Hey guys! I'm sorry this took forever. I actually wanted this chapter to be longer, but I was rushing to update this due to another inconveniently planned road trip this Tuesday to Thursday. Plus, I'm sleeping at my friend's house next Saturday and won't be back 'til next Monday, so if I didn't post this now, it would be delayed for another week. I decided to just add it in the next chapter.

As for my tardiness, I have no excuses. (I hope this makes up for it, though.) I usually work on a chapter 3 hours each day, and those three hours aren't even dedicated enough to them, 'cause 80% of the time, I'm still on Twitter. :')

Also, I heard that the suspects for the bombing in Boston have been caught. My heart goes out to all victims. May they be justified.

By the way, did you see the new icon for the story? It's how I picture Sam in the near future. :3 You see, it wasn't really supposed to be Sam. I was just doing some random sketches, then I accidentally colored the girl's eyes purple. Boom, I was all, "You're gonna be my new Sam." I kinda messed up with the angle and the hair―especially the hair, because as I previously stated, it wasn't going to be Sam―so I made her hair longer in the story. Whad'ya think? C:

Sorry for the kind of long A/N. I don't own Danny Phantom, or any other brands―if there are―I forgot to mention below.

Enjoy!

Thirty Days Is Not An Option

"Chapter 3"

Saturday, April 20, 2013

I choked down the urge to pass out. Words would not be able to explain how scared I was. Now that I'm doomed to a fate with Sam Manson, my ghostly half was at risk. This is bad. This is way bad.

"Was it?" My heart hissed.

This is definitely bad.

"Can't I switch?" Sweat trickled down my already beading forehead.

Tucker went to look at me sympathetically. "As much as I want to, dude―and believe me, I really want you to―rules are rules."

My brows rose, stitching together at an upwardly sloping side.

"Tuck, please. I'm begging you!" I let out a nervous laugh, smile twitching. "I mean, you gotta―"

He gave a warm grin and an assuring pat on the back as he proceeded to head for class. "Relax, man. You got this." And before leaving, brought a hand up to my ear and whispered, "Finally come to your senses, huh?"

I opened my mouth to reply, but with nothing coming to mind, I shut it in defeat, realizing what Tucker had said was right. Kwan and Dash soon left with thumbs up and confiding words of: Don't worry. It's all going to be fine. Frankly, that was hard to believe. Of all the girls I could be stuck with, it had to be her.

Sam Manson―Goth girl. Not the popular, yet not the loser type either. She had midnight black hair which was always tied down into a ponytail, reaching her shoulder blades. She had this, amazing amethyst pair; unlike any I've ever seen before. I remember Paulina telling the entire school in third year that Sam and Nick Harris did "it." The girl never denied it; never said it was true, so all of us presumed it was just another one of Paulina's rumors in order to bury her into the ground, since they were never on good terms; they always had this grudge against each other. For days, we all along thought accuracy was on our side, until the news got to Nick and he left in the middle of the school year; thus, proving Paulina, for the first time ever, right.

That part doesn't bother me, I mean, who am I to make decisions for her? It just highlights the fact why she shuts herself away from people she doesn't trust… Especially me. As everyone already knows, I treat almost everyone here like garbage. I had to put on this numbskull interior whenever I was around her, most importantly, because it was one of Paulina's demands. It was this deal we had before we started going out. And I swear, Paulina has never hated someone as much as Sam. I don't know if this was some competition between the two, but if it was, my princess would win by a landslide.

I got so caught up in worrying about what I would do to literally save my skin, a sudden jab of pain coursed through my body, without me even knowing why. I found myself face to face with the wall that framed the doorway to Pre-Cal.

And she would be there, sitting right in front of me; doing what she can to avoid me and all the other popular douchebags in this school.

Damn this.

"Hey, uh, you dropped this." I held out the wooden writing medium, leaned closer and waited for her to do something―anything: reach out her arm; turn to me; Say, "Thank you," or whatever.

She sluggishly angled, her half-lidded, ignorance-filled eyes met mine and she immediately dropped her gaze to the finger-enveloped pencil in my already perspiring palm. From how she was staring at it, my bet was a rude response.

"Why did you grab hold of it?" She rested the lower part of her arm on the chair's arm rest and went all detective on me.

"Because… it fell?" I pulled away and glued my back to the seat. The soft chatter of students' and Mr. Banks' vocal equations played on repeat in the background.

