Status: Active

Dan Western Stole My Girlfriend

Chapter 3

The rest of the week passed much the same as the Monday after Holly broke up with me did. Every day Dan would parade his new relationship with Holly around in front of me and every day I would get madder and madder. I wished that he would just leave me to get over Holly in peace. There wasn’t much I could do about him being with her now; I just had to accept it and move on. It wasn’t going to be easy to do that regardless of whether or not I had Dan showing her off like she was a prize he beat me for. I truly loved Holly, and that wasn’t something I was going to be able to forget about in a hurry. I didn’t know why he had to make it so difficult for me. It wasn’t like I did anything to him to make him want to hurt me. I mean, I made sure he knew I didn’t like him, but what did that have to do with anything? He’s known that I’ve hated him ever since we were three and he “borrowed” my favourite Spiderman toy and broke it by running it over with his dump truck, so it shouldn’t have been any skin off his back; and besides, he had plenty of friends.

I talked to Holly for a few minutes on the Wednesday morning before our shared maths class started. Dan wasn’t in that class so he couldn’t interrupt. She tried to apologise for breaking my heart, but after seeing her hanging off Dan like she couldn’t stand up straight without his help, the apology felt forced and fake. I told her that it was fine, acting casual, but in actual fact, it was anything but okay. I’d barely slept, even less than usual. I hadn’t been eating much. My heart seemed to re-break every time I saw Dan kiss her and I wanted to break his face as payback.

I had a lot of violent urges towards Dan, actually, ones that eventually built up until I released them all the following Tuesday and beat the shit out of him after another lovely little exchange during our English lesson, in which he told me that he now knew how Holly looked naked. Okay so maybe I didn’t “beat the shit out of him” but I did give him a black eye, which is kind of the same thing for a generally non-violent person like me. Of course, Dan is the kind of guy who won't let someone hit him without hitting them twice in return, so I ended up sitting next to Dan in the school office with a busted lip ten minutes after our little scuffle. We'd been told to shut up by the office ladies when we had arrived still arguing, so we were waiting for the principal to call us into his office in angry silence. Well, I was angry. I think Dan was more amused than anything else. He kept glancing at me and smirking, which made me even more irate. I didn't know what I expected though. Dan's always been an asshole; that's not going to change just because I finally hit him after all these years of constant torment. It was just a shame I couldn’t get more punches in as payback for pretty much every Christmas dinner our families shared when we were younger, where I ended up with bruised shins from him kicking me under the table.

After a long wait, the office lady, Mrs Ferguson – wife of my physics teacher Mr Ferguson – received an internal phone call. The call lasted about ten seconds in total and then she stood up from her chair to look over the counter at Dan and me.

“Mr Hamilton will see you now, Mr Redmond and Mr Western,” she said simply. Dan and I stood up from the uncomfortable chairs we were sitting on and headed into the principal’s office, where he was standing behind his desk waiting for us to arrive. Without saying a word, Mr Hamilton gestured for me and Dan to take seats on the other side of his desk to where he was standing, which we did, also silently. Mr Hamilton sat down once we were. He propped his elbows on the desk, laced his fingers in front of himself and then just looked at us until it started to become uncomfortable. I shifted in my seat, and that seemed to begin the flow of talking.

“You were fighting,” Mr Hamilton said. It wasn't a question, but Dan and I nodded anyway. “Why?”

“I've got no idea, sir, Avery just attacked me,” Dan jumped in quickly. I scoffed and Hamilton looked at me.

“He was saying sexual shi – stuff about Holly Dobson, my ex-girlfriend, and I didn't like it,” I told him, luckily catching myself from swearing. ‘Swearing is not tolerated on school grounds’ is rule number 6 on the list of school rules.

“Is this true, Mr Western?”

“No… Well, yeah, but she's my girlfriend now so I should be able to say what I like about her, right?” Dan said, smirking at me. I clenched my fists and tightened my jaw. Fucking cocky prick.

“Your girlfriend or not, Daniel, it isn't in good taste to speak about anyone in that way. And Avery, punching someone isn't going to solve anything,” Hamilton said, as he looked back and forth between us.

“Sure made me feel better though,” I mumbled under my breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly, not wanting to get in more trouble by talking back to the principal. Mr Hamilton looked at me for a couple of long seconds before he spoke again.

“Whatever the circumstances, fighting won't be tolerated at this school. Since it’s the first offence for both of you, I'm not going to suspend you, but I am going to give you three weeks’ worth of after school detentions, which will bring us to the end of term; that way you both can start afresh after the holidays. If you are not able to attend any of the detentions due to prior commitments, you will make the missed detentions up at later dates. Understood?”

Dan and I both nodded.

Hamilton continued, “You'll be doing some odd jobs around the school during your detentions depending on the teacher on duty. Cleaning boards and things like that. I find that manual labour works better than just sitting in a classroom staring at nothing. I'll also be sending a letter home to your parents explaining all of this to them.” At Mr Hamilton’s last sentence, Dan let out a groan. I glanced at him curiously and noticed he was chewing his bottom lip. Was he nervous? “Is something the matter, Mr Western?”

“Do you have to send a letter home?” I looked at Dan properly this time. His mouth was twisted into a grimace and his eyebrows were furrowed in concern. When he noticed my gaze, his face went back to normal and he returned my look with a sneer. But for just a second, he became a scared little boy and not at all the confident guy I grew up with.

“I do,” Mr Hamilton replied. “Your parents will need to know why you're not going to be home at normal time. Is that a problem?”

Everyone was silent for a few moments. Mr Hamilton and I were watching Dan waiting for an answer. He had his head bowed and was frowning, cogs clearly working in his head, but I couldn't tell what he was thinking. When Mr Hamilton had clearly decided the silence had gone on long enough, he cleared his throat and, when Dan looked up, raised his eyebrows, asking for an answer.

“No,” Dan finally mumbled. I kept watching him, wondering why it would have taken so long to reply to such a simple question. He certainly wasn't happy about the letter going home. But why? What was the big deal?

“Good. I'll get those letters sent out today. You'll start your detentions next Monday afternoon. You're dismissed,” Mr Hamilton said, standing up and gesturing towards his office door. I tore my eyes away from Dan and we stood up and left, walking through the office waiting room and ending up in the hallway. There were no students around because it was still during class time. I pulled my phone from my pocket to check the time and noticed that there were about five minutes until lunch was due to start. There was no point going to class so I decided to head down the hall towards the bag rack where I was keeping my bag for the day. I had walked about ten steps when Dan called out to me.

“This is your fucking fault, you know?”

I stopped walking and stood still with my back to him. I wanted to retort back to him that if he wasn't such a dick, I wouldn't have hit him, but something made me bite my tongue. Maybe it was the worried look on Dan's face when Mr Hamilton mentioned sending letters home. Maybe it was the panicked tone of his voice when he asked if it was absolutely necessary. I didn't really know, but it was why I chose to continue walking away from him without replying.
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In reply to your questions about whether there will be any chapters in Dan's POV, I hadn't actually planned on that, but after thinking about it, there may be one or two in there, but probably not until a bit later on :)

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