Dan Western Stole My Girlfriend

Once Hansel left my house after a few more hours of hanging out, all my anxiety for going to school the next day came flooding back. It was not only caused by fear of the unknown regarding Dan and whether he had blabbed my secret to the whole school, but also because it had only just occurred to me that my half-yearly exams were only two and a half weeks away and I had done absolutely nothing to prepare for them. Year 11 exams are important. They basically set you up for how well you do in your final year 12 exams and I should have started studying for the half-yearlies ages ago.

As I was getting ready to go to bed, I tried to convince myself that I would get stuck right into studying the next afternoon when I got home from school and that there was no need to panic, but that didn’t stop my brain from running wild all night thinking of what I would do with my life after school if I did fail everything, nothing of which was very pleasant or even realistic. I knew deep down that I wouldn’t fail everything and end up living on the streets, but do you think my brain would let me put my fears to rest and let me sleep? Not a chance.

I “woke up” the next morning with a throbbing headache and feeling like I’d been hit by a bus. I would have loved to have just stayed home from school but I knew my parents wouldn’t let me on the first day back, so I dragged myself out of bed and went about my usual morning routine. Willow and Jamie weren’t up as Willow’s school was lucky enough to have an extra week of holidays and Jamie didn’t have uni on Wednesdays, so I ate a quick breakfast with my parents consisting of cereal and a large cup of coffee. My parents briefly tried to make conversation with me during breakfast but I wasn’t in the mood to talk so they left me alone after a while. I took some painkillers along with my regular medication in hopes that my headache would go away quickly, finished getting ready and then left for school. I sat by myself on the bus (Hansel doesn’t catch the morning bus; his dad drops him off on his way to work in the mornings) and stared out the window, ignoring the constant chatter of my peers and trying to keep my negative thoughts in the back of my mind.

I met up with my friends at our usual spot and leaned against someone’s locker, letting out a long sigh. Hansel and Ash were discussing something (I’m not sure what) but Taylor looked over at me with a questioning look on her face.

I looked back at her. “I’m okay,” I told her. “I just didn’t sleep last night.”

“How come?”

“Just thinking too much,” I said simply. She nodded and patted my shoulder lightly with her hand, clearly realising that I wasn’t going to go into details.

I spent the next couple of minutes until the bell rang pretending to listen to Hansel and Ash’s conversation and trying not to yawn or fall asleep. It was just my luck that my day started off with a double period of maths, one of my worst subjects. Our teacher, Mrs Chapman, started the lesson off with a lecture about how we should have begun our studying for the half yearlies during the holidays, if not before, and I think that freaked out a lot of people, not just me. It seemed that a lot of people in my year underestimated when the exam season was due to start. 19 days was not a long time to re-learn everything we needed to, and I think Mrs Chapman noticed our collective panic because she assured us that in the next few lessons, we would be revising the more difficult topics to make sure we were all up to scratch. We started the revision straight away and the lesson went by surprisingly quickly.

After a short 20-minute break (which I spent most of looking around me to check if anybody was looking at or whispering about me – I hadn’t seen Dan at all in the morning since he was in a different maths class and it made me nervous to think what he could have said in that amount of time, but thankfully everyone seemed to be acting normal towards me), I went to my Modern History class, where Mr Quillis also informed us how little time we had left to study. He gave us a brief outline of what would be in the exam and then continued on with what we were learning at the end of last term, the French Revolution. I usually find Modern History very interesting, but I struggled to concentrate, and I think I only heard half of what Mr Quillis was saying, which would put me in great stead for my exam. Note the sarcasm.

Lunch was pretty uneventful. Everyone was catching up with their friends and talking about what (or who) they did during the holidays and my friends were no exception. I’d seen Hansel, Taylor and Ash a couple of times but we didn’t spend every waking minute talking to each other, so everyone had stories to share.

My headache had come back during History with a vengeance, but I tried to ignore it as I listened to my friends talk. Ash had spent most of his holiday out in the surf with this girl he’d met on the beach. The way that he talked about this girl, Maddy, made it seem like he was really into her, but the sideways glances he kept throwing in Taylor’s direction as he spoke told me that he only saw this surfer girl as a fling. There was a flash of hurt in Taylor’s eyes when Ash mentioned that he and Maddy hooked up, but Tay needn’t have worried because Maddy lived 6 hours away and was only down here for the holidays and they probably wouldn’t ever see each other again.

Taylor and Hansel’s holidays were far less exciting than Ash’s, so my mind and eyes began to wander when Hansel started talking about this Pixar movie he saw with his younger sisters. I found myself searching for Dan and Holly and saw them sitting with the rest of Dan’s friends not too far away from where we were. Holly seemed to be attempting (and failing) to get Dan’s attention, who appeared to be staring off into space and frowning slightly. I briefly wondered what that was about, but I didn’t have much time to contemplate it because the bell rang, telling us that it was time to head to English. Holly finally managed to get Dan’s attention as the rest of their group collected their rubbish and she didn’t look too pleased that he had been ignoring her. He said something to her and kissed her on the cheek but I could swear I saw him roll his eyes once she turned away and caught up with her friend Amanda, who had already started walking back to the lockers.

