The sun is beaming through the window shining upon me, but that's not what woke me up at all. I pushed myself up against the headboard of the bed wiping sleep from my eyes. Once everything in my body had adapted to being awake, I focused my ears to what woke me up. The loud chatter, from what I assume was coming from the kitchen. Between my mom and Vanessa. They weren't being quite low and discreet at all.
I thought long and hard about getting up and entering the kitchen making it known that I am indeed awake. But after hearing my name, I decided against it completely.
"I'm worried about Calum." I heard Vanessa say.
"Lower your voice, dear. He might wake and hear you," my mother replied with. Little did she know I was already fully awake and eavesdropping with no shame.
"He won't. He came back in last night tired as ever. He'll most likely sleep in till noon," she says, lowering her tone a little but still loud enough for me to hear down the hall in my room with the door ajar.
"I'm worried about him too. The move, you know? He's never been good with moving in the past or very keen on it for that matter." My mother states, "He's been hanging around this Luke kid and I can't help but get this feeling I used to get when he would hang around with Charlie all the time."
"I met him when I got here yesterday, blonde tall fellow, right?" Vanessa ask.
"Yes. I hear things. I heard he's gay and his family is the richest family in the neighborhood. His parents ought to be ashamed to have such a high respected elite family, with a gay son as representation of them," My mother slurs and I can almost feel her eye rolls in her head from all the way out here.
When Vanessa said nothing, my mother continued to speak.
"I don't want him associating with the likes of them. The likes of those kids who've chosen that kind of lifestyle." She says, "I lost control over him in California when his father left us. That's when I noticed he began to latch on closer to Charlie than before, but he knows better, better than to go down that lifestyle path." She finishes anger clear in her voice.
"Charlie misses him, talks about him an awful lot. They were best mates," Vanessa says to try and calm my mom down.
Silence fills the air, and I assume my mother is in deep thought about the topic of Charlie.
"Calum isn't gay, Mrs. Hood, and besides, Charlie wouldn't have tried anything on Calum without his permission. Charlie always cared about Calum way too much to do something he didn't want to be done." The memories of me and Charlie began playing in my head like a movie. She was right. He never did anything I didn't want to do, but somehow he knew exactly what I wanted to do before I even knew I wanted to. Even though, back in those days and till this day I still refuse to believe any of my actual wants and needs.
"I shouldn't have let him hang out with that homosexual. I should've ended that friendship before it even began," my mother quickly says, but then continues on, "You're right. Calum isn't gay. I raised him right and look he's with a beautiful girl like you."
"He's nothing like his father at all, and never will be," she states, positive of her statement.
"Yeah, he isn't a homosexual. We know the real Calum," Vanessa says in what I think she thinks my honor.
"I still get a bad vibe from that Luke kid. He was here Friday night. He was here with Calum in his bed. The sight made me wanna cringe in shock. I haven't fully questioned Calum because he seemed to not even know and I don't want to start off this move with him being reluctant towards me," my mother says.
"Do you love' my son?" My mom asks Vanessa.
"Yes, although sometimes I feel as if he can care less about me," she states truthfully. It was the truth nonetheless. You try dealing with Vanessa on a daily basis. It get so tiring after awhile to the point where it's like draining you of life and freedom. She's so clingy and needy, and there isn't an ounce of independent on her. She relies solely on people and what they think of her. It's just irritating. I lean my head against the headboard and press my back up against it as well to get somewhat comfortable while continuing to eavesdrop.
"He loves you, I see it in the way he looks at you," My mother reassures her. Then it hit me. I can't remember the last time I looked at Vanessa and truly felt feelings or deep feelings. The feeling of love. I've been with Vanessa longer than I can even remember and I don't even remember exactly. I hadn't said I love you, I hadn't even felt it. So my mother shouldn't be speaking for me, filling her head with lies.
"How long are you staying, dear?" My mother ask changing the subject of Luke and my so called love for Vanessa.
"Just a couple days. Leaving Tuesday." Vanessa responds. Thank God! A sigh of relief slips from my mouth.
"How's photography school going?" My mother asks.
"Actually really great with the shots I got here. I'm thinking about entering a contest there when I get back. Winner gets their photos posted in a high fancy gallery." She says excitedly.
"Good for you doll. I'm so proud of you. Just know I'm always rooting for you." My mother trails off, "Breakfast?"
