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I'm talking to my lab partner in the hallway when Calum walks by. I zone out of the conversation when I take notice of the empty look on his face.
"Carly, I have to go," I tell her, my eyes not once leaving Calum. I leave her behind without an explanation as I follow him down the hallway to catch up with him.
"Calum." I pull at his wrist and he stops. He doesn't turn to face me and when I step around him he turns his head to the side. I take hold of his chin, my fingers digging into his cheeks, and I make him look down at me. His eyes are glazed over and red, and I see no emotion whatsoever in them. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"
I let go of his face only to take hold of his left hand to drag him with me out to the back of the school which is normally reserved for stoners, but thankfully it's empty when we step outside. Calum stands with his hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans, his eyes glued to the ground. I cross my arms and glare up at him.
"So you're getting high in school now? What the hell are you thinking?" Slowly he lifts his head up to look at me with dull eyes.
"I don't know," he mutters. "I just felt really sad."
"I told you to call me when you feel sad. I thought we had a deal."
"No offense, Chandler, but some things not even you can fix."
"But weed can? Even when you can get caught in school?"
"I don't really care right now," he mumbles and he kicks at the ground.
"So you don't care that you can be suspended, or even expelled? You don't care that you can lose any shot at a soccer scholarship for being baked on campus grounds?"
"I—I don't know what I'm thinking, Chandler," he snaps. One of his hands moves up to run over his face. "One moment I'm fine and the next it feels like the walls are closing in on me and I'm this emotional fucking mess."
"Then talk to me," I press. "And if you don't want to talk to me, talk to someone else—or take a nap or a bath or just anything, but don't get high in school."
"I don't get why you care so much."
"We're friends, remember? I don't need another reason to care, I just do."
"Can we do something today after school? Like, just take a walk or something."
"I can't today," I tell him sadly. "I have a thing."
"What thing.?"
"I don't know if you want to know."
"Just tell me."
"I'm having dinner at Michelle's."
"Oh." Calum's tongue slides over his lips for a second. "You're right, I didn't want to know that."
"Go find Michael. He should have some eye drops. Then you should go home and sleep it off. You look like you're about to pass out."
"I can't go home, mom is there."
"Sneak in through Michael's window and go to sleep over at his house then."
"You mean where Michelle lives?"
"She's not going to be in Michael's room."
"Fine," he grunts. He scrunches his nose before speaking again. "Thanks, Chandler."
"Don't mention it," I shrug. When he walks to skip down the stairs to leave I clear my throat, making him turn back to me. I hold my hand out. "Keys. You're not driving."
"Really?" I nod and he rolls his eyes, though he fishes his keys out and tosses them over to me. I catch them. "See you later, Chandler."
...
"Nothing has really changed since you were here last," Michelle says as we walk into her room. "I suppose it wasn't very long ago, but it feels like forever."
"Yeah." I dump my bag on her floor before falling back into her beanbag chair with a sigh.
"Have you talked to Calum more since Monday? He just walks away whenever I try to." Michelle speaks loudly and I place my finger over my lips to signal for her to keep her voice down. She looks confused.
"He's over sleeping in Michael's room."
"He's here?" I nod. "What, why?"
"I told him to when I found him walking around school high as a kite."
"He was smoking in school?" I nod again. "Oh my God, this is all my fault."
"I'm not fighting you on that one."
"Should I go and talk to him?"
"I don't think that's a good idea. You'll probably only trigger him even more."
"I'm sorry I accused you of wanting to sleep with him. I really appreciate that you're making sure he's all right."
"I know you still care about him," I say, my fingers picking at the beanbag. "I'm just making sure he's fine, and making it so that you don't have to worry about him. Harry actually asked me out today."
"Harry?" she dumbfounds. "Wow, I can't believe you're actually living the dream of almost every girl at school."
"Yeah it's...nice, I guess." I sigh. "God, he's just so wonderful, isn't he?"
"You're lucky."
I look over at Michelle who is sitting cross legged on her bed and I furrow my brows. "How did it feel when you kissed Luke?"
"Oh, um...I liked it I think. I'd been with Calum for so long and it just felt new and exciting." She picks up a pillow and hugs it to her chest. "He kissed me back for a while and I even ended up on top of him in his car but I guess it was just like a reflex thing for him. I think I would have kept kissing him for a long time if he hadn't stopped it."
"But why would you want something new? Calum is a great guy—and a great kisser."
"I know. I just wanted more I guess."
"Have you talked to Luke any?"
"No, not really. I can't even get Michael to talk to me whenever our parents don't force us to interact."
"Does your mom know?"
"No," she says. "Michael and I have a deal that we don't discuss teen things like that with our parents."
"That's probably a good idea."
"Yeah," she agrees and she gets off the bed to walk over to rummage through her closet. "They know we go to parties and drink some or whatever, but I think they'd flip if they found out about the sex and the drugs and all of the other unlawful things we get up to. Well, the boys do tend to take things to another level more often than us."
"It does baffle me how Michael gets away with so much."
She turns around with a case of Mike's Hard Lemonade in hand and shrugs. "He's a guy, the rules are different for him."
"As always." Michelle hands me a bottle and before resuming her seat on her mattress she clinks her own against it.
"Cheers to being girls."
...
Jin is so gorgeous he really is worldwide handsome
