Amnesia • Calum Hood

•Chapter Twenty-One•

When my alarm started blaring at 7 a.m., confusing me to no end as to why I had set it so early, I then realized that my first shift at Benny's started in two hours.  Almost frantically, I locked myself in the bathroom and pondered over what to do with my appearance.

It's just a serving job, I thought, frowning as I stared at my reflection in the mirror.  Who really cares?  The answer to that question was that I did.  I may have had cold feet yesterday when I actually got the job, but now more than ever I wanted to do well.  The start of a new job was sort of like the start of a new life.  I'd be making money, and money meant moving on to bigger and grander things.  Maybe I'd be moving out of this house soon, buying my own apartment and branching out.

Shaking my head, I sighed as I turned on the faucet to splash my face off.

Who was I kidding.  I was still very, very young, with the immaturity and inexperience to match.  It would be a while yet before my life found some sort of normalcy.

I washed off my face and tied my hair back, rifling through the makeup bag I had and trying to decide what to do.  I'd never been a big fan of fancy makeup or hairstyles, tending to just stick with what was natural.  But today I felt a change, and decided to greet it as such. 

Eyeliner was smudged on in a way that I hoped looked good, concealer disguising the bags underneath my eyes.  With one last swipe of mascara, I moved on to tackle my hair.  The brown strands were soft from my shower, and I merely tied them up in a ponytail without giving it much thought.

As I shuffled out of the bathroom, and started towards the basement again, I noticed two sleeping forms on the couches.  Surprise sparked inside of me when I saw Calum laying across the cushions, still in jeans and converse.  He was holding a pillow tightly to his chest, the way he might with a person.  There was a slight frown on his features, like even in his sleepy state he was still thinking about something.

I watched him for a minute longer, and then disappeared downstairs.  Changing into the black jeans white tee shirt regimen of the diner, I quietly tip-toed around Sadie, who was snoring away on the couch.

Carefully shutting the door once I reached the top of the steps, I turned around and nearly jumped out of my skin when Michael called out, "Hey Kangaroo."

He and Calum had woken up in the five minutes it took me to change.  I tried to hold Michael's gaze, but my eyes moved naturally to Calum.  He was ruffling up the curly hair on his head, yawning a little in a way that made me want to go over there and hug him.

"Um, what are you two doing down here?" I asked, really meaning why is Calum still here.  I wasn't mad, exactly, since I definitely didn't want him going back to his car, but it was strange that he spent the night.

Calum avoided my eyes entirely, a fact that hurt me slightly.  I looked then to Michael, who shrugged.

"We were playing FIFA all day and then realized it was one in the morning, so I just told him to crash here."  His eyebrows raised.  "That wasn't a bad thing to do, was it?"

I pursed my lips and glanced at Calum.  As expected, he was staring straight at the ground and not acknowledging me whatsoever.  I just shrugged at Michael and grabbed my bag from the kitchen.

"I'm uh, off to work," I explained, wishing Calum would just look at me.  He didn't.

Michael clapped his hands on his knees and grinned.  "Way to go Joey, paving a path through life.  Godspeed."  He did a little salute, which caused me to chuckle.  Calum glanced up at the sound of my laughter, and when he saw me a fleeting smile came to his lips.