She held her two fingers to her temple. "Don't play dumb, Fenton. You've had tons of opportunities to pick up my pencil, but you never did. What makes this time different?" She puckered her lips to a side. "Is this another one of Paulina's stupid jokes? Oh wait, I forgot, you two are over."

Ending it with that, she crossed the line. I don't know how I could possibly keep this thing up. I might as well reveal myself right now than be forced to hear that every day. I'm already aware of that, and I don't need anyone rubbing it in my face. I should've just kept up the icon of being Paulina's boyfriend, holding her spike veiled body, staring into her eye-camouflaged blades, feeling… the cuts and bruises she herself shred on me, every second I was spending with her.

"Manson, Fenton! Would you like to share this with the rest of the class?"

Hearing my name in that low and monotone voice made me freeze. This is officially the luckiest day of my life. Of all people Banks could humiliate, of all girls I could've went out with…

"I'm sorry Sir, but Fenton here keeps bothering me," she hardened, receiving looks of shock and jolts of gasps. Something weighed me down―made me want to sink down in shame. Banks wrote something on paper and eyed me dirtily, giving me the notice as he stated "Detention," aggressively. Sam smirked at my semi-creasing features, but it disappeared as soon as it emerged when Sir came up to her and handed her a pass similar to mine. "For disrupting the class."

Seeing her face like that… Ha, golden.

The rest of the class had gone by incredibly slowly, but I was more than sure that I was the only one to feel it. I mean, I was responsible for the decrease of Sam and I's attitudinal grade, and bombardment of questions related to the newly taught lesson I wasn't paying attention to. So of course I was thankful when lunch struck, and as I headed for the cafeteria, passing by Tucker on the way, I heard Manson blabbing away to Val about what had happened three subjects before.

"So, how'd it go?"

I stuffed a book into my locker, "Badly." and another, "We both got into detention," and another. "And she kept ru―Tucker!" A loud slap bounced off the walls of my metal compartment. I rubbed the bruised area and hoped that the terrible ache would reduce and quicker than soon, disperse. That guy developed good swatting skills from fighting ghosts―fighting the Box Ghost whenever I already knocked him out unconscious, if I may, and taking all the credit for it. I would just stuff the blue-skinned apparition into the thermos.

"Danny, this is great! You could spend some alone time with her! You know, get to know each other, and you can start as friends, and tomorrow, ask her out and―"

"Take. It. Slow."

Tucker chuckled. "At least you're starting to forget her."

"Y-yeah." I mumbled the last part, "No," to myself.

Sam's POV

I groaned in resentment and folded my arms over my chest. That in-your-face expression he smothered all over my feelings of disgust for him made me want to pull out the raging bull locked inside the prison-serving chamber in my ribcage, and sew a red cloth around his torso.

"Damn, Fenton… Being restrained in detention because of him."

If you were to ask another girl about being stuck in detention with and because of Fenton, they would've been screaming and stomping their way to the canteen with faces creased,―not in worry, but joy―fanning their watering eyes, and smiling ear wide, trying to blind others into the fact that they could spend time with the guy. Problem is: I am not one of the ninety-nine percent of airheads who would be crying tears of joy because they had an hour to spend with Fenton. If there were tears to be fell, it would be because of agony. This was even worse than getting into detention itself.

Valerie tucked my shoulder in an understanding pat. "He ain't worth your frustrations." I looked up at her as her brows tilted; she forced a plastered beam across her blankness, and at the far left, Danny glaring daggers, with a somewhat level of dissatisfaction. Not that I wondered why, or anything.

Fenton…

Back in first and second year, that name was never stated, never talked about, never seen, heard, or felt, either. Never had he gotten the chance to savor the sweet taste of being accepted by his peers, and to say the least, it put a damper on him. He may never have said it, but I see it from the way he acts. After all, it's like I simply mirror him whenever I'm at home. He was always picked on, always made fun of; hence, it wasn't really surprising that he stepped out of his way to become popular in the following school year. Quicker than we expected, junior year came, and I met Valerie, and Mia. Fenton claimed to have this… connection with the town hero, and that he knew him pretty well, since his parents were ghost hunters, had all these weird inventions and knew so much about ghastly spirits. No one believed him, until he'd shown everyone a video of Phantom referring to him as one of his closest friends. It's a pretty stupid way to gain popularity if you ask me. If word reaches town, the Guys in White would run after him―heck, not just the GIW, every ghost hunter would be after him. I bet his parents would probably even have him under lockdown and would be asking all these questions about why he never told them. Anyway, pretty soon everyone found out, and Paulina, obviously, had a plan to use him; they started going out, and he's become a tyrant to the nerds, geeks, dorks, emos and all the other unsociable groups in this school ever since.

