1: guys like you
"Maya!" I slowly opened my eyes as I heard my name being yelled from downstairs and immediately squinted my eyes and furrowed my eyebrows. It was the morning, I could tell, and I was praying it was the weekend.
"Maya, you'll be late for school!" My dad yelled and I groaned loudly as I found I was wrong. "Come on, it's Friday! You're almost completely done with the week, don't give up yet!" I laughed quietly at my dad's words and slowly sat up. "Are you up?"
"Yes!" I yelled, wishing he'd just leave me be. I continued to laugh, but got out of bed. As soon as my feet hit the ground, a soft something walked through my legs and I smiled as I bent down to see my cat, Oscar. "Good morning, baby," I cooed as I picked him up. I began to scratch behind his ears as I walked toward the door and slowly opened it. I kissed him on the head and put him on the floor, letting him run out of my room and downstairs.
I closed my door back and locked it, needing to change.
I proceeded to my closet to find an outfit and it took me at least five minutes just to pick what top I wanted to wear. I just decided to go with a sweater and some leggings; it was Friday after all. I didn't have the necessary energy to put in any actual effort.
I grabbed the biggest and comfiest sweater that I owned and slipped it on over my head. I jumped into a pair of leggings and felt surprisingly put together. I grabbed some socks and sat on my bed as I put them on my feet.
I leaned over and grabbed my phone from my nightstand and took my time to go through my notifications. Most of them were texts from Sam, a couple were texts from my Dad from the night before, and the rest were Twitter notifications.
I got out of my bed and half-heartedly made it, wanting it to look nice when I got back from school, but also not wanting to spend too much time. I made my way over to my vanity and did a simple makeup look. I took my naturally wavy hair out of the ponytail I slept in and played around with it for awhile before putting it back in a pony tail.
Once I was done, I turned off my vanity light, grabbed my phone, and left my room.
I skipped down my stairs as I got to the end of the hallway and made my way into the kitchen, figuring my dad was making breakfast.
"Good morning," I greeted my dad as I stepped into the kitchen. "What's for breakfast?"
"French toast," he told me and as I saw the glorious breakfast in front of me I practically began to drool.
"What's the bad news?" I asked him and watched as his face twisted into confusion. "You didn't make my favorite breakfast without a catch."
"Yes, I did," he told me, laughing suspiciously as he continued to make the eggs. "Why would there be a catch?"
"Because I don't trust you," I told him and his dark brown eyes rolled. I had my dad's eyes; it was amusing to see his eyes roll because I could only imagine how mine looked when I constantly rolled them. "Seriously, dad, what is it?"
"Maya, nothing," he told me, shaking his head.
"Dad, tell me now or accept the consequences when I find out later," I told him and he sighed under his breath, confirming that there was something he needed to tell me.
"It's not bad," he told me as he looked over at me. "I'm going out of town for a week, for work."
"Oh," I replied, becoming slightly discouraged.
"I know I haven't left you alone in a long time, so we can work something out with Sam or something, I'm sure—"
"Dad, it's fine. I'll be fine."
"Are you sure?" he asked me as he turned his full attention toward me.
"Yes, positive. You've been attached to me at the hip since mom died... this will probably be good for both of us," I said and he smiled sadly at me before wrapping his arms around me. "Can I have Sam over?"
"Yeah, of course," he told me. "You're positive?"
"Certain," I told him, laughing. "So, where are you going?"
"There's a conference in Portland that I'm going to," he told me and my eyebrows furrowed.
"Portland, Oregon?" I asked, not previously thinking he'd be going so far. "Dad, that's very out of town. That's like one thousand miles out of town."
"I know that, Maya," he said, sighing again. "So will you not be okay alone?"
"No, Dad, that doesn't change anything about me. I just didn't realize you'd be so far." I shrugged it off as if it weren't a big deal and Dad started to make me a plate.
"You could come with me," Dad suggested, but I shook my head as I took my plate from him.
"I have school, and we're about to start a new unit in chemistry," I told him, suddenly remembering all about chemistry class. I rolled my eyes as Calum Hood crossed my mind and my dad gave me a strange look.
"You don't like chemistry?"
"You could say that," I mumbled and walked to the small dining room table just off to the side of the kitchen. I could still see Dad at the counter and I was able to talk to him. "Thanks again for making bad news breakfast."
