she slipped ; malum

prologue

CALUM HAD NEVER TALKED MUCH, ANYWAY, BUT WITH THIS NEW-FOUND DRAMA, HE HAD MORE REASON TO USE THE EXPRESSION 'NO COMMENT' AT LEAST ONCE OR TWICE. There were so many rumours around him – serious rumours. The type of rumours that had the police involved, causing him to repeat the same words over and over.

I didn't do it. She slipped.

Nobody believed him; he was already renowned for doing terrible shit. The story was almost perfectly set up to make him look even worse than he already was. A beautiful girl and a troubled boy, playing on the edge of a cliff.

The police couldn't form enough evidence to convict him of murder, but the label engraved into his body like the smoke on his clothes. He couldn't help that people thought he was a bad person.

Calum was a ghost with a beating heart. His only purpose was to go to school and get ridiculed for it, to go down the street and get ridiculed for it, to go anywhere and get ridiculed for it. There was a bad side no matter what way he looked at it, and he'd never been real great at seeing the positive side.

Now, supposed felon Calum Hood walked around the school hallway with a grudge in his step. The grudge held for one person and one person only;

Luke Hemmings.