[ 39 ] 2014

-

"I already told you, mate. I won't fight you. Your sister is my girlfriend."

-

Harley walked down the halls of her school and towards the Math hall, where Calum's home class was located. But she knew she would be in trouble later. Her home class teacher was very strict and would no doubt be issuing her a detention after school. She didn't care about that at the moment. The most important thing was to find Calum. 

As she made her way down the hall, she could already hear the loud voices of the students in that class. They were unmistakably loud and no other class was as unruly as that one. She didn't even bother knocking and opened the door, masses of paper airplanes flew past her. No one was sat in their seats. There were people drawing dirty things on the white board. It was like she had left the school and gone to a prison almost. Their teacher was at her desk, ear buds in, and reading a magazine without a care in the world.

When Calum saw her, he got up from his chair and hurried towards her. He grabbed her by the hand and led her back outside. Once outside the class room, she leaned against the wall with Calum standing in very close proximity to her. "Hey." He greeted her with a smile once the door was shut and served to muffle the racket inside the classroom. Calum was always happy to see her.

"I really need to talk to you, Calum." She blurted after biting down on her lip nervously.

His smile dropped. From the worry on her face, he almost thought it was bad news. "Yeah," He nodded, "Okay." He waited patiently for her to speak.

"Not here." She told him with a shake of her head. "This is something super private that I don't want anyone else to listen in on. You're the only one I trust enough to tell this too because it involves you anyway. Can we go to the music rooms on the second floor?"

The boy with raven hair nodded and walked with her in silence up the stairs that led to the second floor. People hardly went there. It was mostly club rooms, private music rooms, and more than just a few supply closets. It was said that the second floor rooms were haunted, and most people were generally afraid to to up there. The populars went up there often to make out, but the other students preferred to stay out of the second floor.

They chose one of the rooms at the end of the hall. The rooms had once been dormitories when St. Genevieve's had been an all-girls boarding school. When the school was made co-ed, they decided to convert the dorms into club rooms and storage closet. There was one wide hall down the middle, with a doorway that became another, narrow hallway, one on either side of the second floor. They almost looked like abandoned offices. Calum opened the door to the private practice music room and shut the door. It was the one with the piano in one corner, which took up about half the space in the small room.

There were no other chairs in the room but the piano stool and Calum surrendered it to Harley. He just leaned on the piano, placing an elbow at the top of it for balance. "Okay," He sighed, expecting the worst. "What did you want to talk about?" He figured it must have been something important since she wanted to say it in private.

"Calum," She started, her voice beginning to shake a bit as she thought about what she was going to say. She sucked in a breath and finally finished. "Ashton saw when we kissed the other day."

Calum didn't seem bothered by her words in the slightest. If anything, he seemed to be almost relieved that there wasn't something more that was bothering her. "Oh." was all he could think to say.

He didn't think it was bad to kiss her if they both wanted to. She and Ashton were no longer together. She didn't owe him any explanations. But he wouldn't say it for now because it was still a fresh wound for her. She was just getting around to admitting that she was in love with Calum, but she already knew that she loved Ashton.

"We--" She began, but stopped to correct herself, "I hurt him and its killing me, Calum. And do you know what he told me when I tried to explain things to him?" She looked up at him, her blue eyes meeting his brown ones.

He shook his head.

"After I admitted to him that I couldn't even say I didn't like kissing you, he said it was okay. He wasn't even mad at me, or even you. He said that he understood if you and I wanted to be together. Even if it hurt, he would accept it." By this time he was noticing her eyes glaze up with tears. "He said I should do whatever made me happy, and I thought about it for hours. I didn't even sleep last night, thinking about what I wanted."

For a moment, Calum felt bad for Ashton. He was so selfless--overly selfless even--and Calum really wasn't. He was more of the opposite. He could stop thinking about himself, if only to think about Harley and what was her best interest. He would do anything and everything for her. But Ashton did that all the time, in the most unselfish of ways. Calum then asked her a question, trying to keep his tone sounding casual so as not to pressure her. "And what did you decide?" He looked at her, eyes full of hope that she would choose him.

"I love him, Calum." She began and his heart ached. But there was still a hope for him when her words didn't stop there. "But you found a way to make me fall in love with you. And I kept denying the truth because my mind kept telling me that he needed me most. He lost everything he knew and loved, betrayed by his best friend and the woman he loved. Ashton deserved a happy ending, he still does, and I think my decisions were influenced by that too."

"I need you too." Calum argued.

"I really, really, thought things through." Her voice started cracking once more, and she forced it steady. "I want to...give us a chance. But...I want to take things very slowly. Will you do that for me, Calum? Would you be willing to wait to make things totally official? At least for now. I would understand if you didn't want to." She lifted her gaze to connect her blue eyes with his brown ones. 

A big smile broke out onto Calum's lips, and he brought his hands to his face in disbelief. But it was a joyful disbelief. "Of course I'll wait as long as I have to! I'll wait my whole life as long as I get the chance I was hoping for." And now that I have her love, I'll never let her go, a small part of his dark thoughts emerged, but he pushed it away. He wanted to be good for her, and he wanted to be someone she could be proud of.

He quickly cut the distance between himself and the girl sat on the piano bench. Calum--in his excitement--picked her up in his arms and spun her around. Her arms wrapped around his neck to keep herself stable, and she buried her face in the crook of his neck to keep from getting dizzy as a small giggle left her lips. It was a pained and quiet little sound, but it also contained a hint of happiness because while she loved Ashton, she loved Calum as well. The difference now was that she had finally seen what everyone else was seeing. Calum was alive, and they could grow old together, but she could never hope to have that opportunity with Ashton.