"Val, I don't get how you can still stand talking about him. I-I know you used to like him, go out with him even, but… after Paulina in second year, he's been a real douche to us―to all of us. I just don't understand how you're able to do it. If I were in your place, and I saw how much he's changed and-and… I don't know how I would keep from throwing up every time I had the chance to regret ever wanting him."

Easy as it was to say, it wasn't easy to actually do. It kept Valerie occupied; it kept me occupied. That's all that mattered for now. But, forgetting someone you cared for so much in a somewhat split second kind of thing, was not easy at all, no matter what the person had done.

'Nick Harris, that―'

I trailed off in mind.

But what the hell could I do but hurt? After everything, I thought he was serious. I thought he would stand up for me―fight for me, do everything he was capable of, just to make me happy, but a stupid façade and he disappears like the cool winds of the warm weather: enveloping you in its amenity then suddenly disappearing when the scorching atmosphere takes over.

I plunged back into the rough and punching waters of cognizance when a loud sigh withdrew from the girl beside me. What was on her mind, I had no idea, but judging from how she bit her lip and jittered up in a matter of seconds, I could say it still had something negative to do with that turd.

"You know, I don't know anymore… I think I still want him, but… at the same time, I don't. I probably sound like a hopeless ditz right now, but, when it comes to love, we all do, right?"

Love.

It was a big word which I wasn't ready to hear. First of all, we were fourth year High School students. What could these people possibly know about love, aside from it being just the same as like; pft, just the same as like, my ass. Second, she had these feels for Fenton―wait, scratch that. She has these feels for Fenton―feels that were pretty much impossible to get rid of, and I don't know if I was going to be the more-good-than-bad friend that supports her on this, or the more-bad-than-good friend that's against her preferences.

"R-right."

Silence filled the empty space of where our conversation should've picked up on. I'm not entirely sure what occupied her: accepting that her feelings for Fenton weren't going to be shooed away that instantly, scolding herself for telling me about it, or both.

Me? I was handling that, and all these flashbacks of Nick, in a sad attempt to keep my brick wall of defenses up.

Keep it together Sam. You have to, for your own sanity.

This is just what I needed―being crowded amongst two more buffoons, namely: Zach Reed and Kyle Martin.

Like one wasn't enough already.

I marched in, slumping down in the chair closest to the door and dropped my bag next to it.

I haven't had the slightest idea what was going to happen now. I'd never been sent to deportation, and neither was I planning to visit it anytime soon.

Mr. Banks finally came in after minutes of pure buffoonery and egoism emitting from the two nestled in the furthest corner of Room 201, shortly followed by Fenton seconds later, who found a place next to me and landed there with an unnerving grin. I didn't want to get into anymore trouble, so I sucked it up, swallowed hard and gathered all the strength of will I could to pull off an equally agitating sneer.

The sound of chalk screeching on the blackboard made me lose focus on the guy and the hairs on the back of my neck stand. Banks moved to the side, the white-smudged green surface reading, "Detention", underlined and in all caps.

Really, what students did in here wasn't hard to piece together: survive through the harsh looks the teacher was giving us, keep quiet and think about what we've done.

To simply put: it was a waste of sixty could-have-been productive minutes.

I buried my face into the open space left by my table-top glued folded arms.

I bet Val and Mia were enjoying themselves in the mall, running store through store and having food trips in the middle of it all. When I told the both of them about this earlier, I couldn't even feel the sympathy in their consoles. Even though it was soaking in lush comfort and rose up in flames due to the anger fueled by him for getting me into this mess, they still had this… twitterpated touch to how they said things, which by the way, was sickening.

I heard the door click; the two continue their rant at the back; Fenton say, "Hey there;" my mind dictate "Get out of here," over and over; and myself shuffling around to get up and look at my watch―5 minutes to go―and face Danny, because this war was far from over.

"This is your entire fault,"

The change in his expression was perceptible. "Well you're the one who got caught talking back."

