notepad ; malum

04

Last night, Calum had been so up for the idea of getting a girlfriend. Last night, it seemed like the easiest thing in the world. But now, as he walked through the front doors of the school and scanned over the seas of people, the 'great' idea seemed to falter into nausea. 

How was he even going to talk to a girl if he couldn't talk? He always avoided using his notepad unless he had to. He couldn't just walk up to a girl, stare at her and boom, girlfriend. 

"Calum?" Michael repeated himself, snapping his fingers in front of Calum's gaze. Calum blinked a couple times then looked over at Michael like a dear in headlights. 

Michael raised an amused eyebrow. "Why were you staring at Jade Bender?" He asked, a grin streching across his lips. 

Calum furrowed his eyebrows in confusion then looked back to where he had been previously looking while he was zoned out. Sure enough, the ever so popular red head was right in his line of vision, chatting happily to her friends. This was perfect.

He looked back up at Michael and smiled bashfully, shrugging his shoulders. His gaze fell to his shoes and he heard Michael gasp. "Oh my gosh, you have a crush on her!" He declared, catching Ashton and Luke's attention.

"He has a crush on who?" Luke asked intently, like he was ready to murder whoever was going to come in between him and his Malum (Michael and Calum's ship name he'd come up with) love story.

Michael's grin melted into a smirk. "Calum has a crush on Jade." He announced quietly, but loud enough for just Ashton and Luke to hear, and nodded his head over towards where Jade was.

Ashton and Luke both looked in the direction of where Michael had nodded. "Well, shit. I don't blame you, buddy." Ashton breathed, patting Calum's shoulder. "She's hot."

Calum nodded to make it seem like he wasn't completely revolted. It not that he thought Jade was unattractive because she was very beautiful, but Michael was more beautiful. Wait, no. Calum was suppose to be convincing himself the opposite.

He groaned out loud on accident, earning weird glances from his three friends. "Jesus, what ever dirty thoughts you're having about her can wait until you get home." Michael joked. Calum flushed dark red and Ashton and Luke laughed.

The bell interupted them and suddenly all the groups around them started seperating. "I gotta go, guys. My locker is on the other side of the school." Luke said in a hurry, giving them all a small wave before rushing off.

The rest off them bid their goodbyes and disapeared to their own lockers. Michael whispered something about setting Jade and Calum up before he left. 'This is going to be one hell of a day', Calum thought.

+

Calum was sitting in his second period class, the class he always forgot he shared with Luke. When Luke sat next to him today, Calum nearly leaped out of his seat in fear but relaxed when he saw it was just Luke.

"Why are you so jumpy?" Luke asked Calum as he started to take out his homework so when the teacher came around, she could check it. "Like, if it wasn't me, why are you so afraid of people sitting next to you?"

Calum wrote on his notepad.

'Because they try to start conversation.'

Luke couldn't help but laugh softly. "Is making friends really that bad?" He teased and Calum rolled his eyes, softly jutting his elbow into Luke's side.

After a bit of silence because the teacher had started to talk, Luke spoke up again. "Do you actually like Jade?" He asked Calum quietly.

Calum looked over at Luke with furrowed eyebrows. He nodded as convincingly as he could, sitting on his hands because he bit his nails when he was nervous and Luke knew that and would probably catch on.

Luke watched Calum carefully, like he was looking for something, but then sighed. "Ok. It just seemed a bit fake when you were talking about it this morning." He explained. "Sorry for questioning it."

Calum's eyes focused back on the front board and he bit down on his lip. Luke was obviously catching on, so he'd have to convince him as hard as he needed to convince himself.

The door to the classroom opened and the last person Calum wanted to see right then walked in the door. Jace.

The teacher, Ms. Blue, stopped her lesson and looked over at Jace. "Yes?" She asked, irritable because Jace had just interupted her lesson.

"I switched classes and Mr. Henderson told me this was my new period two class." Jace explained, putting an annoyingly sweet smile on his face.

Ms. Blue let a sigh out of her thin lips, looking over the class before her eyes landed on the empty desk on the other side of Calum. "You can take a seat beside Mr. Hood." She instructed. 

Jace made eye contact with Calum and scowled, causing Calum to mildly pale. He immaturely stomped over to the desk and no one seemed to notice he was stomping except Calum. 

When Jace sat down, he immediately scooted as far away from Calum on his chair as humanly possible. The boy sitting diagonally in front of him, Holden from Calum's soccer team, gave him a strange look. 

"Mute has head lice, that's why he always wears that fucking hat." Jace whispered to him. 

Both Calum's and Holden's eyebrows shot up. Calum shook his head but Holden just gave him a disgusted look before turning forward again. 

Jace smirked at Calum, nudging his leg with his toe under the table. "This'll be a fun year, yeah, Hood?" He whispered, the smirk evident in his voice. 

Calum grumbled under his breath and locked his eyes forward. Even though he wasn't looking, he could hear the scowl on Jace's face as he spoke his next sentence. 

"Stay the fuck away from Michael and we won't have a problem."