When he set her back down on her feet, she still had her arms around him. She loosened them, only to bring a hand to cup his face and guide him to move his head in her direction. Placing a feather light kiss on his lips, she sniffled, "Thank you, Calum. For being so patient, and for loving someone so indecisive and maybe even selfish like me."

He shook his head at her. "The last thing you are is selfish, babe."

"Doesn't feel that way." She pouted. 

Calum wrapped her in his embrace and held her close to give her some comfort. Harley was just as selfless as Ashton, it was probably why they had gotten on so well from the beginning. But he was sure that anyone who knew her, couldn't help but fall in love with her because she was such an exceptional person.

-

News that Calum and Harley were back together for a third time were spread around St. Genevieve's. In reality, this was the first time they were actually dating, and it was more of a slow transition into a relationship, or something like a probational period.

Whatever it was, Niall and Andrea were absolutely overjoyed for their friend. 

But there was one person who wasn't all thrilled about the news. During lunch time, when the group were sat together, Billy approached them with Cindy not far behind. The head cheerleader was pulling at his arm, trying to get him to reconsider what he was going to say to Calum. Stopping at their table near the edge of the lunch room, next to the science hall, Billy said to Harley, "Why'd you have to get back together with him?" He asked his sister, adding, "You know he called Cindy stupid the other day."

"Billy-" Cindy sighed in frustration at the fact that her boyfriend felt like he had something to prove.

Harley looked from her brother to Calum, confused. 

Before she could say anything, Calum defended himself. "I already apologized, but your brother is still pissed about it. What more can I do?" He genuinely asked the question. He knew how much Harley appreciated Cindy, and he certainly knew she wouldn't like it if he and Billy didn't get along.

"Billy, chill." Harley sighed. "Calum apologized to Cindy."

Cindy nodded her head in affirmation. "He did."

"And Calum promises to be nicer to Cindy because she's my best friend." Harley raised an eyebrow at the dark haired boy sitting next to her. 

Calum raised his right hand and swore as though he were taking a pledge. "I promise."

This caused Andrea to attempt to stifle a laugh while Niall coughed, "Whipped." Andrea followed up by adding a whiplash sound effect.

"Shut up." Calum hissed, kicking them under the lunch table.

"That's not enough, Harley." Billy leaned in close to his sister as he hissed an explanation at her. "Luke and the other populars want me to fight him in The Alley to teach him a lesson. And I'm tired of people underestimating Cindy. I'm not gonna tolerate any more disrespect towards my girlfriend. It has to stop, and its gonna stop. I'll make sure of it."

Calum gave a shake of his head, quickly refusing. "I already told you, mate. I won't fight you. Your sister is my girlfriend."

Harley spoke calmly to her brother, trying to make him see that the populars weren't right when they told him how to handle the problem. "I agree that people need to stop saying those things about Cindy." As she said this, she thought about herself and the times she had said things like that about the girl who had turned out to be one of her greatest friends. "But this isn't the way to do it. And I won't let you fight Calum. I'll tell you the exact same thing I told Luke during the beach trip: If you want to fight him, you have to fight me first."

"Harley, you know I won't fight you." Her brother's aggressive tone was taken down a notch. "You're my little sister, I'm supposed to take care of you. Plus, mum and dad would kill me. Especially dad." Aaron Quinn--Harley's dad--had always protected his daughter from everything, including her brother. When they were children, Harley and Billy actually got in physical fights over toys. On one occasion, they had fought over a scooter with blue wheels. They had given the blue wheeled one to Billy, and one with pink wheels to Harley. But she wanted the blue one. When she tried to take it from Billy, he had pushed her away and she fell to the ground.

It had been the very same day that his father gave him a warning that still stood to that very day. If you ever dare to hit your sister again, it'll be the last thing you ever do. Billy Quinn didn't want to find out exactly what their dad meant by that. But Harley had always been Aaron's favorite, because she looked like her mother. She was the apple of his eye. Billy was Harleen's favorite because he was athletic and had perfect grades. Of course both parents loved them both, but parents always had a favorite.

"I don't think the protective older brother rule applies here since we were born in the same year." She pointed out.

He scoffed at her. "Whatever, booger."

He walked away with Cindy, not without having ruffled her dyed black hair first.

Harley swatted his hands away, but he still messed up her pony tail. Cindy waved goodbye to her friend as she walked away with Billy. 

"Thank you for refusing to fight my brother." Harley smiled at Calum. "He's just mad about the whole Cindy dilemma. But he's a great guy. I think you two could actually get along once he gets over this."

Calum gave a shake of his head. "His best friend is Luke. We'll never get along."

Harley rolled her eyes at the mention of Luke. "I honestly think Luke doesn't even really consider Billy his friend. He just keeps him around because my brother is generally well liked by everyone. It adds to Luke's popularity somehow. Back in Perth, Billy and James were the most popular guys around."

"James?" Calum raised an eyebrow at her. "That James Brady guy didn't lie about knowing you?"

Harley nodded her head to answer his question. If James knew Harley, Calum didn't doubt that there was a chance that he liked her too.

And he couldn't let that happen.

-

a rather longish update. 

but no long author's note today bc its almost midnight and i have to wake up super warly for work tomrrow morning. and i also want to have plenty of rest bc tomorrow im going TO THE MEXICO GAME AT THE ROSE BOWL! im so happy guys, so excited to see my country play at the copa america summer tournament.

qotd: do you like this new calum-harley almost relationship? i honestly feel super sad for ash.

okay. no  more to say. have a great week!

-clary xx