Deal // Calum Hood

Oops.

Calum.
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Annabelle could not stop twiddling her fingers or shuffling her feet. Then it was tapping her cutlery and looking around aimlessly. She was bored. I was most likely even more bored.
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We hadn't been allowed to talk and make the evening more interesting for the last forty-five minutes due to a ginormous speech from all the leaders of the school. Boredom wasn't even close to what we were feeling.
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Around ten minutes later, it was finally over and Annabelle and I couldn't wait to leave. We hurtled towards the double doors as elegantly as possible, in hope not to cause a scene, when we were stopped. I instantly grew concerned when I saw the main interviewer from the board. But then, he did something I'd never seen before. He smiled. He actually smiled! And it was directed at me!
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"Hello, Calum." He nodded his head to myself and then turned to Annabelle. "And who is this lovely lady?"
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"Annabelle Clarke." I stated proudly, shuffling closer to her.
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"Well, Annabelle. It's lovely to meet you. Now I didn't know how you had managed to pull it off, Cal, but I'm now receiving a pretty good idea." He chuckled, another thing I'd never seen.
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Baffled, I didn't laugh along.
"What do you mean?" I questioned.
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"Well your manners tonight, they were exemplary. And you've been behaving well at school, you're really doing well for yourself. I'm guessing it may be down to a certain someone?" He looked suggestively at Annabelle.
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My skin burned, I didn't even know why I was embarrassed. It was true, without her I certainly wouldn't be here.
"Yeah, I guess it is." I smiled at a very uncomfortable looking Annabelle.
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"Well then I guess I should be thanking you, young lady. Anyway, I'll let the two of you be off so you can do whatever it is you youngsters do nowadays. " He smiled again and I nodded my head, desperately trying not to show how wonderfully relieved I truly felt.
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Once we had parted ways, for some reason we both took one look at each other and burst into a fit of giggles.
I opened the door for her and we finally left the building of boredom.
We stopped near on the pavement outside and I took her hand in mine, pulling her into me.
"Thank you for being here tonight, I couldn't have done it without you."
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She poked me in the chest lightly.
"Hey, you would have been just fine without me. But thank you for letting me come."
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I smiled down at her, wondering how I ever found her the slightest part annoying. Gently tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, I lent in to kiss her.
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"Annabelle Clarke!"
We were ripped away from our world at somebody's stern voice.
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Both our heads simultaneously sprung up to find a family, the parents shooting both of us death stares, seemingly unsure of who they despised most, whilst the other, a tall girl who seemed in her early twenties fashioned a smitten smirk.
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They seemed somehow familiar, but I couldn't quite put a finger on it . . . Wait-
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"Mum?" Annabelle squeaked, her hand dropping like a stone from mine.
Oh crap.
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"You told me you were in the library." Her stern eyes left her daughter and drank me in. "Alone."
The women's sombre expression was due to a gloomy mixture of disappointment and anger.
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I looked down at Annabelle, she seemed heartbroken. My head ached. More than anything I wanted to hold her, help her know that she would be okay.
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"It's my fault." I startled, all four heads turned to watch me, expectant of my explanation. An explanation I didn't have. "Well um, I saw Annabelle walking, probably from the library and then-"
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"Save it." Annabelle's father said coldly. There was no fooling him.
"How could you, Annabelle? How dare you lie to us and how dare you run around, dizzying off with some fool."
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Some fool? Who did these people take me for? I may not be Albert Einstein but I wasn't entirely brain dead.
"Hey-"
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"You have no right to speak right now."
The sour women before me snapped, any remaining whisper of her short patience nowhere to be found.
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"Honestly Annabelle, I know you seem to enjoy slacking, but this is who you chose to slack off with? I really believed you would have higher standards than him." Annabelle's father regarded me as her sister scoffed in something between agreement and disgust.
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I waited for Annabelle to defend me, or to at least defend herself, but she never did.
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"I'm sorry." She mumbled, letting her mother pull her away from me. She didn't even turn to face me as they all left me stood there, alone and defeated when they hadn't even let me fight. Baffled as to what had just happened, Annabelle's car drove away and I stood like stone watching.