Last × CTH

VI - Partners. Again?

Calum Thomas Hood seems to be also my classmate in Mech Engineering the next day.

Cara wasn't there though, thank gods. Irwin also wasn't. Calum sat in his usual seat at the back and I came early to class to be able to choose a seat farther away from him. Luckily, Luke was there, too, like he said and he's a little far away from Calum so I sat with him.

"I never got to text you," he started, scratching the back of his head.

"S'okay. You didn't need anything, did you?" I smiled at him.

"No, I just wanna text you but I don't know any good thing to say," he confessed, his cheeks slightly going pink.

Aww, he's cute when he blushes.

"Dork. You can text me anything," I giggled at his cuteness.

A few more minutes of morning banter and Miss Criss - I remember her from freshman year - enters the room, a fish bowl in her hands with several pieces of paper inside.

Without further adieu, she started class.

"For your midterm project, you will work in pairs. Before I explain the mechanics of your project, I'm going to make people fish out papers here containing all your names - with yours in, Miss Casandra, no worries," she eyes me and continues, "to pick out your pair."

She started in random places. A tall girl picks out one and gets paired with a girl with glasses from across the aisle. Pretty soon Miss Criss reaches our side of the room, making Luke pick first.

"I hope I pick you," he winked at me again, before putting his hand into the bowl and getting one paper.

He took a breath before opening it, his eyes grim. Then, his features fell. "Camille Alano."

Obviously, it wasn't me. Who am I gonna be paired up with? Ugh. I would've preferred Luke over anyone.

"Sorry, Cassie," he apologized.

I tried smiling back, "It's not your fault. It's okay."

He smiled and looked over to the Camille girl who was going to be his partner, the girl smiling too widely over at Luke.

I realize that Luke seems to have a lot of admirers around the campus but weirdly, he just opens up and talks to me. I mean, he's not the weird type of nerd but the type that when he puts his so-called game face on, he can be really intimidating and really hard to approach. Hm, I might have to ask him about this later.

My turn. I dove in to the thinning pile of paper inside and fished out one, unfolded it and read.

"Greyson Fallon."

Whoever this guy is, I sure hope he's nice. I waited for somebody to stand up or raise his hand but nobody did.

"Wait, Casandra. Mr. Fallon has dropped out a week ago, I must've forgot to take out his name. Please pick again," Miss Criss smiled reassuringly at me so I dove into the pile and picked another one.

It took me forever to read out the name written, blinking multiple times to make sure I wasn't just mistaken.

Why, oh heavens, why?

I swallowed and cleared my throat, "C-Calum Hood."

With my heart thumping loudly against my chest, I looked back to him from across the room, and I see his smile. That smile, oh gods. His carefree, I'm-so-fucking-cute-and-I-know-it smile, there it was. The cute crinkle at the side of eyes. It brings back so much memories, good memories, bad memories, I don't care, I missed it. I missed the warm feeling it brings.