To love you | Malum

Ch. 7 - Confessions + Vapors

Michael + Ch. 7 - Confessions + Vapors

Your last year of high school is supposed to be the best year of your life. You're supposed to make enough memories that would fill out an entire three hundred page yearbook, and you're supposed to have the time of your life; surrounding yourself with people who care about you and your most prized possessions; surrounding yourself with people who accept you for your odd interests and the things that make up you. It's supposed to be a year full of laughter and tears, a year worth remembering. But so far, I'd rather toss this entire year into a trash can, burn it, and forget about its existence by the time I'm twenty five.

I refused to show my face four days after the paint rival between Calum and I. It wasn't that I was embarrassed, but it was also that I was. There were things about me that people didn't need to know, didn't deserve to know, and they found out anyway. How is what you're probably wondering, but let me bring you back to the announcements from our principal at seven thirty in the morning.

"Good morning Pleine High School, this is the principal speaking. I hope you all had a wonderful four day weekend and are all ready to learn." Everyone in my History class booed at the sound of learning, even the teacher. He was the best teacher I had, because he was the only one who didn't pick on me as badly as the others. Only occasionally. "I'm here to inform you that we have a big Homecoming Game coming up this Friday, a Cheerleading Bake Sale this Thursday, Homecoming this Saturday and $5 movie night this Wednesday. Hope to see you all there wearing your school colors."

It was one of those kind of announcements, the kind that nobody cared about, unless you were a cheerleader or a football player. Which I'm not anymore. Anyway, that wasn't the important part about the announcement. There was muffling in the background; the kind of muffling that sounded like shouting being echoed in a transparent room with excessively thin walls; the kind of muffling that sounds like me whenever I'm trying to run away from my problems. But there was a catch about this muffling. It wasn't me, because I was sitting in my wheelchair in the back of the class, listening to the sound of quiet arguing coming through the speakers, and I found myself growing shocked when I heard the voice of Luke Hemmings circulating through the microphone.

"As you all know, my name is Luke, and I'm obviously not the principal," Luke laughed bitterly, "but I'm here to read off some rather important news that everyone deserves to hear." What is the meaning of this, Hemmings was heard in the distance, and everybody paid attention to it, except for me. I was the only one who didn't care about what the hooligan was up to this time.

"Somebody decided it'd be funny to hold hands with my boyfriend during gym class, which is why I thought it'd be funny to get a little bit of revenge," Luke chuckled into the speakers, and I found myself rolling my eyes. Who held Calum's hand during that class period? It certainly wasn't me. We were too busy painting. "This is written by none other than Michael Gordon Clifford."

I physically paled when hearing my name on the intercom. This never happens, unless I'm getting called in for detention because I was late to class since I had to get to my locker and back, or whatever. But in this case, it was different. My name came out of Luke's mouth, and right then and there, I knew it wasn't good.

"This is so funny, honestly," Luke chirped before the sound of pages turning in the distance was heard, "ah, here's one of my favorites. It goes like this."