"Oh, so now you're weighing the blame on me? You're the one who started the conversation!"

"You're the one who decided to answer back!"

"You're the one who expected a reply!"

This was ten times more aggravating than how I expected it to be, because it just seems so logical to throw the terrible outcome of what he did to me, and expect me to catch it with fault of responsibility for it.

I stood up, and then he did the same. My hand flung out, completely oblivious to me. I was just about to slap some sense into him when a caustic remark blew into the still draft from the conditioning unit.

"Aw, replacing Paulina already, Fenton?" was the interjected comment that sent both our calm demeanor to rapidly change tenfold. I felt my nostrils flail, the steam blow out of my ears. Something told me to go up there and whack Reed to express my rage, but my sensible side said otherwise: that it wasn't worth it―that listening to anyone wasn't worth it; that no one knows what you've been through. They're all wrong about the image of you imprinted into their thick skulls. At that point, it wasn't just about Zach and Kyle, it was about how everyone was―may it be Fenton, Sanchez, the entire campus, even Val and Mia who I poured out everything to―still unable to understand how I was truly feeling inside.

"You had one simple job, and you still messed up, Fenton. All you had to do was choose a new girl to run dry, and you choose a slut."

"Skank Manson, that's a good one!"

Everyone had accused me of being this puppet, and most of the time, it wasn't any bother. I've been keeping this strong outline for almost one and a half years since the incident now, and I trained myself to build it up every single time someone broke it down, but all these emotions that came flooding at the exact same time… It finally ran me over. God, I felt everyone turn against me, and those that stood by me slowly disintegrating. What hurt even more was that my parents weren't helping. They always had time for these cocktail parties, out of the country conventions, everything single that didn't concern me.

Tears started to prick at my downcast eyes. I held every breath, 'cause every time I let it out, it felt like the grief buried deep down in my soul was being forced out of its' locked casket. I couldn't find the guts to move. I was stuck in place. Now that the time for retort came, I had nothing to say. My words disappeared to unknown places and didn't even leave a trace.

I was ready to explode.

"Shut the hell up. You can't talk to her like that."

I swore I was even hearing things. Maybe I was going crazy.

"Like you're gonna make me?"

A loud smack sounded throughout the room. It all sounded like Fenton was actually defending me―the irony of it all was too good to be true, yet it felt so real. Curiosity got the better of me as I set regard at the onset of the strong blow.

I stepped back in surprise; my drops of anguish welled, syncing with the red stream that flowed out of Martin's nose. Reed's eyes followed the running trail, his view finally being the tiled floor stained with blood.

"Dude, you're bleeding!" He softly screamed. "Holy crap, Fenton!"

Zach clenched his fists and crouched, just daring Fenton into a fight. He let go with a hook to the right, his teeth clenching, his being spewing out every unintelligible word and action that jolted to his mind, in light to successfully avenge his best friend.

I stiffened even more, deciding and accepting my incapability of doing anything. It was all going to happen, I intervene or not. I had no idea what to think. A fight was happening right in front of me, because of me. My incentives finally kicked in when I saw a hit heading directly towards Fenton.

"Fenton, loo―!"

He immediately ducked, and revealing a suggestive look when he turned around, paleness spread throughout his entire body seconds later. A loud bang-crack had finished my sentence, but we were all too absorbed in the duel display to even check what it was. The door had flung open and none of us even knew.

"What is happening here?!" The four words caught us by surprise. The bell rung, signalling that the after class activities were supposed to be done with when the hour struck, but after this meeting, something was telling me we were about to be dismissed even more later. I hastily wiped away the tear crusts on my cheek.

"I leave for five minutes and this is what I return to? A boxing match, a crying girl and a bleeding boy? Who started this mess?"

No one dared to speak up. We were all to blame; at least, in my opinion. No one deserved greater punishment than the other. Their silence either meant they thought that way, or didn't want Sir Banks to know they had been mistreating their batch mates―which lead to even more trouble.

The Math teacher bent down to pick up the shattered clipboard. "Then," He stood and regained his teacher-composure. "I guess I'll be seeing you all again for four more school days. Now get going," he demanded coldly as he held out the door for us.

Thank you for being patient.

Ratings and reviews are greatly appreciated!

Next chapter... Uh, 2 to 3 wee-asdfghjkl-OKBYEEEEEEEE!