0 3
s u r r e p t i t i o u s
If you had told me that someday, I'd be sitting with Callum Wright during lunch period, I would've laughed out a lung. Yet there I was that day, sitting on the low wall with Callum barely five feet away from me.
The silence between us settled comfortably, since Callum wasn't that much of a talker, and I was busying myself with unwrapping my turkey sandwich. Noticing that he wasn't eating anything, I tore the sandwich into half and offered it to him.
"Want some?"
He glanced over at the turkey sandwich. After a slight moment's hesitation, he took the sandwich from my hand and began to eat, but not before picking out the thin slice of lettuce, and depositing it on the sandwich wrapper.
I stifled a smile. So Callum Wright didn't eat his vegetables. Well, for a tough guy like him, I never would've guessed that he had an aversion to something like that. The more time I spent with Callum, the less intimidating I found him. He was just a regular boy, like Jason, like Dave, like any other guy I knew.
"Can I ask you something?" I blurted, unable to stop my curious nature from prying.
He merely glanced at me. "What?"
"Why don't you stay home like the other kids?" His eyebrows shot up and I hastily continued, "Half the school's practically after you. If you stayed home and just avoided Hell Week altogether, it'd be a lot easier, don't you think?"
He didn't look at me. Instead, he kept his gaze focused on a particularly rough patch on his jeans, his calloused thumb smoothing the patch over and over again. "It's just not the way I am," he murmured, at last. "If I can dish out bullying all through the year, I can very well handle a week of it myself."
"Then just stop with the bullying already," the words left my lips before I could stop them. "Things around here would be so much simpler if you and your friends stopped with all the meanness."
He laughed at that, his laughter almost sardonic, and I felt a shiver down my spine. Thus far, I knew two sides of Callum that existed. The sweet, caring one that had watched out for me all these years. And the one that was absolutely merciless and relentless and cold-hearted.
The latter side of him was something I had only heard of from the guys. Having never actually been bullied by Callum, I was hardly a fair judge of this whole thing. Clearly, I had a myopic view of the situation, but so did Jason and the rest. They had never seen Callum at his best, I'd never seen Callum at his worst.
But, as he continued speaking, his tone harsh and vehement, I realised that I was about to.
"Your friends are trying to fight fire with fire," Callum said, almost mockingly. "They think that by getting back at me and my friends, it'll stop us from ever screwing with them again. Only it doesn't work that way."
"Then how does it work?" I couldn't help but ask.
Even though his words made me worry for my own friends, there was something undeniably intriguing about his mentality. I had only seen things from Jason's point of view. But Callum was a complete closed-up mystery.
"They're bound to get burnt," he replied, calmly, his words an echo to what I had said to Henry the day before. Perhaps Callum had managed to see things in perspective far better than my friends had.
I sighed, and stared down at my half-eaten sandwich. "I just don't want my friends to get hurt."
Callum was silent for a long moment, and when he spoke again, he no longer sounded over-confident or arrogant. Instead, his voice held a measure of apology in them. "I'm sorry, Scout, but I can't promise you that."
"Okay."
I hadn't meant for myself to sound as vulnerable as I did then, or for Callum to sense it. But he did, and I felt him shift closer to me. His thigh was flush against mine, his shoulder nudging into mine. Light tingles fluttered through my nerves, setting the ends alight on fire, but I could hardly bring myself to shift away from him.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, his breath a light caress against my cheek and I felt an involuntary shiver. "It's just - difficult. It's too hard for me to even begin to explain why I'm the way I am."
I was beginning to get a clearly sense of things, and it finally dawned on me how much left out of the loop I was. Jason couldn't explain to me his thirst for revenge, and Callum couldn't explain to me why he felt the sick urge to continue bullying people.
But I myself was in a precarious situation. I was sitting on the wall - both literally and metaphorically - in which I could hardly bring myself to pick a side in this stupid, stupid war. Perhaps I too was playing with fire. Little did I know, then, that I too was bound to get burnt.
