Halfway through Phil's 8th period class, his mind wanders again and he begins to dread football practice after school. The voice of his math teacher, Mr. Mulligan, fades away and Phil falls deep in thought. What were his teammates going to say to him? God, it really seemed he'd made a mess of things defending Dan in the cafeteria, but Phil knew he'd done the right thing. Jack was giving Phil a hard time for being friends with 'Homo Howell' - honestly, did he think Phil would just stand there and let him say those things?
Phil makes up his mind - whatever his teammates said when he arrived for practice, he would stand his ground. If they started making fun of Dan again, he would stand up for his best friend. If they harrassed him for defending Dan in the cafeteria, Phil would stick by what he said. If they started making fun of Phil for being gay.. he had a hard time believing the football team would do that, but they did it to Dan. Phil got the feeling something else was going on.. it seemed like Jack, as the quarterback, was the leader and kind of influenced the team to bully Dan as well. What was Jack's deal with Dan? Well, in any case, if the team tried to mock Phil for being gay, he would repeat what he said in the cafeteria: it wasn't his choice. If they didn't accept it, they weren't his friends.
"Phil!" Mr. Mulligan's clear voice pierces Phil's thoughts. His eyes snap towards the teacher. "Oh, uh, yes?" He asks quickly, wide-eyed and panicky. The class starts snickering. "For the third time, can you tell me how to solve the second example problem?" Mr. Mulligan asks sharply. Phil blushes deep red and looks down at his papers, quickly scanning the half-completed page of notes. "Yes, sorry, one moment.." Phil trails off, turning an even deeper crimson color, if that was possible. He glances at the example problem and hastily tries to figure out what it was asking, then tries to find something to help him out of the half-done notes from before he zoned out. Then he hears a whisper from behind him.
Phil glances up, and slowly looks around. Most of the class was looking at their own packets, trying to figure out the problem themselves. A couple people were on their phones hidden underneath their desks, and Mr. Mulligan was alternating glances towards the clock, the whiteboard, and Phil. Then Phil hears the whisper again, coming from behind him. "Use theorem 34 to prove the triangles congruent," the voice says. "Um, you can use theorem 34 to prove the triangles congruent," Phil says. Mr. Mulligan widens his eyes in surprise. "Very good, Phil. But next time answer me the first time I ask." The teacher turns to the whiteboard and begins to demonstrate the problem.
Phil turns to take a quick look at the person sitting behind him, and sees a girl with long, sleek, dark red hair, pulled back into a high ponytail, with kind brown eyes staring into his from behind thick glasses. Phil gives her a small smile before turning back around, then opens to a fresh sheet of paper in his notebook and quietly rips the page out. He scribbles a note:
Hey. Thanks so much for helping me out. I was just kinda zoning out.
I owe you one.
You're Paige, right?
Phil discreetly turns halfway around and places the sheet on the desk behind him. Then, a couple seconds later, he feels a tap on his back, and Phil turns back to take the slip of paper. There, he reads the small, loopy handwriting of the girl's response:
Hey. Yep, my name's Paige Losh.
And it's no problem, I figured you kinda had a lot on your mind.
I have 4th period lunch as well. My table's right next to the football team's.
Phil sighs and scrawls another note, passing it back while making sure Mr. Mulligan doesn't see.
Great. So you had front row seats to my performance.
It wasn't bad. I would've given you a standing ovation had it not been cut short.
You have Mrs. Jones to thank for that,
But I'm glad you enjoyed while it lasted.
But just as Phil starts to hand the paper back to Paige, Mr. Mulligan's shouts from the front of the room.
"Phil! Paige? What are you doing?" Phil glances back and sees Paige turn away from him and the teacher to stare straight down at her desk and rest her chin in her sweater paws. "Oh! Um, nothing.." Phil weakly explains. "Hand it here," Mr. Mulligan says sternly, crossing the room to take the paper from Phil. Once he takes the page, he heads back to the front of the room while scanning their writing. "Performance at lunch?" Mr. Mulligan mutters. "Oh, yes, Mrs. Jones mentioned that in the staff lounge.." The class starts snickering again as Phil blushes bright red for another time. Did everyone in the school now know what happened? "Oh! Class, settle down. I apologize, Phil. But both of you see me after class, please. Class! Quiet!"
Finally, the students quiet down, and Mr. Mulligan returns to the lesson. After several more agonizing minutes, caused by Mr. Mulligan's dull lesson and the class' stares they shot back at Phil every once in a while, the bell rings and school is finally over.
The class begins to pack up their things, and Phil looks back to chat to Paige as he shoves notebooks in his backpack. "Hey, Paige?" Paige looks up at him in surprise. "Can I talk to you? After we talk to Mulligan, I mean." Paige just nods before turning back to her things. Phil hastily finishes packing his bag and stands next to his desk, waiting for Paige. Once she stands and slings her backpack over her shoulder, the pair reluctantly walk up to Mr. Mulligan's desk.
