amity // phan

one.

-dan-

There was something uniquely insulting about being told that I needed to be 'more social' by my fifty-year-old guidance counselor.

Maybe if someone else had told me- someone, who was actually cool or got invited to parties- then I'd believe it. But Mr. Northey? In my two years of attending Somerset high, I'd never even seen him smile, let alone talk to anyone just for the sake of being 'more social'.

"Listen, Dan," he said, drumming his fingers on his desk. "I know that you're a great kid- and God knows that you're smart- but I'm worried about you."

I looked away, and wrapped my arms more tightly around my torso. I swallowed a few hundred times, and grabbed the hem of my sweater in an attempt to steady my fingers. My very skin felt fragile just then, like soft lace. No- it was softer than that. It was so soft that I could feel his words blowing through me, clattering up against my insides.

"You haven't been connecting yet. And I know that you like learning-" he ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair, "-but if your nose is always in a book, I'm worried that you won't develop the necessary social skills for the future."

My cheeks flushed, and I looked down at my shoes again.

"Really, just one friend, Dan. How hard could that be?" He put a hand on my shoulder. "Try it for me, okay? Talk to someone. Anyone. And just see how it goes."

I left his office after that. He tried to pat my shoulder again, but I shrugged it away. The whole room was tight and uncomfortable with an anxious energy, and I didn't look back after I was out in the hall.

The bell had rung a minute or two earlier, so people were already fluttering towards their next classes, swarming the hall. I clung to the lockers on my trip to science, staring at my shoes.

And then I had the nerve to look up from the ground. And then my eyes snagged on four extremely tall twelfth graders walking down the hall together. Towards me. Laughing and talking. In the middle of the little group was Damien Sedcole.

He hadn't seen me yet. He looked almost nice when he was talking to his friends, with his attractive face and jaw length blonde hair. But that was before his startlingly green eyes met mine. He punched the guy to his right on the shoulder, and pointed over to me. I was too far away to hear him, but I didn't need to hear his words to know that a bad day had just become an awful one.

"Dan."

My heart sank lower in my chest. All my bones turned to glass, then promptly shattered. My skin ripped open, exposing all the vulnerable things inside.

"Damien," I breathed. I gripped the hem of my sweater again, my knuckles turning white.

He was perhaps my least favorite person in the world. He was the type of guy who stomped on everything, myself included. The kids who were a little odd, or a little shy. Those who didn't turn themselves into ice or glass or marble to stay protected- those who left their soft sides remain out in the open instead of burying them under layer after layer of harsh edges of protections. The flowers of high school.

I thought of Damien, and of people like him, as flower-killers.

His eyes locked onto mine, and I scrambled back a little farther, nearly tripping over my feet again. But he was quickly approaching, and my legs had stopped working. One of his hands latched onto the front of my hoodie before I could get away. He tugged me forward so that we were only inches apart.

"Where are you running off to, pansy?" he growled.

I couldn't help but notice that I was very close to him. Close enough to count all his freckles or all his eyelashes. He kept walking forwards, and I kept walking back. His eyes were venomously green, and they kept drawing nearer and nearer to my face.