straight (calum hood au)

7. joie de vivre

Zara sighed as she organized on more box of vinyls in alphabetic order. Three days had passed since her lips met Calum's for the first time and besides talking to each other in class the two kids haven't gotten the chance to mention the elephant in the room.

The girl knew she should feel at least a bit of regret but she just wanted to do it again and again because Zara couldn't get enough of Calum.

She was somehow infatuated with the Maori boy, everything he did was utterly beautiful to Zara. The was he hesitantly wrote on his little notebook, or the way he scratched his eyes with a closed fist almost resembling a puppy. However, she didn't just notice the happy things; Calum was so broken, Zara only saw him smile when he was around her, he barely ate and always had this look on his face that screamed for help, it also seemed like Calum was always dying to say something, something he couldn't hide anymore.

With all these Calum related thoughts also came a wave of confusion, Zara didn't know her sexuality. She was sure she liked girls but the thought of boys didn't gross her out so much like it did to her friends. Maybe she liked both.

Her wild thoughts were interrupted when her phone started ringing and an ugly selfie of Maya appeared on the screen.

"Whaddup" Zara tried to balance her phone with her shoulder and continue her work but it didn't work out as she planned because soon her phone was on the floor. "Shit, sorry."

"Hey, your shift is almost ending, wanna hangout? I can pick you up." Maya's voice was sweet as always; Maya was a small girl with short blond hair that looked completely innocent and harmless, truth is she can knock out anyone is 15 seconds maximum. She had been practicing kickboxing with her dads ever since she could walk.

"Uh, sure and I kinda need to talk to you." Zara needed to tell Maya, it was killing her keeping something so important to herself and she needed her bestfriend's opinion.

"What is it?"

"We'll talk later, bye, love you."

Their friendship was one of the things Zara cherished the most. It started back in kindergarten when a mean kid started making fun of Zara because of her skin tone and her little afro; Maya, who was a bit overweight back in the days and with her face partially covered in freckles decided to step in and protect the girl whose eyes were full of tears. Maya ended up punching the bully in the face who caused a big scene and sent his rich parents to school. In the end, Maya was supposed to apologize in front of his parents but she refused to do it and the kid's parents transferred him to a better school. Maya felt really happy and told Zara their school was now "stupid free". And that's when MayaandZara began, and it has been like that ever since that day.

By the time Zara left the record shop, after waving goodbye to Hoodie (the guy who took over after her shift), Maya was already at the door beeping her car horn like crazy.

"Jesus, stop it, I'm here." Zara punched Maya's shoulder and the girl just chuckled and started the Jeep that her dad gave her on her birthday. Maya's family had gone through some tough times but her financially stable at the moment because both her dads had great jobs and she lived with them on the house they recently moved in too.

Zara decided to text Calum, just to make sure he was okay with Zara telling Maya about them.

to: cal bear

heyy, so i really wanted to talk to maya bout what happened and i was just wondering if it was ok with u, u kno me telling her

from: cal bear

not really...

to: cal bear

i understand, i can just say it was any other dude so she wont know it was u.

from: cal bear

what no

to: cal bear

?

from: cal bear

i dont want her to think u kissed any other dude bc u didnt, u kissed me.

to: cal bear

r u jealous of a non existing guy

from: cal bear