Afraid // Calum Hood

Chapter 25 // Lunch

Adelaide's Point of View

This grilled cheese sandwich sitting in front of me was the most beautiful thing I had ever laid eyes on in my entire life. It was perfectly toasted, with slight brown burn marks on the roof of the white bread from the panini maker. Cheese was oozing out of the sandwich and it was the perfect shade of yellow. As I lifted the sandwich to my lips, the divine taste of perfect crunchiness and soft cheese overtook my tastebuds. There was definitely a banger happening inside of my mouth right now.

I hadn't been out to eat here once since I had moved here. Michael recommended this adorable shop, that seemed to resemble a Panera Bread. It had delicious sandwiches, bagels, doughnuts and salads and I took advantage of buying an over-sized chocolate chip cookie as well.

"So what do you think I should do?" Michael asked hesistantly, lifting his cup of soda to his lips and swallowing the mixture of ice and cola down his throat.

I wiped my mouth with the scratchy paper napkin. "Well, you definitely need to apologize. I'm not sure if he will accept it at first, it has been a long time. But the apology is always the first step."

He nodded his head, taking a bite out of his bagel that had crispy bacon shoved inside of it, along with juicy tomatoes and lettuce. "I'm really an as- I mean, butthole, aren't I?"

I giggled as he almost slipped out profanity next to the family sitting next to us with their four small kids all in hearing distance. Michael waved to them when he first got here, so I was aware that they knew each other. But the again, everyone in this town knows each other. "No, you're not a complete butthole. I mean, kind of. You did screw him up pretty bad, but so did the rest of the town. Did you honestly think Calum could do something like that?"

He scrunched his nose as he pondered the question. "No. But everyone else thought he was guilty, so I just went along with it. I was good friends with Eric too, and after he testified against him I started to believe it more. Luke hated me so much after that. I guess it makes sense since he was the only one who knew about Cal and Ellie's secret relationship. God, I'm so dumb! How did I think that he was in on some big lie too?"

"It's alright," I assured him, extending my hand out across the table to pat his arm. "You just got sucked into peer pressure. That doesn't mean you have to be stuck in that mindset for the rest of your life."

"We have to tell all of this to Lucy too. She was close with Ellie and despised Calum because of this. She never bought the whole drunk driver thing, but maybe we can convince her that it's true," Michael suggested.

It was adorable the way he brought Lucy up into conversation. His cheeks seemed to glow brighter just by the mention of her name. My match-maker tendencies came out. "Okay, we can try. Speaking of Lucy, do you happen to have a crush on her?"

He gazed down to his BLT, his cheeks flushing with a hint of pink as he sheepishly shook his head in confirmation. I clapped my hands together victoriously. "I knew it!" I cried out, much louder than I had anticipated. "This is great news, okay? I'm going to get you two together."

"No! I dont want her to know," Mikey murmured shyly, nibbling away on his bagel with the blush on his puffy cheeks providing a contrast to his typically pale skin color. "We've been friends for so long. I don't want to ruin that if she doesn't feel the same way."