Between a Rock and a Hard Place // c.h.

7 - Welcome to Fame

   The drive home was extremely long. It was hard to believe that I had actually just lived through that experience. I touched my cheek where Cal had kissed, it felt hot. I had barely gotten back to my house when my phone started going insane. I picked it up and focused on the first notification.

   Abby: Call me. We need to talk now!!!!!

   A million worries filled my head. Had something happened with Abby? I immediately called her. She answered on the first ring, which was something Abby never did.

   She screamed into the phone, then proceeded to talk. "Were you on a date with Calum fucking Hood?!" She screamed the question. The worry was replaced with anxiety. I hadn't told anyone who I was going on a date with, I didn't want to cause a scene. 'How did she find out?' I wondered.

   "Um......" I laughed slightly and Abby screamed into the line again. "How'd you know?" I asked calmly, trying to mask the emotion in my voice.

   "There's pics of you two all over the Internet! How could I not know?" She squealed. "How did that even happen?!" I could hear the excitement in her voice.

   "Um he put his number in my phone last night. I messaged him and he asked to meet sometime." I explained. I hoped Abby wouldn't be mad at me for not telling her. She wasn't.

   "OH. MY. GOD." Her voice was filled with pure excitement. "I'm so happy for you!" I smiled, Abby was a great friend, and moments like this reminded me how great she actually was. "Well I've got to go, but we need to hang out and you need to tell me every detail!" We said goodbye and she hung up. Out of habit, I clicked on Twitter. When it opened I saw all the notifications. There were thousands of notifications, and they kept coming. There were mentions, follows, rts, tags, everything. My follower count had gone up nearly ten thousand. What was happening? Calum had mentioned Twitter, he said he would follow me. I scrolled through my new followers, until I saw him. I smiled, then noticed my other new followers. As I looked through the usernames I noticed a common thread. They were all 5SOS fan accounts. I still didn't understand the sudden outburst of popularity. A couple hours ago, my follower count had been a stunning thirty people, now it was continuously growing past the ten thousand mark.

   I noticed Abby had tweeted me. It was a link to a website. When I clicked, everything made sense. There, in bold letters and vivid pictures, was an article about my date with Calum. The caption caught my attention: "Calum Hood sneaks around with 'Mystery Date'" Under that, another caption explained my recent spike in activity. "Calum Hood's 'Mystery Date' identified!" My social media accounts were tagged. I didn't bother to look through every notification, there were so many, but I spent a few seconds looking at them. I decided to take a shower and look at them later.

   After my shower, I pulled on an old tank top and sweat pants. I grabbed my phone and sat on my bed. I scrolled through notifications, occasionally clicking on a tweet that was directed at me. They were horrible.

   @calumsbae: @caraf5sos kill yourself. Little whore.
   @5soswhore: @caraf5sos stop using Calum for fame
   @5dorksinaband: @caraf5sos is nothing but a groupie. Calum wouldn't actually date a girl that looked as ugly as her.

   Hundreds of tweets like there were all directed at me. 'Maybe they're right. Maybe Cal's using me as a hookup.' I regretted the thought the second it crossed my mind. Calum wouldn't do that. He was a good person. I decided to tweet something, thinking maybe it would calm people down a little bit.

   @caraf5sos: I'm just another fangirl. Sometimes miracles happen.

   Seconds after I tweeted, my phone buzzed over and over. Hundreds of favorites, retweets, and responses filled my screen. Thinking they'd be more positive, I looked at them. The responses I got were even worse than the ones I'd gotten earlier. Suddenly I got a notification that stood out. Calum had tweeted me.

   @calumhood: @caraf5sos, welcome to fame.