Chapter Text
"Calum. Wake up."
"Calum!"
"Cal...dude."
"CALUM! WAKE THE F UP BRO."
Calum jerked awake, his sisters screeching from downstairs finally reaching his tired ears. He heard his mother scolding his sister for almost using the F-word, and he knew she was now slowly dragging her feet toward the "swear jar", plopping in a dollar or two.
That had been Dad's idea, even though the only person in the house that let those certain words slip once in a while was Mali, Calum's sister...who was now climbing up the stairs to wake Calum up for good. Or punch him in the throat; she was pissed off and it could go either way now.
Finally Mali gets up all the stairs, sulking like a 5 year old child. "Mum says to hurry up. You're leaving in a couple of hours for church camp." She said dully, and then shut the door once again (but not without a slight glare at Calum. A dollar was wasted and it was practically Calum's fault anyways.). Calum climbed out off bed and padded over to his mirror, examining his 16 year old self, pimples and pale skin galore. He yawned and suddenly processed the information Mali had given him: "You're leaving in a couple hours for church camp.".
Shit. Yesterday, Calum had told his mother he had been packed and ready (when he was really sitting on his bed, scrolling through his secret Instagram account.). He felt guilty about that since he wasn't actually suppose to have any social media sites; his dad didn't like them, but it's not like they checked anyways.
He quickly stuffed all essentials into a black duffel bag, changed into basketball shorts and a T-shirt and ran his fingers through his hair, pleased with his appearance. It wasn't like he was there to impress; he'd never found any girls attractive enough to date. Maybe a few guys...but that wasn't a thing, no.
His Dad was the pastor of their hometown church; he had always been the spitting image of a perfect preachers kid and a couple of hot guys weren't gonna mess that up for him. Calum sort of sighed as he thought about how he may of questioned his sexuality a few times...and that just wasn't allowed, you know? A "good Christian" is straight and that's that.
His mother's yell for him broke his thought and he walked downstairs, his mother greeting him and he croaked back a "g'morning", his voice still scratchy from his slumber. He patiently waited until everyone was sat down, and his Dad gave grace, then finally getting to pick up his fork to shovel food into his mouth. What can he say? He's a growing boy.
About an hour later, he's at the front steps of his church and Calum's a bit more jittery than usual; it's the first trip he takes without his over-protective dad tagging along. Hewas 16 now and his dad finally gave in.
After he had said good bye to his chatty mother multiple times and she's was done talking with seemingly every person there, his mother finally rolls away in her car.
The rest of the group greets Calum and he receives a few highfives and "hey Cal!"'s until he reaches Harry, his best friend. "Hey mate." Harry said calmly, still looking down at his phone as Calum approached him.
Calum had known Harry as long as he could remember. Harry was about 1 year his senior, being 17 (which, when he was feeling wild, would rub in Calum's face.) and they had grown up together.
Harry's mother, Anne, was very involved with the youth, her always being the one to tag along to camps or drive kids to Chick-Fil-A after Wednesday night service...just because. That factor basically convinced Calums overprotective parents to let him go by himself. ("It's church camp! He'll be absolutely fine." Anne had stated.) Now, Calum was quite different from Harry when it came to certain things though.
Harry's ears were pierced, always wore ripped jeans and plaid button ups that he would wear over band t-shirt, plus he always had a girl on his arm (even though Harry looked a lot more interested in Louis, a small LOUD kid in the group who was suppost to be in college...but he really just "didn't feel like working that hard to do something I know I'll hate"...but Harry and Lou? That's a different story all together.).
Anne, Harry's mum, was very chill and laid back when it came to clothes, and appearance. She always said that we can find ourselves and express our thoughts, dreams and personality through clothes and the way we dress (it was all quite cheesy but inspirational.). The youth pastor, Zayn, "the hot old hipster" (literally the nickname the youths gave him) prayed over the trip and then afterwards, scolded Josh, an energetic brunette, for dropping Monster energy drink all over the clean floor.
Finally, after everyone shuffled on the bus, and Calum snagging Harry as his seat partner, He quickly scanned over the crowd of people attending this particular camp. Interesting and new, he thought. He spotted a few kids he'd never seen before, mixed with kids he saw every Wednsday and Sunday.
Calum plugged in his headphones; no way he was going to go through 2 hours in a car full of rowdy teenagers without plugging in. "Maybe a bit of The Beatles will drown out the stupid." Calum muttered to himself, getting a small laugh from Harry. They smiled and Calum slowly drifted off to sleep. 2 hour drive, here we go.