"Thanks, mom," She jokes and I hear my mother laugh genuinely.
I hear shuffling and pans moving. Cabinets opening and closing. The two share small talk and I decide to sink back in my bed not ready to face them quite yet. I grab my phone to check my notifications. To my surprise, I had nothing, no messages. Not even one from Luke. This unpleasant feeling grew in my stomach as I sunk deeper under the quilt of my bed.
Who's my mother and Vanessa to judge Luke? They don't know him; I don't even know him. No one does, maybe Ashton and Michael do, maybe even Tyler. I cringe at the thought of Tyler. I've always hated the kid. Since my first day of school on Thursday. Never trust men who wear uggs, never. He fucked Luke and something deep inside me rumbled with anger. Just imagining them touching so intimately with each other made my skin want to crawl.
I check my phone again in hope of some kind of message from anyone but to no prevail. No message shown. No type of notification actually. I laid deep in my bed, under the covers in Luke's side with his sweater clung to my chest.
My phone read 2:30 when I had decided to check the time moments later. Where had the morning gone? I threw the quilt to the side of me finally deciding that it was time for me to make my appearance.
I walked out of my room, down the hall passed the living room completely ignoring all the laughter and conversation flowing out of that room from my mother and girlfriend.
I just wanted food, and a lot of it actually. I just wanted to shove everything in my face to get this unsure feeling out of me. I couldn't pinpoint what I was feeling, or what I was exactly feeling it for, but I wanted and desperately needed for it to go away.
As I open the fridge, almost on cue Vanessa walked into the kitchen and wrapped herself from behind me.
"Afternoon, babe," she whispered in my ear and kissed my cheek.
"Afternoon," I mutter back.
"Hungry?" She ask with a huge grin on her face. I shake my head as in saying yes. She looks at me again with that huge grin and I shoot her a questioning look?
"What's the matter with you?" I demand.
"My boyfriend looks so cute and tired when he wakes up," She says while kissing me on the cheek. The thing being I've been awake since 11, this is just the natural look I'm going for today. Since it being Sunday.
"There's food in the microwave for you. Pancakes and bacon."
My mouth watered at the sound of bacon in the microwave. I shoved her away from me and went toward the microwave. I pulled out a stool from the table and sat down. Not waiting for any invitation of some sort, I shoved all the food in my mouth. I hadn't left the sight of my plate. A stack of pancakes laid upon the plate with 7 pieces of bacon. Something broke me from my concentrated stare of my food. I looked up to see a snickering Vanessa move towards me and take the sit next to me.
"Maybe you should try to chew your food first before swallowing it down whole," she laughs.
I look at her wide smile and teary eyes and can't help but smile and laugh back. Causing me to choke on a piece of bacon I had taken it in whole. Making Vanessa laugh even more. I wrapped my hands around her waist and tightened my grip around her playfully making her look directly in my eyes from her stool next to me.
"Stop laughing. I'm hungry," I pout at her playfully still having a grip on her waist.
"It's cute, you're cute," She says while leaning into kiss me and I let her. The kiss was quick. I broke it off before she got the wrong idea. I slipped my hands off her waist and returned my focus back to my food. From the corner of my eye, I could almost see her sudden smile shift into a straight line.
After I was done eating, Vanessa and I stood in the kitchen catching up. Not many, hardly any smiles or laughs were said during are talk. But we were both caught up on what was going on in eachother lives. She went on and on about her photography school and some project she was entering. She told me she was entering the picture she took at the pit and my stomach turned. Suddenly, I wanted to vomit everything I had just ate.
Something inside me wanted to yell at her, and tell her not to enter those pictures. That she had no right to. I wanted to yell at her and tell her the pit wasn't her place, it was Luke's therefore, she had no right to show off pictures of its remarkable beauty. But then again, another part of me just wanted to keep shut and support her because I am her boyfriend. The boyfriend part overruled the other part.
I ended up shaking my head and wishing her good luck.
"I'm gonna miss you when I leave on Tuesday," She said with a small smile on her face while intertwining our hands.
"I'm gonna miss you too," I managed to say. It's not completely a lie, but it's not completely true either.
"Where did the day go?" She says while looking at the window across from us in the kitchen. Darkness covered the outside and had me thinking the exact same thing. Had we really been talking catching up that long? I think to myself.
