polarize :: [hood]

[v.iv. every little thing i do]

"Every little thing I do you're on my mind, the way I feel lately, It's driving me crazy..."

___

All morning, Calum has difficulty concentrating.

Royce has him kind of fucked up.

He almost skips calculus, but he comes in case she shows.

All morning, Calum blows up Royce's phone. The only way she will be able to ignore his texts and calls and voicemails, he thinks, is if she's turned off her phone.

When she doesn't respond and when she doesn't show, he only stays in his classes to be there, present, on campus when she shows up. Because this was Royce. Inside of this new girl who he'd somehow corrupted, was still who he'd met--the princess who cared about her grades.

So in chemistry, when Calum looks randomly out of the window and sees Royce--his Royce--on the back of a motorcycle, he damn near has a heart attack.

And to add to his stress, then he sees she's on the back of Zayn Malik's motorcycle.

And he flips.

And he flips all kinds of shits.

Because he leaves his books where they are and gets up in the middle of class.

Luke looks up from his notes, startled.

"What the fuck just happened?"

Calum lowers his voice, ducking his head. His teeth are clamped together, "I found her."

"Royce? Wait, Cal--Cal."

But Calum doesn't hear. He's already gone.

Their teacher looks up from the lesson.

"Mr. Hood?"

Calum pauses on his way across class.

"Is there something--?"

"Bathroom," he says quickly, with another fleeting look out of the window. The motorcycle's disappeared, now.

But, his teacher nods. There was no way to say 'no' to a much-needed bathroom break.

"Go on, then."

And Calum barely catches all of that because it didn't matter what anyone said, he was going to leave whether or not anyone gave him the green light to do it.

He practically sprints down the hallway, hitting the doors and then the gates of St. Augustine and jogging out into the parking lot, squinting against the rainy afternoon mist as he scours the lot for his girlfriend on someone else's fucking motorcycle.

He hears them before he sees.

"Sorry, but Chris Brown can out-sing Trey Songz."

"Oh, no way! Have you heard his new album? Chris Brown is on way too many drugs, now."

Zayn gasps. "You take that back!"

"Hey, I just call it like I see it--"

"Didn't know you two were such great friends."

And Royce jumps, nearly crashing into the bike and knocking it over. "Calum--?" And for a moment her eyes are wide and shocked and he's happy. He's happy that she looks this way because he's been worried as fuck all day while she's been ignoring the hell out of him.

"Royce?" He mimics, sending a scowl towards both her and Zayn. "What the fuck is this?"

"Nothing."