Dan Western Stole My Girlfriend

Hansel and Taylor were pretty impressed when I told them about my fight with Dan when I saw them at lunch. I didn’t need to tell Ash, who, along with Dan’s friend Robbie, was the one that broke up the fight, but even he was impressed at how hard I actually hit Dan. Dan and his friends (including Holly) walked past our little group during lunch and I noticed a bruise already coming up on his eye and it served him right. I’d hoped it would take him down a notch, not looking like Prince fucking Charming for a while, but unfortunately it didn’t seem to have much of an effect on him whatsoever. When he noticed me, he pulled that ridiculous smirk onto his face and made a point of wrapping an arm around Holly’s waist and pulling her into him as they walked, making her giggle loudly. I clenched my fists, like I had been doing a lot in recent times, and took a deep breath, trying to calm my anger. Ash and Hansel were talking about something, I didn’t know what, but Taylor must have noticed my behaviour because she placed a gentle hand on my forearm.

“Leave it, Red. He isn’t worth it,” she said to me. “Don’t get in more trouble.”

I’d told all my friends about the detentions I’d earned as well, complaining about how three weeks spending extra time with Dan was going to be torture.

I slowly unclenched my fists and let out the breath I was holding. “Yeah. I know,” I mumbled back to Taylor. Dan and his friends were long gone by then so I wouldn’t have done anything anyway, but it was good to know she was looking out for me. I decided to tune into the conversation of my other friends.

“She’s so hot, man,” Hansel was saying. I didn’t have to ask who he was talking about. Everybody on the planet knows that Hansel was into Dan’s friend Bella, including Bella. Every time she’s even so much as in the same room as him, Hansel loses about half of his IQ points. I can see why he likes her. She’s attractive, and with bright dyed red hair and a lip piercing, she’s exactly Hansel’s type. She’s also pretty cool, as far as most of the girls in our grade go, and reasonably nice despite the major flaw of her being Dan’s friend. She was part of the group of his friends that walked by just before, which is why Hansel started up lusting over her again.

“Why don’t you just ask her out so she can reject you and you can move on?” Ash asked jokingly. Hansel punched him lightly on the shoulder in reply, shaking his head as he did so. I had a feeling that he’d never be able to pluck up the courage to even have a proper conversation with Bella, let alone ask her out on a date, but Ash was more optimistic. “Seriously man, just talk to her. I worked with her on a History assignment last year. She’s nice.”

“I dunno. She’ll probably think I’m weird,” Hansel said. He fiddled with his long, dyed black and straightened hair, shifting it so that his fringe covered one of his eyes completely. He's your typical emo kid, and even though that trend started to die out years ago, he fully embraces it.

“Mate, you are weird, but that isn’t a bad thing,” I chimed in. “She might like weird.”

“You should go for it,” Taylor encouraged. “What can you lose?”

“I don’t know. Maybe one day,” Hansel sighed. We all sat silently for a few moments before the bell rang signalling the end of lunch.

“What’ve we got now?” Hansel asked us as we got up to head back to the school buildings.

“You’ve got Food Tech, Han, I’ve got French and Avery and Ash have Health. Then Maths last,” Tay replied. You can always count on Taylor to know who has what class. I groaned at her reply though, because guess who else is in my Health and Physical Education class? My favourite person, obviously. Yay.

Fortunately, Health class went by without any incidents. Dan wasn’t able to show off his prize because she was in French with Taylor so instead he pretty much pretended I didn’t exist. I was completely fine with that. I didn’t want any more drama. I was nervous enough knowing I had to tell my parents I had three weeks’ worth of detentions for hitting the son of my mother’s best friend.

As soon as the final bell rang for the day after my Maths class (which Dan is not in, thank God), the classroom erupted in noise as people started packing up their stuff and chatting to each other. I packed up slower than normal, not excited at all that school was done for the day. I walked out of the classroom with Ash and Taylor, not failing to notice that Holly had left our classroom before us and was waiting outside the room the Advanced Maths class was in. I knew that Dan was in that class so seeing Holly doing for him what she always did for me at the end of the day made my heart ache and my stomach lurch uncomfortably. Noticing my hesitation after seeing Holly, Ash clapped a hand on my shoulder, jerking me out of my thoughts and urging me to continue walking. My friends and I continued to the bus waiting area, where we split up so that they could get on their bus, which goes in the opposite direction away from the school to mine. For some reason, my bus is always later than all the other ones. Usually I get really annoyed by it but I didn’t care that day. I really didn’t want to go home and explain why I had a busted lip and slowly bruising knuckles.

Hansel appeared at my side just as the bus pulled into the school. He poked me in the stomach, making me flinch away and send him a glare. He knows how much I hate my stomach being touched.

“What’s your problem?” he asked as we stepped forward towards the now stopped bus.

“Nothing,” I sighed, “Just not looking forward to telling my parents about the detentions.”

“I feel you. Will they be heaps pissed?”

“I dunno. Jamie was always the one getting in trouble at school for being a smartass, but I don’t think he ever got caught fighting. I don’t know how they’ll react.”

“It’ll be cool, man,” he said. He patted me once on the shoulder just before I stepped onto the bus and walked down the aisle to an empty chair. Hansel sat down beside me and pulled his headphones out of his backpack before he plugged them into his phone and shoved the buds in his ears. He scrolled through the music on his phone for a few seconds before something heavy on the bass and drums began playing loudly into his ears. He immediately started nodding his head in time to the music, getting lost in it and allowing me to get lost in my thoughts as I looked out the window.

The twenty minute bus ride was nothing special but it seemed to go much quicker than usual and got to my bus stop in seemingly no time at all. Just my luck that time seems to speed up when I’m dreading something. After shuffling past Hansel and bidding him goodbye, I made my way off the bus. The bus stop is conveniently at the end of my street so I didn’t have to walk for too long to get home. Despite this, a lot of the time I wish I was able to drive myself to and from school, but Jamie always takes our car to university. I mean, I don’t have my licence yet anyway, apart from my learner’s permit, but it would still be nice to be able to use the car once in a while. Our parents bought the 2006 Toyota Corolla for us kids after Jamie got his licence with the insistence that we share it once me and Willow get our licences, but until then, it’s pretty much just Jamie’s car.

I walked slowly down our street until I reached my house. I knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to put off telling Mum so after a couple of deep breaths, I walked up the driveway, unlocked the door and made my way inside.

“Avery, is that you?” Mum called from what I thought was the kitchen.

“Yeah,” I yelled back. “Are you in the kitchen?”

“Sure am,” she replied. I walked through to the kitchen to find Mum standing in front of the pantry, scanning the items inside.

“Um… hi,” I said nervously. She turned around to look at me with a smile on her face, which soon dropped off once she saw my face.

“Avery! What happened to you?” she exclaimed, rushing over to me and taking my face in between her hands.

“I got in a fight,” I mumbled, my words muffled slightly by her hands squishing my cheeks together.

“What?! Why? How? With who?” she questioned as she moved my head side to side so she could look at my face from all angles. I pulled myself out of her grip and took a step backwards.

“With Dan. I punched him first and he hit me back. He was talking shit about Holly and it was driving me crazy, so I hit him,” I told her quickly, and her concerned expression turned to one of slight anger and disappointment.

I’ll spare the details of the shouting match that followed, but let’s just say that Mum and Dad (when he was informed) were pretty pissed that I got in a fight with the wonderful and perfect Dan Western, but thankfully found the punishment I was given by the school adequate enough to not punish me further at home. Spending an extra 15 hours outside of class time with Dan Western was going to be torture enough as it was.