Tired of Pretending
Disclaimer: The usual disclaimers do apply. I don't own any of the characters.
A/N: Some of them may seem OOC, but not exactly if you think about it. Warning: Dash/Sam.
Pre-Phantom Planet
Chapter 1
Sam's POV
I found it just laying there waiting for me to take it. I mean it's not like he didn't deserve it. It would be interesting to see if there's anything in there worth having. Blackmail might be fun. I decided to take a chance and opened up the journal. Dash Baxter's journal to be exact.
On the first few pages it was really shallow just like I thought it would be. They were all about how great he was and a list of names to call Danny. Geez, I wanted to put my combat boot up his rear. I got bored and started to flip through it a little faster. In the middle, all of the sudden there was really nice handwriting. I decided to read it. This is what it said:
The Real Dash Baxter
Why do people actually buy the act that I put on? I act like an idiot to get acceptance from the A-list. Little do they know that I'm actually an A student. If they found that out I'd probably be kicked out right away. Not that I'd mind actually. I really hate acting like I have to. Beating people up is not fun although Kwan would disagree. Every day after I come home my dad says 'so how many losers did you fit in the locker today son?' Once I came home and told him zero because I wasn't feeling well. Let's just say I learned my lesson. Since I'm a football player nobody questioned the bruises, but if I hadn't gotten them from football before why would I all of a sudden start to get them now? I guess I could lie and say that I did when I really didn't, except for the fact that he always checks with my friends.
Ah, my friends, what an interesting topic to talk about now. How shallow and superficial can you get? Yeah, they're my friends because I'm rich and a quarterback. Sure I'm with the hottest people around if you like the type, but there is so much more to life than that. I wish I didn't have to be afraid to stand up for myself, to be an individual. That brings me to Samantha (Sam to her face because otherwise you'll get the end of her combat boot) Manson. She's rich (I only know that because she lives down the street from me and saw her one day.) and she chooses to be who she is no matter what the cost. Her friends are true friends. Danny Fenton (yes I actually do know his name) and Tucker Foley don't see her as a girl so much though. Idiots. How can they not see how beautiful she is? How can they take her for granted?
Danny Fenton doesn't have any idea that Sam is crushing on him and he wonders why their nickname for him is clueless. I can always see the hurt in her expression when he starts drooling over some girl. Tucker can see it too. Of course Tucker goes after everything female that moves except for Sam. I understand not wanting to lose a friend and making it weird, but come on. I hate it that they don't see her as I do… strong, independent, beautiful, amazing. The list goes on and on. They take her for granted entirely way too much. I'm also not nearly as oblivious as I pretend to be. I know that the three of them fight ghosts. I stayed once, unobtrusively of course, when a ghost came. Everybody runs off except for the three of them. Then Danny Fenton transforms into Danny Phantom and whoosh there goes the ghost. Sam and Tucker didn't even bat an eyelash. It's obvious that they do that a lot. I don't see how nobody else noticed it, but people aren't really all that observant when they don't want to be.
The lame nicknames I have to call them are really embarrassing. They think that I think I'm being so clever. Hah. If I wanted to I could come up with a lot better insults than that, but do they know that? Of course not. Sometimes I wish that I could stand up for myself to everyone including my dad. I tried to talk to him and ended up with a broken arm in three places. Once again nobody thought anything of it. I'm not surprised though.
This summer I'm going to really take out my aggression in training. Summertime is when my dad wakes me up at 6 a.m. for a ten mile jog. Then I go for about an hour on the punching bag. That's really going to come in handy. After that I get an apple, two if I've been good, for lunch. The ten mile jog back. Then it's time for sit-ups, stomach crunches, pushups, and whatever else he can think of. I get dinner. Then back to working out for me. I have to be the best football player ever. Then I go back to bed only to do it all over again the next day. After that there's football camp. I did kind of a long entry today, but I had a lot on my mind.
I closed the journal and stared at it like a moron. I just couldn't believe what I had just read. Dash Baxter was a real human being? I really wondered about the straight A thing. I'd have to start doing a little investigating. Really carefully if he knew all of that stuff about all of us. I wondered what else it said in there because that wasn't the only journal entry.
Danny Fenton is such a moron. How can he not see Sam? Why can't any of them put two and two together? I mostly go after Danny after I see Sam hurting. Then her hurt turns into anger towards me of course, but at least she's not hurting anymore. I'd rather have her wrath than have her hurting even if it's just emotionally.
The more I read, the more I really started to like Dash, the real Dash. I wondered if he'd actually let me see him like that sometime? I decided to give his journal back the next day.