Dan decided school was a pretty decent option the next morning. Despite the fact that he had stayed up most of the night, thinking about everything that was happening in his life, he thought he needed to at least pretend everything was normal.

He wore his usual attire: a plain black shirt and the skinniest jeans. Dan pretended that everything was okay; that he was still his happy, bubbly past self.

He walked down the road to school, early, as usual. His galaxy backpack was filled with exercise books, weighing him down ever so slowly.

As he approached school, not one person noticed his presence. He might as well have been invisible.

Dan wandered through the halls and into the library. He knew exactly what he was looking for which lead him to the nonfiction section. He flicked through the books before picking out one about the solar system. He took it over to a free desk at the back of the room and opened it to the first page.

-

"We're going to be doing a project on volcanoes. You need to be in groups of three, no more, no less." Dan's geography teacher announced. Dan just watched as friends bounded over to each other, grinning widely. He would probably end up with the rejects (being one himself) but even they were already in groups.

Dan glanced down at his lap as the teacher began to walk towards his empty table.

"Daniel, you need to be in a group." She said, making Dan sigh. "Emma and Louise need one more person?"

"Okay." Dan mumbled, standing up and walking over to the two girls who were chatting to themselves.

"Hey, Dan? Are you in our group then?" Dan just nodded before looking down again.

-

"Dan, you do realise that, in order to work, you have to speak." Emma giggled, pretty much glaring at Dan. He just ignored her and carried on doodling. He was drawing a tiny rocket on the corner of his page. "Hello? Daniel?" Emma then waved her hand in front of Dan's face, making him mess up his drawing. The rocket was in pen as well, meaning Dan couldn't erase and fix the mistake. "We're not going to do everything for you." Dan was getting immensely irritated but he was deciding against saying anything. His hands were gradually clenching into fists and his eyebrows were getting even more creased. In other words, he was getting angrier by the second. "Miss!" The teacher walked over to the three, smiling softly, as if to say she was there to help. "Dan isn't doing any of the work!"

"Dan." The teacher's voice was sharp; Dan flinched. The teacher seemed to notice Dan's discomfort and gestured for him to speak to her outside.

Once they were alone, the teacher sympathetically smiled. "Are you okay?" She asked.

"Why?" Dan mumbled, already suspicious.

"You look like you're going to cry and you always seem... sad."

"Why do you care?" Dan's voice cracked: it was true, he was on the verge of crying.

"Dan, you're my student, of course I care about you." Dan stayed silent. "Is there something going on at home? Here at school maybe?"

"I'm fine."

"I can tell you're not."

"It's none of your business." A tear slipped its way out of Dan's eye and that was enough. He pushed past the teacher and back into the classroom before going back over to his "group". He grabbed his bag and, with that, he was gone.

Louise sent Emma a worried glance. "Why did you say that?" She said to her friend, her eyes wide.

"I didn't say anything! He wasn't doing his work!" Louise didn't respond but that didn't stop the tiny feeling of anxiety in the pit of her stomach.