Flowers // Calum Hood

One

(unedited)

"Gaby, time to get up for school," a voice called for me from the opening of the doorway. I groaned but immediately pushed myself out of bed, despite the pain of the sun flashing in on my tender, sleepy eyes. Before I could process what was going on, my tiny dog jumped up on my legs causing me to jump, frightened by so much movement. Everything was so bright, my dog even looked extra whiter from the sun shining in through the blinds.

"Gaby!" The voice called again. I nodded, hoping that the person calling, my mother, would finally shut up and realize that I was awake.

It was the first day of school and I was planning to get back and hang out with my friend group. There was Calum, Bobby, and Sarah, but there was also Abby who had been the greatest friend of mine ever since the eighth grade. She was caring and kind, and put a lot of effort into our friendship that had never seen to broke. She was my other half. The only reason I was getting myself out of bed today was just to see her, and well, my other friends as well.

Bobby was a full out hipster. She had changed her name from Claire to Bobby by the fifth grade and had totally slayed it the entire time. She had sleek brunette hair that always seemed to be straight or in a ponytail and always messed up everyone's name, even after being told it 40 times before.

However, Sarah was a full out emo. She had died her hair jet black and cut it super short while she wore My Chemical Romance band shirts everyday. Not only that but she would always have her earbuds in and ignored all of us 2/3 of the time. I don't know why I even considered her to be in our friend group.

Calum was the only guy in the group. He was in a band as the bassist, which Sarah seemed to approve of while Bobby continued to forget the name and relearn it every single time we all talked. He had dark brown hair that was swept to the left with detail. Most girls in our school drooled over him even though he had never dated a living soul before.

Unlike everyone else in the group, I was Gaby, the one and only. As a matter of fact, no one else at school was called Gaby, or my real name Gabriella, so that's how I got stuck with the dumb name tag. Everyone in my group called me Gaby the Great because, even after I tried to say I was ugly looking or dumb, they would always tell me the truth, calling me pretty and beautiful.

Even though this friend group was super weird and diverse, they still gave out great compliments.

Once I was off my bed, I began searching through my piles of clothes in my closet picking out a red shirt with a strawberry on the left side of it. It matched well with my black skinny jeans and my black backpack.

I had once been "emo" as people call it, but that was all through middle school. I had changed but didn't have enough money to buy a whole new wardrobe like the Kardashians.

I sighed, looking at myself in the mirror. For the first day of Junior year, I looked decent. Quickly, I pulled on my all black converse, trying them up with a special double knot at the top, and heading out the door where my mom was waiting for me in the car.

The clock read 7:00 and school started at 7:30, so at least I had a little bit of time to socialize.

As I headed in the double doors of the school, I was stopped dead in my tracks by my greatest friend ever, Abby.

"Hey, what is up my dude?" she asked as she slung her long arm over my shoulder. I shrugged, brushing it off as she led me to the cafeteria where hundreds of kids gathered for the social rituals to whichever God or celebrity they worshiped.

We finally made it to our lunch table that we shared with another small group of people at our school. It was right in the middle of the cafeteria where drama was being thrown around left and right.

I noticed Sarah touching up her eyeliner with one of her pocket mirrors as Bobby rambled to her. Calum, however, was nowhere in sight.

"Hello crew that I hate very much," Abby cheered sitting down across from Bobby as I sat across from Sarah.

"Oh my god, I missed you guys so much, I'm so glad school started again," Bobby cheered. "This year is going to be WILD!" She did a motion with her hands that you would only find in a child's cartoon while Sarah just glared at her.

Finally, I heard a familiar voice come out of nowhere.

"Howdy partners," Calum said, smiling with a lot of teeth. "Looks as if you all glowed up over the summer, 'specially you Sarah, looking more emo than ever." Sarah rolled her eyes as everyone else giggled.

"Same with you, Calum. Looks like you got more Back Street Boys over the summer with that nose piercing of yours," Sarah shot back, now scrolling through tumblr on her phone. Calum shook his head, ignoring the comment thrown his way before he took a seat beside me.

"Hey guys, I heard Rosie is having a party this weekend and everyone is invited," Sarah said loudly, grabbing all attention to her.

"I'm surprised even a sort of popular girl would invite everyone to her party," Abby admitted, smirking. Rosie was a decently popular girl in our school with the average of about 200 likes on instagram. It all really mattered on how many likes you got on instagram overtime. For me, I had an average of 80 while Abby had 60, Sarah with 50, Bobby with 90, and Calum with 250.

The only reason why Calum had such a big "popularity" is because he posted a lot of things with his band and he was the only guy those sluts in school or anyone had slept with for a matter of fact. It was a rumor that Calum was a virgin, but us four all knew the answer to that.

"I'll go if everyone else goes," offered Abby. I nodded in agreement as well as Calum did.

"I'm not going," Sarah groaned. "I don't want to make out with any random people from school in the corner of someone's closet." We all laughed as she pouted in the corner.

"Okay, so we're all going except for Sarah," Bobby explained.

"Yep, that sounds about right," I replied, nodding my head.

"Cool, well I can't wait," she cheered. To our luck, the bell rang just on time as we ended our conversation as we headed to our first classes.