My mother comes into the kitchen with curious eyes. She stared directly at our hands that are being held with our fingers intertwined and smiles mostly to herself. I drop my hand almost immidately not caring if Vanessa feels hurt or not.
"Calum, you have school tomorrow," She scowls me.
"It's not even late!" I remark rudely.
"It's 10:30 on a school night. And who do you think you're talking to with that tone?" She yells.
"You," I mutter back sarcastically "who else?"
"Go!" She yells.
I get up from my stool and throw my empty plate in the sink. It feels like just 5 minutes ago it's was 2:30 now it's 10:30? Maybe I really did spend a lot of time catching up with Vanessa.
Too annoyed to take a shower, I crawl back into bed on Luke's side. Vanessa comes into my room and crawling on top of me to the back of the bed. Not before she switched the light switch off making the room completely dark.
"Don't yell at your mom. She loves you, Cal," she says the through the darkness. I know for a fact she's scowling me. She hates when I'm rude to my mom more than my mom probably does.
"I'm sorry," I say not wanting to fight, suddenly being too tired for anything.
"Where has the day gone?" I whisper back to her after a few minutes of silences.
She chuckles, "You slept in most of the day, babe. Are you feeling okay?" She trails off.
"Yes, I'm fine, V," I say quickly. Wrapping my hand around her waist and pushing her into my chest.
"I love you, Calum. I'll always be here for you. Through anything." She states seriously.
For a minute, I actually believe that she would support me through anything, and everything but then reality slips back in and I remember this is Vanessa I'm thinking about. The most judgmental person on this planet besides my mother.
I simply answer with an "I know." Even though I don't believe a word she says. I kiss her on her head while tightening my grip on her waist. I rest my head next to her's on the bed and sleep fills the both of us within seconds.
~~
*BEEP BEEEP BEEEP BEEP BEEP*
I turn to my side table by my bed annoyed with the world. I open my eyes and the sun coming from my window radiating around my room immediately making me shut them close. I roll off the bed and fall to the ground with a loud thump. From what I saw, Vanessa shot out of her bed so fast trying to find out what the noise was.
"It was me. Sorry, I fell," I say standing up reassuring her while turning off the still beeping alarm clock.
I went back to the bed and kissed her forehead.
"I'm going to shower then school. Are you gonna be fine with my mom all day?" I ask politely.
"Yeah, I'll mostly sleep in. I'm beyond tired. Have fun at school, babe." She says while slowly falling back to sleep.
I turn to the boxes to pick out an easy outfit for school. I really should unpack. Maybe it'll make things easier for me in the morning. I shake the thought remembering this living arrangement is only temporary.
After fighting with myself on what to wear, I go with a casual look. I pick out jeans with a hole by the knee and upper thigh with a white shirt, and my black and white converse.
I walked to the shower and turned the water on. I strip myself of my clothes, throwing everything to the ground except Luke's sweater. I neatly folded it and placed on the sinks granite countertop.
I stride into the shower and let the hot water hit me. Running down my entire body, making every muscle relax. The vanilla body wash was the closet thing I had found to soap, so I settled on that. Quickly, I washed myself up and was under the water once again rinsing myself up. As the water hit my naked body, I couldn't help it when my mind immediately went to Luke.
Thoughts of him naked entering my mind. Thoughts of him grinding on me like he did in the car, but butt naked filled my mind. I slid my hands down my torso imagining they were his small soft hands grazing my body making goosebumps surface to my skin.
I snapped out of my thoughts when the water turned ice cold. Shit, I had used it all. Mom's going to kill me when she finds out. I turn the shower off and get out. What was I even thinking? I don't want Luke to do any of that nor will I ever want to.
I think your length begs to differ, my mind retorts. I look down to see a throbbing hard length dangling straight. Shit. I didn't find any of those thoughts pleasuring, at all. I was picturing Vanessa in my head, I lie to myself to justify what had just taken place within my mindset.
Swiftly, I get dressed and I'm out the door. Suddenly not feeling the mood for breakfast at all. I get in my car and drive to this hell hole I call school.
The ride there had seem to shorter than usual for my liking. Then, when I finally pulled into the parking lot, it hit me. God really must hate me. I parked my car closest to the front door as possible only to get a clear view of the show that was taking place out in front of Luke's car. My hands gripped the steering wheel angrily.
There Luke stood in front of the hood of his car with Tyler pressed against it, with their lips together furiously in a deep make out session. I gripped the steering wheel tighter.