if i told you | muke

02 ► Names

The only thing that bothered me after him not knowing of my existence in the first place was that I didn't even know his name. Calum probably knew, he was the kind of guy who could easily make a conversation with anyone if he wanted to. Though I was the person to be afraid of what he would think about me being interested in guys. I wouldn't prefer to lose my only friend out here, I was already quite lonely.

After three weeks in school I had already seen my redhead quite a lot of times, I noticed we even had a few classes together since the day after I had seen him for the first time. But of course I always ended up sitting on the exact opposite side of the classroom and he was never really interested in learning stuff anyway so he rarely looked up from his phone screen. During these times I didn't hear him talk a lot, except when it was with the guy he often sits next to. His name was Ashton. I once saw them together in the music room, singing Minority by Green Day. Their voices go pretty good together.

Though I didn't like Ashton, not at all. He once let me trip during p.e. with no reason, causing the entire class to laugh at me. Everyone except the red haired angel, who was too busy tickling a friend on the other side of the field. He had never looked at me in the eye. I had seen his pretty big green ones but they were always looking at something or someone else. There was always something more interesting than me, even when I fall on my face in front of the whole class. I had stood up immediately and rolled my eyes at Ashton, even though I had to bite back tears. Calum had ran over to me and asked if I was okay but I just shrugged and nodded like it wasn't even a big deal.

It hadn't been the first time Ashton picked on a quieter kid. It happened frequently that I saw a someone on the floor of the hallway, him laughing in the background. Either that or he would just make comments which could make your self esteem drop within the littlest of a second. Redhead knew that Ashton did that but he still put up with him.

I didn't get why. He was the type of guy who was always happy, who always talked and laughed with anyone and whenever he was around everyone was happy, even though he had bright red dyed hair, an eyebrow piercing, black skinny jeans and his sleeves were always rolled up a bit to show off his tattooed arms. He deserved so much better than all that negative energy. I imagined myself being so much better for him. Only the thought of me being the cause of that heart warming smile brought my cheeks to flush, even though I realised very well that was only a fantasy.

-

I groaned and threw my pen on my desk as I leaned backwards, not able to concentrate on anything but green eyes and cherry coloured lips. I was supposed to study but my mind wouldn't let me. "How is algebra even relevant in my future life again?" I complained, stretching my arms and back, turning around to Calum who was on his phone laying on my bed.

"That's why I just quit trying," he grinned, like there was no such things as tests and grades. He would get a good grade anyway, whether he studied or not. It wasn't fair. But hey, was life ever?

"So punk," I sarcastically said, rolling my eyes at him. I could study for ten hours straight and still not get it.

"I know man," he grinned. "Talking about punk, Harry is throwing a party coming weekend. He invited me but it's an open invitation, do you feel like coming too?"

I pressed my lips together, I didn't like parties. There are people everywhere around you, I didn't even like people. But then something popped into my mind. "Isn't harry the one with the long curly hair?" I asked. I had often seen him in the group with my red haired boy as well, which means the chance is big that he is coming to the party too.

"Yeah, his hair is even worse than Matty's, man," Calum laughed. "Why? Do you fancy him?"

A loud laugh escaped my mouth and I aggressively shook my head. "No man, I just wanted to know. Do you know who else is coming?"

Calum's eyes found their way back to his phone screen and he scrolled while looking for the names. "Let me see... Ashton is coming," he started, and I immediately sighed in irritation.

"That prick?" I scoffed.

"Ashton is a great guy when you get to know him!" Calum defended, causing me to shoot him a questioning glare.

"Yeah, he made me fall on my face in front of the entire class last week, what a great guy!" I exclaimed sarcastically. I didn't get why Calum would defend him, even though I'd seen the two of them talking in class before. Everyone just liked Calum, he was never made fun of. But the fact he picked Ashton's side instead of his best friend's made me a bit angry. Though I was not going to fight him about it. I decided to count to ten and let it go. "Whatever man. Who else is coming?" I asked and stood up from my chair to join him on my bed. I looked at his screen as he was scrolling through the names of the event on Facebook. Alex, Ed, Zack, Louis, Jack, Billie, Zayn, Rian and loads more. I didn't know most of the names but recognized some pictures and they were mostly the punk guys of our school.

All of a sudden I saw red hair on one of the profile pictures. I looked a bit closer and yes, it was him. His profile picture was him on a stage with a black and white guitar in his hands, smiling and looking directly into the camera. The corners of my mouth suddenly shot up. So he was coming too.

"Michael..." I softly mumbled under my breath, finally knowing his name, but not soft enough.

"Yeah, he's coming too," Calum said, and looked at me. "Why?"

"I - um, nothing," I quickly said.

"You know your face is redder than his hair at the moment, right?" he said and wiggled his eyebrows at me, grinning wider than I had ever seen before. I quickly put my hands on my cheeks which were burning and my heart started to race.

"He's just cute, that's all," I mumbled, looking away from Calum. My plan to keep it a secret had already failed. Great way to go, Luke.

"Oh, Lukey has a little crush!" Calum said excitedly.

"Shut up," I mumbled but he pretended he didn't hear me.

"Have you ever talked to him?" he asked.

"Do I look like I talk with a lot of people? Even a rotten potato could have a better social life than me," I chuckled. Calum laughed with me, he knew me better than anyone. Besides my family he was the only person I voluntarily talked to.

"It's about time to let him notice you man," he smiled at me. "So I assume you're coming as well?"
I bit my lip and nodded, because yeah. It was a great chance to finally get noticed by him. By Michael.