"Anytime."
"Let's try to make it as uncommon as we can, okay?"
"Deal," Dad said before walking over to me and kissing me on the head.
. . .
"When is he getting back?" Sam asked as we walked through the school hallway. I had just informed her about my upcoming situation, and she seemed to be excited about it, but I had no idea why.
"Uh, Saturday night," I told her and she smiled widely at me. "And he's leaving tonight. Why?"
"We should throw a party," she suggested and my eyes rolled.
"Sam, please, that's the last thing I want to do." We stopped at my locker and I quickly started to unlock it, wanting to get to class before the bell rang. "That sounds so lame, and so cliche," I told her and she sighed while crossing her arms tightly over her chest.
"It could be fun, Maya. You do know what that word means, right?"
"Yes, I do," I told her, glaring over at her as I swung my locker door open. I had flung the metal door open without hesitation, and I heard it make contact with something on the opposite side which instantly caused my eyebrows to furrow.
"Ow, fuck," I heard someone say and my eyes widened as I looked over to see half of someone standing behind the door to my locker.
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry," I apologized as I stared up at Calum, whom I had just whacked in the face with the door of my locker. "Are you okay?" I asked him, instinctively moving toward him and examining where he was holding his hand on his face. "Oh, shit, I'm really sorry. I didn't see you there at all. You've got a little cut, we should get you a band-aid—"
"Maya, I'll be fine," he told me, cutting me off abruptly. "I just... I have to go." Calum rushed to walk away from me and I watched as he walked down the hallway. He was shielding his face with one hand, and I could tell he was going in the direction of the bathroom.
"Smooth," Sam spoke up after a full minute. I looked over at her and sighed, feeling awful. "Why was he acting so weird?"
"How the hell should I know? Maybe I gave him a concussion."
"Maya, you hit his cheek, I think he'll survive."
"Did you see him walk up?" I asked, furrowing my eyebrows.
"Yeah, he walked straight up to you," she told me and I gave her displeased look. "What?"
"Thanks for the heads up," I told her as began walking away from my locker. I hadn't actually been able to put anything away, but I didn't need another tardy to chemistry.
"Oh, c'mon," I heard Sam say behind me, but I kept walking. "I didn't notice until it was too late, Maya, I was talking to you. I wasn't preoccupied with who was walking up behind you."
"Okay, it's whatever."
"I thought you decided you didn't like him?" Sam asked me and I turned around, causing her to bump into me.
"Sure, I told you he was annoying. But now I'm confused as to why he was walking up to me and I feel bad for slamming him in the face with my locker. That has nothing to do with whether I like him or not." Sam gave me a weird look and I crossed my arms. "What?"
"You're just acting unusual, I don't know."
"Whatever," I said and turned around as I began walking again. Sam walked beside me and stayed quiet as we walked to chemistry.
We walked into class and I immediately looked over at the teacher's desk and saw Calum talking to him. I parted ways with Sam and sat down at our workbench. The rest of my table wasn't there yet, and I was praying it wouldn't be just Calum and me today.
I kept my eye on Calum and noticed that his body language was giving off that he was nervous. He kept tapping his foot and he couldn't decide on what to do with his hands. He eventually turned around and made eye contact with me. I unsubtly looked away from him and cursed at myself under my breath. He sat down beside me and didn't say a word.
"I'm really sorry." I looked over at him and he looked down at me. "I was upset with Sam, so I was completely out of it."
"It's really fine," he told me as he shrugged his shoulders. He looked back down and lifted his hands onto the table. "So that's Sam, your best friend?" I looked up to see him looking above my head and I began to nod as I looked behind me to see Sam sitting beside Peter Lois who kept checking himself out in the mirror beside their bench.
"Yeah, that's Sam." Calum didn't say anything for awhile and I looked back over at him to see him looking down at his phone. "Did you need to talk to me?"
"Huh?" Calum asked, keeping his eyes on his phone.
"You came up to my locker, so was there something you wanted to tell me?" He looked over at me and shook his head. "Are you going to lie and tell me your locker was over there too?" Calum rolled his eyes at me and I smirked over at him.
"I had a question, but a certain locker hitting me in the face made me forget it," Calum told me, glaring at me a little.
