Up All Night // phan

Three

(This is kind if a back story about Dan.)

  Dan wasn't gay. Maybe a bit bisexual, but not gay. That had never stopped people from assuming though. He had discovered his sexuality at age twelve, when he found that boys were just as interesting as girls.

  He had a few close friends, and when he turned thirteen, he had a sleepover. The guys all dared each other to stay up all night, and whoever lasted the longest would win. There wasn't a prize or anything, they would just 'win'. Dan won, of course, but after that, he stopped sleeping at night. He just couldn't do it.

  In middle school, no one was big on teasing other people about anything, but in highschool that all changed.

  The bags under his eyes gave people a reason to tease him, and they'd all laugh when Dan dozed off in class and got told off by the teacher. Dan didn't give a care about this, caught up in his own head.

  One of the guys at school had gotten him to tell about his bisexual status, and the bullying started. Not intense, just name calling and shoves here and there. Nothing Dan couldn't handle.

  This taunting mixed with his lack of sleep really wore on Dan's stress level, and his grades weren't the greatest.

  With his dad being a well respected doctor and his mom being a high class lawyer, you'd think they would hate Dan being bisexual, but they supported him completely, which he was extremely grateful for.

  In senior year, Dan's sleep schedule was all messed up. He missed quite a few days of school because he didn't feel like getting up, and the rest of the time he was very late. He didn't really mind though. The bullying had really died down and Dan went almost the whole year without any taunts. But about a week before school ended, that all went to hell.

  At the end if the day, about four or five guys cornered him and dragged him into an alley.

  "Well, looks like we caught us a little zombie faggot." One of them said, and the rest all laughed like the followers they were. It really wasn't a good idea, but Dan decided to be a smartass.

  "I'm not gay." He told them, but they didn't listen.

  The biggest one grabbed his collar and pushed him against the wall. "Shut up, fag." he spit into his face as Dan flinched, a bit scared now. They weren't gonna beat him up, they wouldn't want to mess up their clothes or anything.

  Instead, they all produced markers from their pockets and proceeded to write things like "faggot" and "loser" on his face. He walked the rest of the way home with his head low and quickly washed it off befits his parents came home.

  He didn't finish the last week of school, but he did go to graduation. It wasn't all that huge of an event.

  At eighteen years old, Dan began to have a fear of darkness. He never really knew what had caused it, maybe life just liked to fuck with him, but it never really went away. Just, one night, he was on his computer late at night, but he couldn't concentrate cause the dark was distracting him. He flipped on the light, and went back to the internet. After that, he continued to stay up with the lights on.

  After a while, the fear had died down to just being uncomfortable in the dark. He could stand it, but only to a certain extent.

  Now, at twenty years old, Dan didn't have a single friend. Maybe Phil, but most likely not. It didn't bother him. He was a pretty laid back person and preferred to be on his own anyway, but sometimes it got kinda lonely. Especially at night.