noted → calum hood | #Wattys2015

thirty two

Three knocks against the open door to Melanie's bedroom tear her attention from her phone. "What's up, Mel?" Luke walks inside and closes the door behind him, he knows well enough that Melanie would hate for him to do otherwise.

"How'd you get in here?" Melanie inquires her friend who has sat on her swivel chair.

"Your mom let me in."

Melanie raises an eyebrow in cofusion. "She left for work half an hour ago."

Luke takes a black Sharpie from the translucent pencil case on Melanie's desk, and begins drawing on the white wood of the desktop. "Then she came back; said she forgot her lunch. I was walking up to the door and she offered to let me inside as she was leaving." Melanie nods, but Luke smirks. "Nice to see you and Cal are getting along." He pulls a piece of folded paper out of his front pocket and tosses it Melanie's way. His smirk is replaced with a straightforward scowl. "Why didn't you tell me you two kissed?"

Melanie unfolds it gingerly. From what she can assume, it's a note from Calum; the first one since he missed their date. "I don't know, I didn't think it mattered."

Luke scoffs. "You kissed Calum, while you two were confessing your feelings to each other after not speaking for nearly six months, and you're telling me that doesn't matter?" His voice is raised slightly, and he's absolutely dumbfounded. Melanie nods and folds back the note, not bothering to read it. She pulls open the middle drawer of her bedside table and places it inside, alongside every single note Calum had ever written her. Luke sighs and stops doodling. The desktop is filled with different creations of Luke and Melanie's, each drawing holding a memory of varied significance. "Something's wrong," Luke says as he spins around to face Melanie. She shakes her head. "Tell me."

"It's nothing, Lucas."

"You know that's not my name, first off," he sighs. "You know you can tell me anything."

Mel straightens her position on the bed and begins playing with the hem of her shirt. "This may sound odd, but when you kiss someone," she bites her lip. "Is there supposed to be a spark?"

Luke plays with the cool, black metal in his lip. "I don't know, I mean it's happened a few times with Aries. Why?" His eyes widen. "Don't tell me you had a spark when you kissed Michael."

Melanie shakes her head. "God, no." Luke laughs quietly. "I actually didn't have a spark with Calum."

Luke ponders the ordeal. "That's not a bad thing, necessarily. You're still upset with him over what he told Mackenzie, right?" Mel nods in agreement. "That's probably the reason. Give it time, let the feelings build. Everything will be alright in the end, I assure you."

Melanie flops back and rests her hands on her stomach with a groan. "This is more complicated than I was hoping for."

"It's worth it, Mel. Love comes differently for everybody."

Her right leg is stretched out, and her left one with the knee in the air. "I don't love him."

"You know what I mean." States the taller of the two. "Now, if we're done talking about our love lives, I'm going back to drawing on your desk."

Melanie sighs. "Why can't we go back to being on the roadtrip? I'd rather you take me back to the middle of nowhere than have to be dealing with this."

Luke huffs. "Do me a favor, Mel?"

She looks up. "What?"

"Chill."

»

Melanie does not read the note from Calum until Luke has left. He explained that though he didn't snoop through and read the letter, he did catch up with Calum before the older boy requested that Luke dropped it off the next time he saw her.