sunburn - cth

prologue

When Calum arrived home in the backseat of a police car wearing handcuffs that were digging into the skin of his wrists and reeking of weed, his mom was so mad she didn't even yell at him. That's how he knew he had severely fucked up.

He and Michael were doing what they do every Thursday night – getting really high in Michael's basement and then playing COD until their munchies hit. Michael would wait for Calum to finish with his football practice and then they'd ride home together, talking about the pretty girls in their biology class and the new All Time Low album coming out in a few weeks. They walked through the garage door and straight to the basement where Michael had set up the world's most comfortable bean bag chairs and many strings of Christmas lights he stole from his mom's holiday collection and immediately grabbed a bong.

This bong was given to Calum by his older sister a few years ago before she left for college. It was covered in stickers of obscure bands only she listened to and surf brands he dreamt of being sponsored by and it was the most sentimental gift Mali-Koa could've given him before ditching him in their stupid little hometown. He had smoked weed for the first time out of this bong in the front seat of his sister's car and when he coughed so hard he almost threw up, Mali laughed until there were warm tears streaming down her cheeks. Every time he smokes he thinks of this memory but pushes it aside as smoke clouds build in the room.

When they were kids, probably around eight or nine years old, Michael's mom always said that they did nothing but get into trouble when they were together and it'd only get worse as they grew up. She was right. Calum and Michael got high enough that neither of them could tell you what day of the week it was and that's when everything went downhill. Everything Michael said sounded like it was going through a blender and Calum's only focus was on getting a bag of Dorito's and a blue raspberry slushie in his system as soon as possible.

While lazily browsing the aisles of the shitty gas station a few blocks away from Michael's house, Calum glanced out of the store's front windows and saw the neon sign across the street flashing about some sale the hardware store was having. Michael could practically see the little lightbulb above his friend's head as he wordlessly trailed out of the store, mumbling something about paint to himself. Michael paid for his M&Ms and grabbed Calum's slushie because that's what good best friends do and waited on the corner for him to come back from the hardware store.

"What'd ya buy?"

Calum opened the oversized paper bag and held up two black cans of spray paint. "Supplies."

"Calum," Michael said with a frown. "C'mon man, if you keep this shit up they're not gonna let you graduate. You still need to get your grades up in parliament studies and world history, vandalism isn't going to help with that."

"It'll only be a problem if I get caught!" He set the bag down in the bed of his truck and grinned brightly at his green-eyed friend. "I won't make you come with me if you don't want to but I'm going to draw a pig on Kliffers office window and maybe a few dicks on the girl's locker room."

Michael requested a ride home and made Calum promise him that this would be his last shenanigan of the school year, he just wanted to graduate with his friend and enjoy their winter break together. So Calum tightly wrapped his pinky around Michael's and wished him goodnight, not feeling guilty at all about the fact he knew he wasn't going to be graduating in three weeks. His grades in three classes were so bad that it'd take a serious bribe for his teachers to pass him and considering he earns all of his money by reselling shitty weed to the year nines and doing oil changes for his neighbors, he's a bit challenged in the financial area of life. Calum's old and very relaxed job as a surf instructor in town fell apart when a massive resort was built next door and they began offering tourists lessons as a part of their room deals.