As they approach, the teacher glances up from his papers and swivels towards them in his chair. "Phil. Paige. First of all, I never want to see you passing notes in class again. It's childish, distracts you two, and disrupts the class," he reprimands them. Phil and Paige just nod. "Now, Phil, please start paying better attention in class. If you don't know an answer, you can just say that! But I want it to be because you really just can't figure out the problem, not because you weren't taking notes with the rest of the class during my lesson. And Paige, do not help him, either. It doesn't benefit either of you to do that." Paige protests with a weak, "I didn't help him!" But Mr. Mulligan just picks up the sheet of paper with their notes on it. "'Hey. Thanks so much for helping me out. I was just kind of zoning out. I owe you one.'" He deliberately quotes the page. Phil bites his lip and glances over at Paige, who was just staring at the floor again.
"Alright, there's that. Now, I think I've said everything I've needed to. You are free to go," Mr. Mulligan says. "Thanks. Have a good day," Phil says a quick farewell as the two leave the classroom.
"God, Paige, I'm really sorry about that," Phil apologizes as they walk down the hallway. "It's fine, no harm done, right?" Phil turns down a hallway beginning the long walk to his locker, and when Paige follows him, Phil suddenly realizes he doesn't know where her locker is. "Hey, wait, um, where's your locker?" Paige looks at him incredulously. "Literally three lockers down from yours. I'm in your homeroom?" "Oh! Sorry, I guess I never noticed you before," Phil replies weakly. "How could you when you only have eyes for Dan," Paige laughs quietly. "Excuse me?" "What? It's so obvious." "What is?!" Phil exclaims.
"Wait - what? Aren't you guys dating or something?" Paige asks confusedly. "No!" Phil blushes for perhaps the millionth time that day. "We-we're just friends! Best friends. We're like brothers!" Phil exclaims hotly. "Alright.." Paige says, clearly not believing him. "A-anyway, speaking of Dan, can I ask you about what happened at lunch?" Paige gestures for him to continue. "Well, what do you think of me?"
"I wouldn't think you would be worried about what other people thought of you after today," Paige says, "but I thought what you did was really brave. You stand up for what you think is right. I like that." Paige smiles. "Hopefully everyone else thinks that.. do you think everyone knows by now?" "Well, about a third of the entire school was in the cafeteria during 4th period, and if everyone has at least 2 friends and tells them what happened - I know I did - then yeah, I think everyone knows," She gives an apologetic smile.
Phil sighs. "Great," he mutters. Later, they turn into the hallway containing their lockers, and Phil is able to look over everyone else and see Dan's wavy hair at his locker. Phil unknowingly smiles, then turns back to Paige to say goodbye. But Paige is looking at him with a grin and raises her eyebrows at him. Phil then realizes what he's doing and immediately wipes the smile off his face. "Don't." He flashes her a stern glare. Paige tries to contain a giggle. "Alright, bye, Phil," she waves goodbye as Phil goes to his own locker.
"Hey, Dan," Phil greets his friend. Dan turns to him with a smile. "Oh, hi Phil," he says happily. "Why were you so late getting here today?" "Mr. Mulligan kept me and Paige after class. We were passing notes, I wasn't paying attention in class, it was a whole big thing. I don't really want to get into it," Phil says as he opens his locker. "Oh, um, okay. Who's Paige by the way?" Phil chuckles. "I was walking with her on the way here. Apparently she's in our homeroom. I guess you don't have eyes for anyone else either, huh?" "Um.. what?"
"Oh, um, well she joked that I-I only had eyes for you, cause I didn't notice her in homeroom, and you didn't notice her either, so I made the same joke, but i-it's stupid, and I think I'm going to stop talking now.." Phil rambles. "Wait, back up, what did she mean 'you only have eyes for me'?" Dan raises his eyebrows and Phil blushes. Again. "I guess we've been spending too much time together, or only pay attention to each other. She.. she even thought we were dating." Phil suddenly becomes very interested with a notebook in his locker.
But this time it's Dan's turn to blush. "Well, o-obviously we're not.." "That's what I told her! We're just friends. Right?" Phil asks Dan, slightly unsure. "R-right! Friends." "Like brothers." "Exactly."
A/N: Hey guys! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Couple little things: first, I just remember learning about triangles in math a while ago so I threw in a random math lesson - I don't even know what theorem 34 is lol. Second, for some reason when I wrote the part with Mulligan quoting their notes I pictured him sounding like the lightbulb guy from Sharkboy and Lavagirl? Don't ask, cause idk. Anyway, I know there wasn't much plot development in this chapter, but the next section of this story was too long to group in with this one, so I just left this part by itself. You won't have to wait as long for the next chapter, though, as I'm on break at the moment and I already have planned what's going to happen next. Speaking of which, this fic is going to be updated about once a month - it's too much pressure to update any quicker. Anyway (again), I hope you guys had a merry christmas and I hope you have a happy new year, or whatever else you celebrate :). I just realized I write really long a/n's, I just want to tell you guys little things, like we're having a conversation. *realizes this is a one way conversation* *looks off into distance like Dan did in-* ok, I thought he did that in a pinof, but after I rewatched literally all of them I couldn't find that bit. if any off you know what I'm talking about, please lmk what video that is because it's driving me crazy. Anyway (again again), don't forget to favorite this fic if you like it, follow if you want to see what happens next, and leave a review telling me what you think! xoxo, ~l