“Come on, mate,” Ash said, clicking his fingers in front of my face. I came back to reality and noticed that Hansel and Taylor had already headed off to their English class, while Ash waited for me to wake up so we could go to our own.

“Sorry,” I muttered, and followed him to the lockers, where we collected our stuff, headed off to the Advanced English classroom and waited outside for our teacher, Miss Baxter, to arrive. I caught Dan’s eye for a brief moment as we stood around, and he gave me a little smile before turning to talk to his friend Robbie. It wasn’t a smug, “I’m gonna tell everyone you’re bi so watch out” smile either. It was a friendly smile, and it took me by surprise. I guess he did mean what he said about not outing me after all. I found myself surprisingly comforted by that.

When Miss Baxter finally arrived, she was not alone. Next to her was a boy who I didn’t recognise. He was slight, bordering on skinny, and an inch or two shorter than me, with wavy brown hair and very pink, glossy lips. I wasn’t the only one who noticed the fact that he was wearing lip gloss, either. Some of the other guys in my class, the ones I mentioned would beat the crap out of me if they found out I was into guys, noticed as well, and they weren’t subtle.

“What a fucking fairy,” I heard Greg Horden mutter to Ivan Burns from behind me. Ivan grunted and quite loudly coughed out “fag”, making sure that the new boy would be able to hear. A couple of the others in my class laughed at their antics, but the new boy made no indication that he heard any of it. Miss Baxter ignored their behaviour as well, and instead focused on opening the door so that we could enter the classroom.

Ash and I headed to our usual seats in the second row from the back. It didn’t take me long after everyone but the new boy took their seats to realise that there was only one space available for him, and that was next to me on my right. I just hoped that this new boy would keep his head down and not talk to me too much because I wasn’t in the mood to be nice. I was on the verge of dropping off to sleep right at my desk and my head was pounding. I idly wished I had thought to bring some pain killers to school with me while Miss Baxter said something to the class about the new kid and then she let him take his seat.

The new boy sat down next to me and immediately began talking. I groaned.

"Hi, I'm Kris. With a 'K'," he said brightly, showing me a blindingly white smile.

"Congratulations," I grumbled quietly.

"And an 'F' if you wanna call me Kristofer, but don’t call me that cause my mum only calls me that when I'm in trouble," he continued on as if I was listening. "You're Avery, right? You're cute. My ex-boyfriend cheated on me with a cute guy who looked a bit like you. God, he was an asshole. My ex, I mean, not the cute guy. Well, I mean, I didn’t really know him – I saw him around sometimes – but he might have been an asshole too, who knows?"

"Oh my God, shut up," I mumbled, cradling my head in my hands.

"Hey, are you okay? You don’t look so good," Kris said. He moved my hands away from my face and stared at me awkwardly. "Did you sleep last night? You look exhausted." I just rolled my eyes and looked up at Miss Baxter, who was writing some fascinating information up on the board. "Are you seriously not going to talk to me at all? We have to sit next to each other, so we should be friends. Say something."

"Do you have a pair of scissors?" I finally asked. Kris immediately dove for his pencil case and dug around in there for a few seconds before giving me a sad look.

"No, I guess I forgot to put them in. Why did you want them?"

"So I could stab them through my ear and into my brain, so I wouldn’t have to listen to your constant chatter anymore," I replied harshly. I was so not in the mood for pleasantries. I picked up my pen and opened my notebook to start taking notes and hoped that by doing that, Kris would get the point to shut the fuck up. The guy was cute, I’d give him that, but he was also really annoying me.

"I like you, you're funny," Kris commented before he finally opened his own notebook and we settled into a (very welcome) silence as we took notes from the board.

Kris didn’t speak for the rest of the lesson, except to say a friendly goodbye to me when it finished. I felt a little bad for snapping at him earlier, so I returned his smile half-heartedly and told him I’d see him around, even though I didn’t know when that would be. That seemed to be the highlight of his day because he threw his arms around my waist in a brief hug before pulling away and skipping off. Yes, skipping. What I would’ve given to have been that at ease with who I was. I wasn’t the only one who noticed Kris’ flamboyant behaviour. The idiots (Greg and Ivan) threw out a couple of homophobic slurs and a couple of girls started whispering and giggling as they all went their separate ways to leave the school. Ash and I said our goodbyes as well and headed back to our respective lockers, his in one direction, mine in the other.

I fell asleep on the bus ride home and only managed to get off at my stop because Hansel nudged me awake in time. He gave me a sympathetic look as I stumbled out of my seat and told him I’d see him later. I practically sleep-walked down the street to my house and when I got inside, went immediately up to my room and collapsed face first on my bed. I slept until Willow came into me room to rouse me to get up for dinner (I ate about six bites of my pasta before I was full) and then went straight back to my room to study. I fell asleep on my desk after what could only have been half an hour at the very most. I actually slept soundly until morning for the first time in a very long time.