never again | calum hood

sixteen

guys i'm so sorry, i could give you a bunch of excuses but i don't want to annoy you anymore than i already have by not updating this thing lol

i'm honestly and forever sorry. i'll make more of an effort to keep this thing on track bc you guys deserve it

this is a really important chapter and i very much enjoyed writing it so i hope you like it too :)

i love you all AND I'M SORRY

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The Pursuit of Love. Wait, no. That's too cheesy. What is love? Still cheesy as fuck, Calum.

It took me more than an hour to give up and just start my paper without a title. I knew what I wanted to write about, but I didn't know how to summarize it. And what was making me anxious was that I'd have to read it in front of the whole class. In front of Adelaide.

I finished it around 4am, and God was I proud of myself. It wasn't amazing, definitely not the best thing I'd ever wrote, but it was still something. And I kinda knew Adelaide would like it, or at least I hoped so. I only had 5 more hours of sleep so I printed it, put it in my backpack and went straight to bed.

That's when the nervousness became worse. What would happen if she didn't like it? Or not even that, what if she didn't even care? Maybe she'd think it was dumb and would't even say anything to me. And the whole point of my paper was making her forgive me, maybe just understanding how I felt and why I had done what I did.

I slept for like an hour and then my alarm went off putting me in a horrible mood. I couldn't stand the lack of sleep, I barely got myself to get in the shower, let alone make myself breakfast. That's when my mom came in and noticed my zombieness so she made me some scrambled eggs and coffee. God bless her. And coffee.

"Good luck today, honey", she said smiling before I left.

"Huh?" I replied confused.

"With your speech, I mean", she said.

"Oh, right", I nodded still half asleep. "I forgot about that. Thanks, mom", I smiled.

The walk to school was awful, entering the school was even more awful, and seeing Adelaide sitting at her desk in our classroom was at the top of awful things in this world. I couldn't do it. I wasn't gonna be able to stand up and actually read that paper. No way. I was not gonna do it.

"Someone looks very, uh, alive today", Luke said sarcastically.

"I can't do it", I said.

"What are you talking about?" Luke asked.

"I can't. I can't read it. Not in front of everyone. Not in front of her", I answered.

"Why what is it about?" Luke was either torturing me or he was just really dumb.

"Her", I said quickly.

"Who?" He asked. He was just dumb. I sent him an are you fucking dumb glare and then his face morphed.

"Oh God, you actually followed my advice", he said in a low voice.

"Yeah, I did. So it better fucking work", I muttered back.

Luke stared at me for a few seconds. "Please promise you won't beat me up if it doesn't", he pleaded. "Not that I think it won't work but to make sure..."

"Just shut the fuck up".

"Okay, yeah, will do", he nodded.

The bell rang and everyone took their seats. My hands were sweating, pretty much my whole body was sweating and shaking, I was a complete mess. Two girls went up front first, and then it was my turn. Shitshitshitshitshit.