arms // {phan}

chapter one - dan

Chapter One- Dan:

You really haven't experienced proper fear until your math teacher is holding your life in their sweaty, wrinkly, old hands.. My life- or as so called- took the form of a heavily worn sketchbook- the one I had been drawing in only moments ago, when I was supposed to factoring the missing side of an isosceles triangle. Then, before I knew it, my book was being snatched out from under my hands by Ms. Lewis' pudgy fingers.

A string of select swear words raced by my mind as I considered all the possibilities of how this could go horribly wrong. Always the optimist, I know.

She could flip through it, which would probably be the worst scenario. I loved life drawing, which meant I frequently drew people from school either during class or when I was all alone at lunch, often while they weren't looking. I also would take some, um, artistic licensing, to put it delicately. Let's just say, I don't think Ms. Lewis would be too happy to find some of her students in a few of the compromising positions I'd drawn them in. Not to mention, if anyone, especially a teacher, saw my drawings I would be completely mortified. They were almost like my diary except- you know- more manly.

Luckily, Ms. Lewis just tutted me and gave me what I assumed was suppose to be a withering look- though it really only looked like she'd smelled something particularly unpleasant- before carting my life away with her, and nestling it atop her chaotic desk.

I sighed, folded my arms on my table, and rested my head on top of them, as Ms. Sketchbook Stealer continued on with the lesson.

"To find the side of 'x' on this triangle you have to use the Pythagorean Theorem. If side 'a' is twenty-four, and side 'b' is seven, you would make an equation that read: 24² + 7² = c². Then you would solve for 'c' by adding the sum of 'a' and the sum of 'b' together therefore answering the sum of-"

My eyes had begun to glaze over when the phone interrupted her almost painfully boring speech.

"Hello?" Ms. Lewis said gruffly into the receiver. A chorus of "uh huh"'s followed, before she hung up, mumbled an nearly unintelligible "be right back", and left the room.

There was a quiet murmuring that spread across the classroom like a contagious fog, everyone using this time to pull out their phones in the absence of our teacher. I debated on whether I wanted to risk the chance of me getting caught by stealing back my sketchbook, but before I could decide-

"Hey mate! How's it going?"

I felt someone pat shoulder, but not in a friendly sort of way. This was more of a "you're- beneath-me-because-I'm-a-fucking-neanderthal-and-have-the-brain-capacity-of-a-teaspoon-and-am-the-size-of-a-freaking-truck-so-you'd-better-do-what-I-say" kind of pat. I winced at the aggressive touch and looked up at the leering face of Logan Marters.

Now to be quite honest there were only three things in this whole wide world that truly scared me- Logan Marters and his equally thick headed friend, Eli Stan- were two of them. I'd heard stories of them beating up freshmen in the third floor boys bathroom because the younger boys had looked at them funny. So far I'd managed to stay out of their way, but in the past week they'd started to take a certain interest in me- just my luck. Whether it was my shy demeanor, or my weird fascination with sketching every person I saw, or that I never spoke, not one word, I couldn't decide.

"How's it going poof?" Eli said, stepping up to the other side of me. I looked from one to the other, looked down at my desk, and swallowed hard. Shit.

"We couldn't help but notice that book you were carrying around, twinky," Logan said, his warm breath ghosting over the back of my neck making me shiver in fear and disgust. Fuck, I was so screwed, I thought.