a few weeks ago. And I bet he has that cockroach stuff since he's so paranoid they'll show up in his bathtub again.

Also he's a terrible cook, so that's probably what happened.

So I didn't admit to myself that I might be a little sick, and finally rolled out of the cave of blankets (and on to the mattress where the blankets had been pulled off from) at around 5pm, when PJ finally returned from going out for a light French fry snack with everyone. He knocked on my bedroom door and gently pushed it open with his shoulder before I even got the chance to tell him to go away, carrying a stolen food tray still loaded with burnt fries.

"We're going to Dan's tonight, if you think you're up for it." He told me in a low whisper that still made my head throb, and plopped down at the foot of my bed "also whenever I was sick my mum would always go get me a bunch of overly greasy fries. They help. I think" PJ assured me, and I felt the tray settle down next to me and the weight near my feet lift.

And I didn't want to disappoint anybody (because I'd done that yesterday when I rejected the offer to go to some new hotdog shop that had just opened up down the street), so I assured him I wouldn't miss it for the world, and PJ left with a half-hearted smile on his face.

Well damn, now I had to actually hold up my end of the bargain I never planned on holding up.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, a storm having just passed over Seacoast a couple hours previously, and I heard PJ shriek out in the living room. Chris howled with laughter soon afterwards and Cat's complaining drowned out the sound.

This was more than I bargained for.

__________

As soon as I actually made the astounding decision to get out of bed, my chest stopped aching and my head stopped pounding like a drum, thankfully. I still kinda felt like death, but in complete honesty, when did I not?

I also made the stupidly brilliant choice to go down to Dan's place and join in on whatever mayhem had ensued without me. I'd probably have to fix most if not all of it; maybe try to keep Joe oblivious or something like that.

The hallway was dead silent again, like the start to the zombie apocalypse.

But it was the complete opposite of what I'd suspected in the front room. When I had finished the short walk down there, they were all sprawled out across the front (and only) room carpet, Cat and Chris leaning their backs against each other and PJ relaxing against the legs of a kitchen chair while Dan actually sat up normally like he hadn't had anything to drink yet.

Although, the seemingly endless amount of bottles surrounding him said otherwise. He'd created an intricately built wall around him, and had started stacking a couple of them closer to him to construct a little crooked castle. Dan smiled contently before carelessly toppling them over with the push of a finger.