Secret // Calum Hood

12

Elena

"Remember everyone," the booming voice on the announcements on Monday morning said, "tomorrow night is open house for your parents, and to pick up your first progress report, it starts at four, don't miss it!"

Open House. An event I have successfully ignored every year of my high school career so far. Every time it came around, Mom would work late, and Dad would say there's no need to go because he knows I'm a good kid already. So I enjoyed skipping it and sitting on the couch with Dad, eating frozen dinners and watching bad television. This year, I hope it would go the same. I wouldn't spend it with Dad of course, but I was hoping and praying that Mom would have to work late again, or she just wouldn't know about it at all.

Calum turned to me, ignoring the rest of the announcements as he asked "are you going to open house?"

I shook my head.

"Why not? Do you not want your mom to meet your teachers?" he asked.

"No, I don't want my teachers to meet my mom," I answered.

He didn't know what else to say I guess, because he faced forward in his seat again and stared at the whiteboard in the front of the classroom. The loser was even folding his hands on his desk like we did in kindergarten. I couldn't help but notice how...good Calum looked today. He's always wearing black jeans and band tees or muscle tanks with scruffy Vans. Today he's wearing his usual black jeans with a white and black striped t-shirt underneath an acid wash denim jacket. I wonder if he secretly checks the latest fashion trends or something. I swear I saw a model in Interview magazine wearing the exact same thing.

I've found myself thinking more often that Calum really is trying to be nice. Although he is still friends with the people I hate the most, he is different. I mean, we still don't really associate with each other in school, although practically everyone knows that Calum got partnered with the horrible Elena Jacobs, so if we did, it wouldn't matter anyway. But I think we're now starting to focus less on our differences and more on the fact that we need to get this project done.

And then another part of me kind of thinks that it would be sort of cool if Calum didn't stop talking to me once the project is over. But I know that won't happen. No matter where we go, Calum will always have his friends, and I will always have myself.

And my beloved, but hated, razor.

Although I feel like Calum and I are kind of getting somewhere as far as not arguing all the time, everything else is just falling apart. Mom is a bigger mess than ever before, and I don't know how to stop it. Worst of all, I can't tell anyone anything, and I have to keep everything together, even though I'm imploding on the inside. I'm like a grenade. Or a land mine. Apply enough pressure, and I will explode.

The day went by pretty normally, I guess, if you call people glaring at you and tripping you and knocking your stuff down normal. I just don't understand. They hate me because Janie does. That's all. Do they ever think for themselves? Sure, I've always been a little weird. I was always the military family kid who moved around a lot, and by the time I had come close to making a friend, it was time to leave. So after a while, I just stopped trying to make friends. I always had my dad. He was my best friend. I didn't need anyone else, and they wouldn't know who I was, or want me anyway. But Dad is gone now, and by the time he gets back, if he gets back, I'll be gone from here.

The plan is for me to go to college and be something. I don't know what yet. All I know is that they have a trust fund set up, and as soon as I graduate, I'm getting out. I'll come back to visit Dad if he's alive. I'm never seeing her again.

But right now, I can't even focus on getting out of here because I'm trapped. I'm trapped inside myself. If that makes sense.

After school, Calum ran over to tell me that soccer practice is cancelled, so if I want, we can work on the project now so we can skip the weekend. I said okay, and then we were in his car, and I had my seatbelt on, and the inside smelled like peppermints, and for a second, I didn't hate anything.

Once we were inside Calum's house, I looked around again. I invited myself to sit on his comfy faux leather couch, and like a good host, he asked if I wanted anything to eat or drink. I said no.

"Why aren't your parents ever home?" I asked.

"That's a personal question," he remarked, raising his eyebrows.

"What? You ask me personal stuff all the time," I reasoned.

"And you don't answer, so I'm not going to," he replied.

I was left to think about it on the couch in silence. After a few minutes, he quietly said "they just work a lot. They don't get home until after you're already gone, that's why you never see them".

"I knew you were an open book Calum," I said.

"And what about you?" he asked.

"What about me?" I asked in return.

He was on the couch next to me now, looking intently into my eyes. It was kind of scaring me a bit, how close he was, and how he was staring.

"What kind of book are you?" he asked.

"Why don't you answer that," I suggested. He thought for a minute.

"Okay. You are like a diary that has dozens of tiny locks on it," he said.

"You care to explain?"

"Well, you are like a diary because you know how diaries are so personal and everyone puts their deepest secrets in them? But you shut everyone out, so it's like you're locked."

I took a deep breath. "Are you going to try and unlock me?"

"You bet," he winked.

-

At dinner that night, Calum's words had me thinking too much. What did he mean by all of that? And why does it even matter to me?

I finished setting the table and called Mom down, who was very grumpy about not getting some position she had been fighting for since last June. She immediately took a bottle of Scotch to the table with her, and didn't even pour it in her glass. I awkwardly put the lasagna and salad on her plate, trying my best to ignore the liquid addiction.

After about ten minutes, she spoke up.

"Why didn't you tell me your school is having an open house tomorrow?" she asked accusingly. My heart almost stopped. I kept my eyes glued to my plate as I answered.

"I...I didn't know about it," I lied.

"Bullshit. You're trying to keep me from going because there's something going on. Isn't there? If you tell me now, I won't be as mad. Come on, what is it? A bad grade? You don't like some teacher? The kids picking' on you? Come on, tell me," she pressured.

I kept silent. If only she knew that she was the real bully.

"Whatever. I'll find out what it is tomorrow, and your ass will be grounded," she said, getting up from the table and not taking her plate to the sink. She took the bottle of Scotch with her, and that was the last I saw of her until the next morning, when I had to wake her up, the day's dreadful, unavoidable events fresh in my mind.

-

next chapter is the dreadful, unavoidable open house! what do you think will happen? thank you for reading, voting, and commenting, you guys are so luscious. :P xx