How Things Started (And How Things Ended) - A Calum Hood fanfic

1

An Oreo cookie. It started with an Oreo cookie. My ten year old brain wasn't mature enough back then. I felt like the world was on the palm of my hand and I could have everything. But not that particular Oreo cookie.

I was at school. There was only one Oreo cookie left in the jar and I just had to have it. I didn't care about sharing it with my classmates. I was a bit selfish. I was the queen bee of the class. It was mine. Until he took it away from me.

I was about to grab the jar when he beat me to it. At first it was a shocker. How dare he take my cookie! I faced him with my arms crossed, my hip to the side, chin-up, and one arching eyebrow - like a boss. But to my surprise, he was taller than me about a few inches to be exact. He was a skinny thing with curly hair, brown eyes and a tan skin color.

At my current age, girls would call him a "cutie-patootie" but when I was ten, he was Goliath and I was David.

I could hear how he chewed into that last Oreo cookie until he swallowed it down to his stomach. "That was MY Oreo cookie!" I said furiously.

He wiped off the remaining crumbs from his mouth and rubbed his hands on the sides of his shirt. Then I heard him speak for the first time. "It didn't have your name on it, unless your name is Oreo." 

"My name's not Oreo. It's Theia. And who are you?"

He took a step closer to me. I wanted to inch back, thinking he was going to pound me or something. I was ten so my thoughts were "anything could happen". But he just raised his hand in a form of a hand shake and said "I'm Calum Thomas Hood. Nice to meet you." He gave a shy smile but I had to stay firm with my character because to me he was a stranger. So I just looked at his hand and then at his eyes. He has mesmerizing brown eyes. I just lost myself in his eyes and before I knew it he just took my hand and shook it.

I was shocked and immediately pulled it away. "You can't shake my hand," I said. 

"Why not?" he asked.

Aside from having being beaten to the last Oreo cookie, another thing that scared me was people touching my hands. I have sweaty hands, always had and always will. It was something I inherited in the family. I sometimes think of it as a curse or an imperfection since as the saying goes, "Nobody is Perfect."

"My hands are sweaty. You can't touch them because you'll think it's gross and then you'll laugh at me," I said. But what he said next surprised me. Indeed he was somewhat different.

"I don't mind if you have sweaty hands. I like your hands because they're soft," he said to me.

And again, he took my hand and intertwined it with his and then let go. It didn't seem normal for me since I was just ten and things like intertwining your hand with a boy you just met don't happen everyday. This may sound cliche or childish, since it came from a ten year old but to me, I've finally found my first love. It wasn't about admiration for his looks, but the way he didn't care about my sweaty hands. That he just cared about how he likes my imperfections. 

My first love.

My first crush.

Calum Thomas Hood.

"Can we start over?" he asked.

I just nodded. Once again, he raised his hand in a form of a hand shake. "Hello. My name is Calum Thomas Hood. You can call me Calum." He smiled at me.

I took his hand and shook it, minding that he didn't mind touching my sweaty hand. He was real, and he was there. The two of us, just ten year olds who were on the brink of something we will never understand.

LOVE.

"Hi Calum. My name's Theia. Theia Cellestine Moon."

"I like your name," he said

"I like that you lke my name," I replied.

And that's how things started