"What's wrong?" Callum nudged me, his eyes dark as he stared intently, searchingly at me.
I shrugged. "It's nothing, it's just - " I turned to meet his eyes, aware that mine were rimming with confusion, my mouth twisted into a troubled frown, " - is it wrong for me to not side with my friends? I feel absolutely horrid for not helping Jason, I mean he is my best friend and we've stuck together for ages now but I can't even bring myself to be the slightest bit enthusiastic about Hell Week, and I'm just - "
"Scout," he stopped me, harshly. I noticed his hand reach out, almost skimming my skin, his fingers twitching as though he was debating whether to wrap them around my wrist. He seemed to decide against it, and retracted his hand abruptly. "You're not doing anything wrong. We're the screw-ups, we're the ones who've fucked things up."
He seemed almost angry when he said that, and I glanced up at him curiously. His jaw was clenched, eyes distant.
"Don't let us change you," he continued, softly. "You're perfect the way you are."
I was treading dangerous waters. Not only was I testing the game rules of Hell Week by absolutely betraying Jason and hanging out with Callum, I was testing the capabilities of my heart. It didn't help that his words made me flush, made me feel like a complete girl.
"How's your cousin, by the way?" he asked, after a moment's pause.
His abrupt change in the conversation confused me for a moment. I blinked, before gushing, "She's fine. She's in her eighth month of pregnancy, her stomach's ginormous. Can you believe it? I'm going to be an aunt in less than a month!"
Breaking out of my little reverie, I turned to Callum, belatedly realising that he was already watching me intently the whole time. I blushed, and he hastily looked away.
"I can't believe you remembered my cousin looks after me," I continued, softly, "It's been, what, four years now? Your memory's pretty good."
"Not really," He mumbled, "Some things you just don't forget easily."
But I had no time to ponder over what he meant then. Because a sudden blast of water hit us out of nowhere, so forceful I almost fell off the wall in fright.
"That's one," I heard a smug, familiar voice say, from somewhere behind us.
Another blast of water hit us, this time from my side. And I saw it coming, a huge splash from five distinct red pails, right at me. Except the water didn't quite hit me. Instead, I felt a pair of strong arms wind themselves round my waist, before spinning me quickly so that the force of water hit him instead of me.
"That's two," the voice remarked, calmly. "And now three."
It seemed as though Callum had already pre-empted the third water attack. Holding me tighter against him, he angled his body in such a way that he took the hit from the water once again. It soaked him through the bone, but as I shut my eyes, my cheeks pressed against the wet fabric of his shirt, it dawned on me suddenly that he had protected me.
Not Jason, not any of my other friends, but Callum, of all people in the world.
When it was clear that there wasn't going to be anymore - not for the time being, anyway - he pulled back and looked down at me. The concern in his eyes nearly bowled me over. "You alright?" he whispered, anxiously.
I nodded, rather dazed from everything. Still keeping an arm around my waist, Callum turned to glare at the culprits, who were exchanging grins and celebrating their success of their next prank.
"What the hell is wrong with all of you?" Callum spat, sounding every bit as furious as he looked. His eyes were blazing, angry vibes practically radiated from him, and I faltered, took a step back from him.
The guys were broke away from their conversation and turned to us. Horror dawned on their faces when they noticed me, and their ringleader, Dave, in particular, looked completely flummoxed.
"Scout?" He gasped, in disbelief.
Honestly, I hadn't any idea how to react. While I was mad that they'd done this to Callum, and to me as well, I was rather nervous because Dave and my other friends had caught me with Callum. It was only a matter of time before Jason got wind of this news.
"Hi." Smiling weakly, I wrapped my arms around myself as I let out an involuntary shiver when the chilly wind nipped at me.
"What are you - " Dave seemed to struggle to find the right words to say. " - what are you doing here? With him?"
"Uh, having lunch?" I offered, lamely.
"Shit, Scout, we're terribly sorry," one of the other guys, Louis, said meekly. "We didn't know it was you, we thought it was another one of Wright's flings and - "
"I thought girls weren't meant to be involved in Hell Week," Callum cut in, his tone smooth and venomous. "Unless they were being pranked by other girls."
