01; meet callum

01

Meet Callum

There's a time in your life, when you think you've seen the whole show, so it feels like it's the encore, like you've been left wanting one more.

But then, you realise that it's just the intro, that it's not goodbye, it's hello, and here we go.

There's a time in your life when you meet someone and it feels like it's been forever.

But then, you realise that you've just met that someone, and it's only getting better, and better, and better, because you're just getting started.

"Scarlett, come on! We're gonna be late for school."

At seven in the morning, Harry Marshall yelled at his sister, while she rolled her eyes and laughed at herself in the mirror, fixing her hair and makeup.

"I'm coming down, you sucker!" Scarlett yelled back at him, then she took her backpack from the chair and went downstairs, before her brother could kill her.

Fortunately, Harry was in the car when she said goodbye to their parents, and by the time she joined him in his Ford Focus, the engine was already started.

"How many times do I have to tell you that that skirt is way too short?" he asked her, pointing out her naked knees.

Scarlett rolled her eyes once more.

"I thought we were going to be late."

Her brother chuckled next to her and started driving, while she crossed her legs under the dashboard.

Harry had never been a regular brother: well, he was a cool brother and he really loved her, but obviously, they had fights, because of his attitudes towards Scarlett: sometimes he got so jealous of her and overreacted; he got upset when her clothes were showing way too much of her skin, or her heels were making her legs way too much longer; he got overprotective and made scenes when guys were around her; he got mad all the times she came home late at night and perhaps she was drunk, but everything he has done, it was because he really cared about his little sister.

Not so little, after all: she was born ten months after him, so technically they were the same age, but she was in year 12 and he was in year 13.

The Marshall siblings were very popular at Altrincham High School, mostly because of their attitudes, personalities and very good looking physical features: Harry was pretty tall, dark brown hair and light brown eyes, had a fit body, a charming smile and he was nice and attractive, a really good guy; Scarlett was not that tall but, on the other hand, she had a nice body, honey blonde hair and hazel eyes, and she was just as nice as her brother, even though she had a stronger personality: she was tough and ambitious, but also very emotional and sensitive.

Everyone wanted to hang out with them, as well as every girl was willing to hook up with Harry and every guy with Scarlett; but as the first was the type of person who was easily into casual hookups, the latter was not: of course she had dated guys and she liked their attention, but besides having lots of self-confidence, she really respected her body and feelings, so it was unusual for her to hook up with guys she wasn't into.

When they arrived at school, Harry parked his car in one of the parking spots just outside the building, and when they got out of the Ford, Harry's best friend approached them.

Oh Ollie Burt, her major crush since they were children: physically, he looked just like her brother, but temperamentally, he was a real jerk.

It was so obvious that he and Scarlett were reciprocally attracted to each other, but first of all, Harry had forbidden his friends to date her and vice versa, and second of all, he definitely just wanted to shag her, due to his classic fuckboy's attitude.

"Hello, sunshine." Ollie winked at Scarlett, while she pretended not to hear that because she knew he was doing it just to provoke her brother.

"Since when do we call each other like that?" Harry asked, knowing very well that that greeting was addressed to Scarlett.

She rolled her eyes, annoyed by that game.

"Gotta go, I don't wanna be late for class. See you, losers."

Harry said bye and Ollie winked at her again, before pointing out her bum once she turned around, and exclaimed a "Cheers, mate." that made Scarlett roll her eyes again, but deep down she found herself flattered by that indirect comment.

She walked through the hallway, with all the confidence that made guys turn around and look at her, mesmerised by her charm, and when she reached her locker, she opened it to take some books from inside, then she grabbed her phone to tell her friends that she was going to meet them in class.

As soon as Scarlett unlocked it, she found plenty of friends requests both on Instagram and Snapchat but, already?

Like, the day had just begun, and she had already found new fans on social media.

However, she decided to ignore her phone, closed the locker and joined her friends in literature class, just before the bell could ring.

Scarlett said hello to Rachel and Gwen and sat right in front of the first one, before grabbing her phone to put it in silent mode, while the teacher was entering the classroom.

