Confronting Phan

Chapter 3:

CHAPTER 3: Confronting Phan

Dan didn't know what to think or what to feel. Was this his life now? Trying to please an audience that one day he'll never see again?

Yep.

That was exactly his life.

Did he like it?

A little.

You see, when people like you and think you're normal, you're happy. Dan had never had it any other way.

But something deep down didn't feel right about this.

A wave of nausea and anxiety flooded his stomach, bile rising in his throat. Emptying his stomach contents into the school toilet; his head vertiginous.

Scouting his surroundings, the tall, slender teen's foot lay inactive on the tiles of the hallways, before stepping out, his chest now visible to the walls. Swerving on great impulse, his steps grew louder as he skipped his way to his next class; shaking with emphases.

Mute. That's all he could describe it as. Mute humiliation.
Knees buckled underneath him, and uneasiness washed the ivory expanse of his face of all emotion. Pure ignorance and grim smirks were written clearly across the other student's expressions.

He paled further, sliding himself into his desk, head down. Nails dug themselves into the flesh of his fingers, scraping the thin layers of skin entirely off.
Ebony locks shaded his dull cerulean gaze from the teacher, only to express his saturated distractions.

Sinister flashes of memories dipped their way into his remembrance, only causing the young boy to jerk his head up; bright blue optics blown wide and locked on the chalkboard.

Fuck. Not again.

He would merely have to wait another seventeen minutes before the bell rang.
Breathe.

Breath in,
Breath out,
Breathe in,
Breathe out,

Repeat.

"Babe stop." Dan whined as his phone vibrated again beneath his pocket.

His girlfriend kept texting him in the middle of class as he tried to follow the notes.
She resigned from the habit and instead just put her hand on his thigh.

Quietly he huffed but decided that if this kept her quiet than so be it.

Up at the front a new assignment was written: JOURNALING.

They were all instructed to keep journals.
A minimum of one hundred entries.

The idea appealed to Dan. It seemed like a cool idea.

The woman up front passed around leather cover, coiled notebooks.

Beneath the wording on the board she wrote: DAY ONE- SAY HELLO.

"Introduce yourself today. Say hello. For the next ten minutes, do not let that pen leave the page."

Dan's pen met the paper.

The compressed grip the ravenette had on his pencil, was with malicious intent. He so badly wanted to tear the minuscule shard of graphite straight through the glossy paper lines.
Resistance.

Breath in,
Breath out,

His writing was neat and rapid.
Penmanship was one the things he was good at. One of the only things.

Yeah, sure, his academics were phenomenal; but he had mastered his hand-writing due to vestal boredom.

Just like one would prefer to perfect their speech, Phil enjoyed the task of perfecting his penmanship.

Attractive curves and edges of letters; dancing their dance across the page.
A crooked smile settled on the boy's lips, tongue poking from his teeth.