The group of them looked sufficiently guilty, and instantly, I knew that Jason had once again disregarded the rules of Hell Week. It was strange, but I had thought my best friend was above playing dirty in this.
"Do you guys all follow Burke around like his lap-dogs or something?" Callum sneered, and even though he was basically bad-mouthing my friends in front of me, I couldn't help but admire how he managed to sound so in-control of the situation, despite the fact that he'd basically been pranked just minutes ago.
His words received no reply, except for some annoyed glares from some of the guys. Most of them still looked pretty baffled and guilty that they'd somehow involved me in the prank.
Rolling his eyes, Callum grabbed his bag and mine, before reaching down to take my hand. "Come on, Scout."
Still rather bewildered by everything, I followed him. It wasn't until he pushed me into his car and pulled the seatbelt over me that I realised we were taking off.
"Wait," I blurted, feeling slightly alarmed as I watched him turn the key in the ignition. "Where're we going?"
The look he threw over his shoulder at me was cold, calculated. His eyes betrayed no emotion as he said, "We're going to run them over with this car."
"What?!"
To my greatest surprise, Callum began laughing. And it wasn't even like his usual smooth chuckles, his laughter was deep and husky, the smile on his face absolutely genuine. I could've sworn I felt my toes curl at the sound of it.
"I'm kidding," he grinned, when he finally recovered from the bout of laughter. His eyes were gleaming with a mixture of mischief and something else entirely indescribable. "You should've seen your face."
I glared at him. "That's not funny. For a second there, I thought you were really going to do it."
"Scout, how bad do you think I am?" he sounded rather amused, but I was still positively peeved.
"I don't know!" I threw my hands up in frustration, feeling the tears belatedly sting my eyes. "How am I supposed to even draw the line between revenge and plain insanity anymore? Everyone scares the crap out of me."
The thought that Jason had planned this and had inadvertently involved me was far too much to bear. Did he not stop at any boundaries? Granted, it was just water, but I was a girl. It wasn't even the fact that it was me. It could've been any other girl, but the truth was that my friends had blurred the rifts of propriety. Boys weren't meant to involve girls in this, weren't meant to bully girls.
And for a second there, Callum's face had seemed almost serious. Deadly. It scared me that this amount of emotion could be invested into such a trivial thing.
Callum seemed decidedly sombre as he reached across the gearstick. I watched as his hand hovered, hesitantly above my fingers. "I'm sorry," he murmured, at last. "I didn't mean it, you know I would never scare you like that. I guess I'm just really mad at myself for involving you in this. I should've been more careful. I'm sorry."
Because he couldn't close the distance between us, I went ahead and did it for him. Pulling his hand down, I intertwined my fingers with his. Our hands were wet from the water earlier, but I felt his calloused palm warm, flush against my skin. I didn't know why I did that, but at that instant, it felt like I was choosing a side:
Callum's side.
And it was wrong and terrible of me, it was. But at least with Callum I felt safe, rational. It didn't feel like I was losing myself in Hell Week. At least with Callum there was no foul play.
"It's not your fault," I said, softly. "I told you I was going nowhere, didn't I?"
The smile that leaped to his eyes, stretched across his face made my heart desperately pound in my chest. "Yeah, you did," he agreed, and put the car in drive, slowly backing out of the parking lot.
"So, kindly explain to me where we're going?"
He laughed softly. "My place. I'll get you something dry to wear."
"But what about lessons?" my voice rose in alarm.
"Come on, Scout," I heard the teasing lilt in his voice. "Live a little. We can't go for lessons in wet clothes. You're with me now. And you may not always be safe, but I promise I won't get you into trouble."
"If you say so..." I trailed off, a little hesitantly.
"Well, not a lot anyway," he winked, before turning back to face the road.
I felt a blush rise to my cheeks and yes, it was wrong and crazy but I was so in over my head that I was already in a lot of trouble anyway.