She looked at the notifications and realised that one of the users that had started following her on Instagram earlier before had also texted her, which wasn't unusual at all, but she just put her phone on the desk, trying to pay attention to the teacher's words for the next hour.

"So Scar, what's going on between you and Ollie?" Gwen asked while they were all in line, waiting for their lunch at the canteen.

"Same thing that has been going on since forever: nothing." Scarlett answered, annoyed by her friend's question.

"Then why has he been staring at you since we walked in?" Rachel noticed, basically staring at the guy they were talking about.

Scarlett realised that and punched her friend's arm.

"Don't stare at him, you idiot! He already knows that we are talking about him, thanks to you."

Rachel sighed and apologised to Scarlett.

"Anyway, he's acting like this just because he wants to piss Harry off. It's just a childish game." Scarlett said again, hoping that that would have made her friends stop talking shit.

When all of them had collected their lunch, they went sitting at their usual table near the window, but Scarlett wasn't really that hungry.

She pulled her phone off of her backpack's pocket and opened Instagram, noticing that that guy's text was still there, unread, so she sighed and decided to open it.

The content of the text read: Hey! Sorry to bother, can we talk?

Scarlett immediately thought that either that guy was crazy, or he simply sent the text to the wrong person; but she visited his profile before deciding to leave him on read or rudely answering him, and she saw that that guy, whose name was Callum, was a photographer from Lancaster, and he wasn't even bad at what he was doing.

One photo, in particular, caught her attention: it was a photo taken at sunset, she could see it in the background, while in the foreground there was half of someone's face, almost hidden by a shadow, but still, she was able to see that person's eye, beautiful eye, that somehow was so familiar to her.

At that point, she texted him back: Uhm, do we know each other by chance?

Scarlett remained surprised by herself: she could have literally had any guy she wanted to, she was very confident and proud of the bitchy side of herself that was coming out anytime she wanted to play with guys, and she had learnt not to text too much with them because she hated texting, plus, they were used to bore her very easily.

And the fact that she did actually answer to that guy, it was already a lot.

"Who are you talking to?" Rachel asked, with a silly smile on her face.

Scarlett laughed and rolled her eyes.

"It's none, a guy from Lancaster texted me. And he's actually being polite." she replied, while Gwen and Rachel chuckled, curiously looking at themselves.

"Is he cute?" Gwen asked.

"I can't tell, he has one of those business profiles or something like that. He's a photographer, so he doesn't post about himself that much, I guess."

"Fair enough."

Scarlett looked again at her phone once it has vibrated on the table and opened that guy's text: You're right, we don't know each other. My name's Callum and I live in Lancaster. Photography is my hobby, I'm working on it cause I want to become a professional and do it for a living; I found you on the explore page, I think you're really pretty. I guess you're a model, so I wanted to ask if you were interested in modelling for me and do a photoshoot.

She raised an eyebrow and looked at her friends.

"Yeah. As I said, it's none."

She left him on read.

After dinner, Scarlett went upstairs to take a bath, but not after specifically telling Harry not to stress her out.

She went to her room first, to take her stuff for the night, then she took her phone and found another text from that Callum guy: she rolled her eyes like, what the heck?

She hadn't replied to the text he had sent her when she was hanging out with her best friends in the canteen, because she had thought he was weird, and she didn't want to lose time by talking to a guy who would have definitely bored her.

Hi, sorry to bother again... I realised that what I asked you before was a bit creepy, but seriously, I have no other intentions. Not that you care, I imagine, but you'd probably think that I'm a pain in the arse for texting you again. Usually, I don't do that, I promise I'm not harassing you. But it would be cool if you could pose for me.

Scarlett laughed at that guy's awkwardness and explanations: normally, she would have been annoyed by that kind of things (her Instagram blocked users could have proved it), but she had thought about it and she decided to do what she did best when it came to guys: playing them.

She smirked, typing a fast answer, already knowing that she would have won: First, prove to me that you're not a creep. And if I don't get bored by talking to you, I'll do that.