Chapter 8

Phil's POV

'What do you mean?' Dan asked. Fuck fuck fuck, why did I have to say that?

'Nothing, just forget I said anything.' I said, trying to hide the panic in my voice.

Dan hesitated before replying 'Okay, you should get to lesson, I'm fine.'

'Are you sure? You look pretty bad. I can take you to the nurse if you want?' He did really look bad.

'Yeah, seriously just go. I've had worse before.' I looked sympathetically at him. 'I'll text you when I'm in lesson, I'll be fine.'

'Okay, I'll hold you to that.' I said before walking off making sure he was going to be okay.

Dan's POV

Honestly, I didn't really want Phil to leave me. He had made me feel safe but it was well into lesson and I knew no one would be in the corridors at this time. I went and cleaned myself up in the bathroom assessing the damage. Just a few more cuts and bruises to add to the collection. Why did my life have to be so fucked up? I wondered what Phil had meant by what he had said. He had told me to drop the topic and I had at the time, only because I didn't have the strength for him to argue with me. I wasn't going to forget though. I really wanted to know what he had meant by knowing what it looked like. How was I going to get him to tell me though?

At that moment my phone buzzed, distracting me from my thoughts.

Phil: Hey, you okay? Are you in lesson yet?

I replied as I walked out the bathroom towards the classroom.

Me: Just about to go in now. Are you busy after school?

Almost immediately I got a response.

Phil: Not that I can think of.

Me: Do you want to come to mine? Mum's not going to be home until later.

Phil: yeah, sounds good to me :) x

Me: Cool, I have a DT after school. Do you mind waiting around until 3:45? :/

Phil: No problem, I'll wait in the library. Have to go, see you after school x

Great, hopefully I would be able to get him to talk to me this afternoon. I walked into the science lab causing all the heads to look at me. I kept my head down and apologised to the teacher who just told me to take a seat not even questioning why I was 15 minutes late. Punctuality wasn't my forte if it wasn't already evident.


I walked out of the detention room – I hated that name – and out towards the gates. I could see the messy black hair and bright blue eyes belonging to the one and only Phil waiting for me. Wow, that was a creepy though, I had best keep that one to myself.

I walked quietly behind him, getting ready to make him jump as he hadn't seen me when suddenly he turned around and grinned at me.

'Hey there Dan.'

'Phiiiiil' I wined, 'I was going to make you jump!'

Phil laughed at me 'do you think I couldn't hear your clumsy steps the instant you walked out of the building?'

I grunted playfully, still annoyed that he hadn't let me make him jump. 'Are we going then?' I asked after a moment's silence.

'After you' Phil pointed towards my street and followed as I began walking.

We walked in the house and straight upstairs into my room.

'So, what do you want to do then? We can listen to music, play games, watch TV or all three if you really want' I asked, throwing my bag on the ground and gesturing for Phil to do the same.

'Games and music sounds good to me' he replied sitting on the bed.

'Don't get annoyed at me when I thrash you at Sonic again!' I said, laughing.


'Dan! How are you even this good?!' Phil exclaimed after losing for the 10th time consecutively.

'It's not that I'm amazing, it's that you're so bad that you make it so easy for me!' I said, earning me a soft punch in the arm.

'I will beat you this time!' Phil answered, restarting the game again.

After a couple of minutes I began to lose focus of the game. My mind wandered back to what had happened in the day and I remembered what Phil had said: 'I know what bullying sounds like in a heartbeat'. I began to get curious again, what had he meant.

'Hey, Phil?'

'Yeah?'

'What did you mean earlier?' I asked cautiously.

'What do you mean?' He looked up from the game, realising that I was no longer paying any attention to the game.

'What you said about bullying, what did you mean?' I asked again.

'Oh, right that. I hoped that you'd forget about that to be honest.' He looked down at his hands.

'Well I didn't, why are you so familiar with it?'

'Well, erm… There were people at my old school, and well, lets just say they weren't the best lot of people…'

'Like Jackson and Peter you mean?' I asked.

'Yeah, somehow I ended up getting mixed in with their crowd-'

'-what? You used to bully people?' I was shocked, Phil couldn't really be that type of person could he?!

'NO! Well, sort of…' Phil was shaking now, I just wanted to give him a hug. 'I didn't have a choice in it okay. I didn't want to do anything that I did. But if I wasn't the one delivering a punch, then I would be the one to get it. I really didn't want you to find out about this but you have to know that I'm not the person that I used to be. I'm not like that at all.'

He looked at me and I could see tears in his eyes. His whole body was shaking and so was I. I didn't know what to think. How could Phil, the kindest person I had met, have been a bully?

Phil's voice snapped me out of my spiralling thoughts 'Please say something. If you hate me then I totally get it, I'll leave you alone if you want me to. I'm sorry.'

'What?! What are you talking about?' Hate! How could I hate Phil when he was the best person I had met? I may not have known him for long, but I know that he's amazing… 'You're the first person to ever have accepted me just for who I am. You're the first person to stand up for me. I could never hate you Phil. You're the only friend I have and you're the best one at that. Whoever you used to be, it's not who you are now, is it?'

'No! I'm not like that and I never want to be like that again either.'

'Well then, I'm glad that fish is out the water!' Although he had just told me that, it still felt like he was hiding something, something that he never wanted me to find out, but I didn't know what…


A.N. I'M SORRY! Trust me, I am very very sorry! I had hoped to get this chapter up by last Tuesday but I didn't get round to finishing it then. And then this weekend was my birthday and I've had no time! I have a plan for the next chapters it's just a case of writing then which hopefully I should be able to do once I get my Christmas holidays! Hope everyone is doing well, and you enjoy this chapter – I tried to make it a little bit longer to make up for the lack of chapters but this is kind of a filler chapter anyway… Leave a review if you enjoyed, I love hearing what you say! :)