Safety Net {l.r.h}

38) Crazy

LUKE HEMMINGS

"Oh my god, you were so cute in high school!" A high-pitched squeal echoed from my bed. I discreetly turned my head to see Ellie flipping through an old scrapbook that my mom had made me as a graduation present. I wore nothing but a towel as I picked out clothes for the day, deciding to dress comfortably. I quickly slipped my boxers over my waist and drop the towel which catches the girl's attention. Her eyes dart to the towel on the floor to my bare torso, and I feel myself smirk.

I slipped on some sweatpants and took a seat next to her on the bed. Pointing to a picture in the book, I laughed. "Ha, I remember that."

She furrowed her eyebrows, focusing on the picture I pointed out. Calum stood like a deer in headlights, a bra strapped around his chest as a taller being, possibly me, stood behind him in a scream mask. We were so drunk that night. "Do you think we would've dated in high school?"

I play with the ring on my lip, flicking it with my tongue. "What'd you look like in high school?" I ask, honestly wondering. Ellie pulls her phone out of her back pocket and goes through her camera roll, proceeding to find a picture from her high school years although she wasn't far from it.

"Well, obviously my senior year I looked a little uglier than now, but my sophomore year this was me." She mutters, flipping the phone so I could see her. I notice the picture to be one of her and Zoey, and they both looked the same but younger. Ellie changed since then. Her outfit in the picture consisted of dark colors, and her hair was roughly framing her face, not showing off her most prominent features. Now, she was more outgoing and wore bright colors and things that emphasized her beauty.

"You weren-aren't ugly. You've never been ugly." I state, seeing how she was still cute at 16 years old as she is now at 18.

She purses her lips, "we definitely wouldn't have dated, and you know it."

"I wasn't the kind of guy you'd want to be around anyway."

"Oh," she spoke with interest, "were you the bad boy in school?" Poking at my bare sides, she giggled. I flinched away from her hands and held them down so she couldn't continue to tickle me.

"Something like that."

"What did you do? Like get in fights and make out with girls against the lockers?" Her tone was sarcastic as she traced her fingers on my forearm.

I cringed, shaking my head. "I don't know what kind of shows you're watching, but they're unrealistic."

"Okay, bad boy, what'd you do that made you so bad then?"

"Well, I did get into fights, but Calum, Ashton, and I would roam the town and steal from people and throw raging parties. We got caught up in quite a bit of shit in our hometown, which is one of the bigger reasons we moved hours away from it." I mean, I did have a lot of girls at my feet, but that's not a conversation I'd want to have with my girlfriend.

"What's it called?"

"My hometown?" She nodded. "Spokane, Washington."

Forming an 'o' with her mouth, her fingers tapped against the page of the scrapbook. "So will I get to see it sometime?"

"Of course," I answer, "my family was asking about you."

Her eyebrows furrow, "but we've only been dating for a few days, how do they know about me?"

"I've liked you longer than a few days, El."

A pink tint grows on her cheeks, and she bites into her lower lip, "you told your family about me?"