"Dan! Wait a second" Phil quickly stood up, grabbing his bag and tried not to fall over, which he did a lot, considering his clumsiness.
The last two hours were almost unbearable for the black haired boy.
Pj was focused on what the teacher had to say and the tasks they were supposed to do, while Phil just kept turning around to look at Dan, who didn't look up once. Phils mind was filled with questions and he found himself in a spiral of assumptions.
Dan had already left the classroom, but
it was quite easy for Phil to keep up with him, considering that the slightly taller boy was limping.
Dan realized that as well, sighed and stopped, waiting for Phil to stand in front of him, because he couldn't turn around that easily.
"Why didn't you want to sit with me?"
The black haired one frowned, looking for the actual reason and not the ones he made up in his head, even though they seemed pretty accurate.
One was that Dan tried to avoid Phil, because he was annoying. It did make sense, because Phil did talk a lot. He asked too many questions and was clingy in general.
Another assumption he had thought about was that Dan just didn't like Phil at all and he was afraid that he could be right with that.
"I forgot and just sat down somewhere."
Dan tried not to look away, like he always did when he was lying. He could've said that it was Pj he didn't want to sit next to, but he didn't dare to bring up that subject.
Phil on the other hand was first relieved, because his hypothesis turned out to be wrong, but then he doubted Dans words.
Like he always did.
"Is that it?" he asked, analyzing the brown haired ones face. Looking for any proof that he was lying, but Phil didn't know Dan that well. He didn't know his habits, his gestures due to nervousness. How could he? He had just met him and that fact made him feel lost.
He knew that feeling too well.
It felt like losing your parents in a crowded place.
Like failing an exam you thought you succeeded in.
Like watching someone you love, leave.
But he wasn't stressed out, he wasn't disappointed in himself or heartbroken. He hadn't felt like he should've, he had felt nothing at all and lost described that feeling better than anything.
He had felt nothing when his mum forgot him in the mall once, he had felt nothing when he failed an important exam and he had felt nothing when his dad died.
"You didn't want to sit next to me because I'm annoying, right?" he asked when Dan didn't answer. He could see the the other ones expression change into surprise.
"No, it's just -" Dan brought up his hand to run his fingers through his hair, he forgot that it was useless, that he couldn't really move a bone in it, except if he was trying hard. But he wasn't, so his hand just hung down limp when all he wanted was to move his fingers.
For a second Dan felt just angry about the fact that he was handicapped, a gimp, a useless retard.
But then he realized that Phil was standing right in front of him, watching the scenario, noticing Dans unusable hand, seeing him clenching his teeth.
So he froze.
"What is wrong with your hand?" Phil asked, not trying to be offensive.
"Nothing" Dan gritted and stuffed that useless part of his body into the pocket of his hoodie.
"Can't you move it?"
Phils eyes were filled with sympathy, but he didn't know what Dan had to go through, nobody did.
None of all those staring people with their pitiful smiles. None of the nurses, doctors or his family members.
Only Dan knew what he had gone through, but not even all of it, because he couldn't remember everything.
"I can, ok? And if you want to know why I didn't sit next to you, ask Pj and Chris!"
Phil could've followed the limping boy easily, but Dans voice was filled with anger and hurt, a combination that Phil knew, his mother had used it a lot.
So he turned around and walked into the opposite direction, ignoring the eyes on him and the whispers swirling around in the air.
He knew they weren't staring at him because he was the boy who's father died, who didn't know that his father had cancer - they stared at him because Daniel Howell had yelled at him and Phil didn't know why that was such a big deal, but he was about to find out.
"Phil, what's up?" Chris asked, covering his sore lip with one hand.
They were sitting on the yellow bench, drinking some kind of energy drink and listening to other peoples rants, like they always did, since the day Phil had transferred to this school.
But have they always sat on that bench during breaks?
Have they always played video games on thursdays?
Phil didn't know anything about the time before he came. He didn't know how Pj and Chris lives were pre his arrival.
He realized that it wasn't just the lies about Dan that they had kept from him, it was their story.
Were they friends or strangers?
Phil could've asked why Dan didn't want to sit next to Pj, what the whole deal between those three was, but there were no thoughts left in his mind and he suddenly felt like on his first day of school.
Lost.
