Foster Daughter {Adopted By Calum Hood}

The Mall

"Emily, we're gonna go shopping. Get up." Calum gently shakes my shoulder. I whine as I open my eyes to the bright light.

   "But sleep." I draw out.

   "It's 1 P.M., you don't need any more sleep." Calum laughs, pulling the blanket off of me. I whine once more as I sit up, wiping the sleep from my eyes.

  

   Wearing a black shirt, black jeans, and silver chains, I walk downstairs and see all four boys, the twins, KayKay, Crystal, and Sierra standing around the island talking.

   My eyes widen nervously as I make my way over to Calum, silently standing by his side. I nervously fidget with my hands, terrified that someone is going to try to talk to me.

After a couple minutes of standing quietly, Calum looks over at me with confused and concerned eyes. It feels like everything is closing in on me. I can't breathe properly. There's so many people that I barely know in here.

What if they all hate me?

Without drawing too much attention to us, Calum grabs my hand and swiftly pulls me into the living room. He sits me down on a chair and I cover my head with my arms, curling into a ball.

   Sometimes this helps, because it blocks out the world around me. I do what Ornella told me to do in this situation and take a deep breath in, counting to three, and letting it out. After a couple minutes, I calm down, and slowly unroll from my ball.

   Calum sits there, watching me carefully. I blush and look at the ground, embarrassed about having a panic attack in front of Calum.

   What if he thinks I'm a freak?

   "You wanna go ahead and leave?" He asks. I nod lightly, standing up and following him. He calls out to everyone that we're leaving and grabs his wallet. Everyone responds with either an 'okay' or some sort of 'have fun' and we walk out the door and into the car.

   "I'm sorry about that. I was hoping that we could invite everyone over at different times, instead of all at once. You could get to know them individually, instead of being thrown into a crowd of people again.  I didn't know they were coming until they showed up." He tells me as we pull onto the road. I nod lightly.

   "It's okay." I whisper.

The mall.

A big building with crowds of people.

What could go wrong?

"You ready?" Calum asks, opening his door.

"No." I grumble quietly. He didn't hear me, though, and we got out of the car.

"So where do you want to go first?" Calum asks. I shrug.

"I've only ever been to target." I confess. He looks at me incredulously. "We only got to go on trips to a fast food place twice a year and on our birthdays we'd go to target and Ornella would buy us an item or two."

"Well, based on your style, you'd like Hot Topic, Zumiez, maybe some other store like Rue 21." He says.

I have no idea what any of that means.

"Let's try Hot Topic first." He says, leading the way.

The dark store with band merch and accessories all over the place captivates me the second I walk in. I revel at all of the T-Shirts with band logo's and TV shows on them.

"How many things can I get?" I ask. Calum's eyes soften as a small smile appears on his face.

"As much as you want, bug." He replies.

"But I don't wanna—"

"I said, whatever you want. Money's not a big problem." He interrupts, lightly pushing me towards the band T's.

I walk around, grabbing Green Day, Billie Eilish, Queen, Lil Peep, XXXTENTACION merch, and a couple more chains. I think about putting a few down, seeing how expensive they are, but Calum said whatever I want and wouldn't let me argue.

I'm about to tell him I'm ready to check out, when I see something that I've always wanted.

A septum ring.

My eyes shift from the matte black septum ring, to Calum, and then back, hesitant to ask.

"Umm... Cal?" I ask. He turns around from where he was standing, typing on his phone. "What do you think about piercings?"

"They're cool. Luke used to have one. I think you can do whatever you want, it's your body." He confirms, realizing why I'm asking. "As long as it's not anywhere private until you're 18, because I have to be there for it and I don't wanna see that shit."

"So I can get a septum piercing?" I ask. He shrugs.

"I don't see why not."

After going around to different stores and getting loads of bags full of clothes and other things, Calum says he has one more place to go before we can go to piercing and tattoo shop down the road.

I mindlessly follow him, lugging a few bags behind me. Calum starts opening the door to one of the shops, but he quickly let's go and turns around when a voice says his name.

A girl around my age stands there, nervous and excited.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but can I get a picture?" She asks politely. He smiles kindly at her and leans in for a picture, her friend grabs her phone and takes the picture, and then hands it back to her. They thank him before leaving and Calum continues to open the door.

We walk in and I'm a bit confused as to where we are, but then I see iPhones everywhere. He walks up to the counter and asks a question.

"You're looking for one for her?" Asks the employee. Calum nods, saying something about 'S-E'. Whatever that means.

"No. No we're not." I protest. Calum's eyebrows furrow as he looks towards me. "Stop wasting your money on me."

"It's my money." He argues.

"But I feel bad." I whine.

"Well don't." He laughs.