"Oh, come on. What was it?"
"It was nothing, don't worry about it," Calum told me, shrugging his shoulders. The bell rang and I sighed as I pulled my chemistry stuff out of my backpack and gave up on trying to get Calum to tell me.
"Today, I'm giving you a data sheet; you and your partner will be trying to figure out what's happening in the experiment. You'll also be figuring out why this experiment needed to be tested. It's just a hypothesis exercise, you don't have to be correct, but I'd like you to try your best. I was up late last night with my daughter because she was sick, so I didn't get my lesson completely figured out. We'll be starting the new unit Monday," Mr. Isaacs began to pass out the worksheets and I sighed quietly.
Calum sighed beside me too and ruffled his hair after scratching the back of his neck.
"Are you about to have a heart attack, what's going on?" I asked him quietly as I noticed he only seemed to be getting more restless.
"No, it's nothing. Sorry," he apologized. He took the papers from Mr. Isaacs and handed me one. "Are you and Sam coming to the party?" Not even a second later, my ears began to burn as I blushed at the thought of Sam and I going to a party. I whipped my head in Calum's direction before a full second could pass.
"What party?" I asked calmly, not wanting to seem eager.
"Fryer's party," I realized Calum was referring to Noah Fryer, who had been assigned to sit by us but wasn't here today, and slowly became less excited.
Noah Fryer lived across the street from me. He had a couple parties the year before, and I was never invited to any of them. I had always been close friends with Noah growing up because of our parents, but hadn't been close with him for the last couple of years. We'd never been the best of friends, but I also knew he'd be there for me if I really needed him. However, my lack of invites to his parties had started to make me think otherwise.
"Oh, I never heard anything about it," I told Calum as I sighed and looked down at our assignment.
"You guys should come," Calum said, but as I looked up at him, he was looking down at his paper and avoiding contact. "I could give you the address."
"I know where he lives," I told Calum, laughing cheaply. He looked up at me and furrowed his eyebrows. "What?"
"Fryer told me he's never invited you to a party before," Calum said and I became confused.
"So, then you know I wasn't invited to this one?" I asked and Calum hung his head in defeat. "Do you want me to go to this party?"
"What? I'm not asking for me. I mean, I'm not asking you. I mean, I..." Calum trailed off as he groaned quietly and looked over my head again. "I know someone who... wants Sam to be there."
"Oh, of course," I said, feeling slightly beaten down. "I live across the street from Noah, that's how I know where he lives."
"Wait," Calum said, smiling down at me. "Is the guy that always threatens to call the cops your dad? There's only one other house near Noah's."
"Yes, that's my dad. He would never actually call the cops. He's a dad, but he used to party, too," I said, now feeling extremely embarrassed. "Noah's never told everyone that's my dad?"
"No, that guy's pretty cool. Your dad, I mean." I sighed and looked down for the final time. I didn't want to talk anymore, I wanted to save myself from the horror. "Can you try to get Sam to come?"
"Not unless you tell me who it is that wants her there," I told him, beginning to write out my name and the date.
"Michael," Calum said and I looked up at him as I was surprised he had told me so easily. "Now, will you?"
"Sam doesn't like you guys," I told him, shrugging my shoulders.
"Oh, c'mon. Who doesn't like us? I will do anything, Maya. I can set you up with someone," Calum suggested and I rolled my eyes as I laid my pencil down. "What... is that what you want? That's easy."
"No, Calum," I told him, rubbing my face in frustration. "If Michael wants Sam to be there, he can mention it to her himself. It's not my fault if she laughs in his face."
"Don't you think it would be fun to go? You guys can hang out with us." I looked over at Calum and scoffed, wishing he'd just give up.
"If I don't have to be around you, or your friends, I'm happy. Why would I spend my free time with a bunch of guys like you?" Calum's eyebrows furrowed and I started to notice how expressive his large eyebrows were.
"Guys like me? What's that supposed to mean?"
"The egotistical, supercilious assholes who get with a new chick every week. Guys like you."
a/n
again, im not too certain i'll be updating this frequently in any way because i am mainly focusing on msb, but i got a couple more readers so i thought i would update!!!
make sure to let me know what you think of this so far!!
thanks for reading!!
jill