prologue - "let's just pray that you're better at chemistry"
"You bitch!"
Just like music to my ears, my day at school began in the only way acceptable.
"I thought to god you weren't coming to school." I looked over at the small brown haired girl who had bumped into me in the hall and began to laugh at her words.
"Sam, for the last time, I thought to god isn't a saying." Sam rolled her eyes intensely and I continued to laugh as I looked away from her.
"Maya, we've talked about this. You're my best friend, just let me say what the hell ever I want to say. It's easier that way and you know it." I could tell Sam was in a worse mood than she usually was, but I decided not to ask her what the matter was. She probably just hadn't had time to make coffee that morning and was cranky. "Where were you first and second?"
"I just slept in, I had a migraine." Sam nodded, understanding, but all of a sudden bounced up.
"Oh my god, guess what you missed?"
"What?"
"You're really bad at the whole guessing thing." Sam rolled her eyes again and I shook my head at her in amusement. "Colin had a nose bleed all over Hannah: it was disgusting. I think she broke up with him."
"Aw, poor guy," I muttered as I looked down at my shoes. "Is he okay?"
"He had a nose bleed, Maya, not an aneurysm."
"What is with you this morning?" I asked her and she sighed, clearly not her usual self. "I was referring to the Hannah situation; if she broke up with him for proving to have human functions, she's an asshole."
"Everyone already knows Hannah Webber is an asshole, it's his fault for getting with her in the first place. I'm sure he'll be fine." I shrugged, guessing Sam was right and began to notice that my shoelace was slowly coming untied. "Also, my fucking coffee maker broke this morning. Can you believe that?"
"Yeah, I can. It happens to a lot of people." I smiled over at Sam and she glared at me with fire in her eyes. I laughed quietly, but stopped as I felt my left foot tug on the shoelace of my right shoe, causing me to fall forward and bump into a group of people. "Oh, I'm so sorry—" I looked up at a large group of guys and immediately lost all ability to speak.
"That's okay," One of them said as they continued to walk, not even phased by my flailing. The guy who had spoken to me flashed me a sweet smile and continued to walk off.
"God, you're weird," Sam said, rolling her eyes as she cut me off and walked into our chemistry classroom that I had almost passed up. "Guys, watch out, Maya just ran into Michael Clifford and I think she imagined losing her virginity five times," Sam announced to our entire group of friends and I rolled my eyes as I brought my arms up and crossed them against my chest.
"Michael Clifford is the weirdest guy ever," I looked over at our classmate Kelsey as she spoke and was surprised to see her face of disgust. Kelsey was always saying something rude, but most of us felt too bad to not be friendly with her. "My mom told me that his mom—"
"Kelsey, shut up," My friend Christian begged and I laughed quietly, appreciating him for doing so. "No one cares about the passive aggressive thing your mom told you about someone else." Kelsey pursed her lips and quickly walked across the classroom, leaving our group. We all quietly thanked Christian and he shrugged it off. "Calum just switched in, that must be why you bumped into his flock."
"Calum?" I asked, surprised to hear that name. "He's in this class now?"
"Why are you so star struck? They're normal people," Sam groaned in frustration and I made a mental note to sneak in the teacher's lounge to get her some coffee or a candy bar after this class.
"He's just never had a class with us before, Sam. I'm not saying he's a god."
"If you say so," Sam said, throwing her hands up in surrender as she slowly walked across the classroom to her seat. Sadly we had assigned partner seating in this class, but I sat next to Christian, so it was fine. The two of us sat by ourselves at the farthest table to the right and managed to talk more than the groups of four all around the classroom. You could say we had a good time.
I threw my backpack onto the floor and took a seat on my usual stool.
"Wait, is that Calum sitting down over there? Not talking to anyone?" I asked, scanning the room and seeing a dark haired boy sitting by himself.
"Yeah, that would be him."
"Maybe we should go talk to him," I said, staring over at him. I felt someone gently tug on my chin and realized Christian had taken my face in his hand. I looked over at him and he smiled at me.
"I doubt you'd like talking to him." I shrugged and started to pull out my binder for this class, but couldn't help but look over at Calum. The tardy bell rang and as Calum looked up and made eye contact with me, I literally jumped, almost missing my stool on the way down. I turned away from him, but had seen the ends of his lips curl into a smile.
"Okay, guys," Mr. Isaacs started, clapping his hands together. "We have a very busy day ahead, so as we do some of the first things on our agenda, please work quickly. Today's agenda begins with assigning new lab partners. Everyone up!" The classroom immediately filled with groans, including Christian and I who were dreading sitting by other people. We all moved to the back of the room and awaited our names to be called.
"Christian Corey and Kelsey Stiff," Mr. Isaacs slammed his hand down on the first table in the front of the room and I immediately let out a laugh as Christian tensed up.
"Fuck me," Christian whispered as he slowly departed from me and moved toward Mr. Isaacs.
"Julian Stacey and Bentley Cooper. Carol Andrews and Reilly Steward. Samantha Crew and Peter Lois. Calum Hood and Maya Jacobson," My ears shot up as I heard my name after Calum's and my heart began to beat quickly. Calum's eyes shifted through the crowd of people that were left as he moved toward the middle of the room and as his eyes landed on me, I began to walk where Mr. Isaac had assigned us. Calum smiled at me like he had before and let me get to the bench before him.
"Where would you prefer to sit?" he asked and I looked down at the options. I decided not to sit on the edge, and he seemed to be fine with that; taking the other seat without question. I had stopped paying attention to Mr. Isaacs at this point and began focusing on my breathing. I don't know why sitting by Calum had thrown me so off guard, but it had really shaken me.
"So, Maya Jacobson." I looked over at Calum as he spoke to me and tried to think of how he wanted me to respond.
"Yes?" I asked and he laughed under his breath, smile on his face.
"I can never remember your name," he told me and I immediately frowned. We had been going to the same school since before I could remember and he didn't even know me by name whenever he saw me?
Talk about a self-esteem killer.
"Oh," I turned from him slightly and began to pull my binder back out. Noah Fryer and Ben Brahms began to walk towards me and I sighed at the fact I was going to be sitting in between a bunch of guys.
"I'm just really bad at names," Calum mumbled and I rolled my eyes, slowly realizing that he was just going to be annoying to be partnered with.
"Well, let's just pray that you're better at chemistry," I mumbled back and he scoffed.
"Oh, I'm great at chemistry," Calum told me and I looked up at him. "The love kind, too."
a/n:
HEY!!!!
so this is literally the quickest & shortest chapter blurb ever but i just wanted to publish this and have a little teaser to get u guys involved ya know?
i'm not really sure when i'll start updating this book, but i did want to go ahead and put this out there so it could get a little bit of attention
calum is my bbyg so this story means a lot to me
ok im gonna go type for msb and soon enough i'll type the first chapter of this
prepare yourselves ppl!!!! :)
JILL