Unlikely Heroes

Cal was surprised to find that Mikaela wasn’t extremely eager to get out of his car and go home, like she usually was. They weren’t friends, and therefore, had never really sat down and had a conversation. Initially, Cal had no interest in talking to her, as was made obvious by how casually he’d managed to get her undressed a little while ago while they’d been practicing. After spending a little bit of time just talking, however, he couldn’t help but notice what a nice smile she had. Her smiles before couldn’t have been genuine, because this was something different. She was so radiant, it made him want to make her laugh.

The school parking lot was completely empty, and it was sort of eerie being there at night. Cal avoided it as much as he could, mostly due to bad memories he had there from darker points in his life. Mikaela seemed to notice the sort of uncomfortable look on his face, and apparently had forgotten that she hated him, considering how friendly she was being.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Just a little creeped out by the empty parking lot.”

“How come?”

Cal thought for a moment, straightening up in his seat. “You probably don’t remember when I transferred here.”

“You transferred?” Mikaela asked, blinking a few times in realization. “Oh, I guess you weren’t around freshman or sophomore year, were you?”

“I was at a military school,” Cal said.

She laughed at first, but the smile disappeared when she realized Cal wasn’t kidding.

“You went to a military school?” she asked in disbelief. “What happened to the close cropped hair and the discipline and everything?”

“Well, I got kicked out,” Cal smirked. “I’m in pretty good shape now. I can do push ups like they’re nothing. But that’s all I got from it. I don’t like people telling me what to do. Apparently, my way of making that clear typically leads to expulsion.

Mikaela looked like she was going to ask him what he did to get expelled, but shook her head and changed her mind.

“So what does that half to do with empty parking lots?” she asked.

“Not empty parking lots, this empty parking lot,” he corrected. “I just asked if you remembered, because if you did, you’d know that me and Brett hated each other when we first met. Oh course, we were irrelevant in her royal highness’s life, even back then.”

“Completely irrelevant,” she added, “I thought you guys are friends.”

“Not at first,” Cal said. “I had four out of my six classes with him. I don’t know what it was, but our personalities just didn’t match. We made each other miserable. Physically, we’re about the same size and strength. Mentally, I’m a pile of elephant shit next to him. And I realized a little too late that he doesn’t physically have to lift a finger to destroy me. I was stupid, and I kept fighting him. It got pretty physical on several occasions. That’s why I don’t like this parking lot at night. It reminds me of all the times Brett and I beat each other up until one of us couldn’t stand anymore. Neither of us ever won those fights, since neither of us were stronger. Either he got lucky or I did.”

“But aren’t you guys close friends?” Mikaela frowned, confused.

“Yeah, we are now.”

“How’d that happen, if you wanted to kill each other?”

“Well, the school found out, and they said that if they caught us fighting again we’d both be expelled and reported to the police,” he explained. “I couldn’t risk getting expelled a third time, and he couldn’t risk getting the attention of the police.”

“Expelled a third time?” Mikaela questioned.

“We don’t discuss the Catholic school,” Cal warned.

“Point taken.”

“Anyways, we decided to call a truce,” Cal continued. “But we still hated each other. We mostly became friends because of Leon. He’s my best friend, and Brett split from his own friends after they got in trouble with the police and some of them got arrested. He’s trying to turn his life around, you know? He started hanging out with Leon, and he grew up, so he’s not picking fights with anyone anymore. And I guess at some point we realized that we liked hanging out with each other. And now he’s one of my best friends.”

“But you and Leon hit it off right away?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “He and I became friends over something totally different. It’s hard to explain, so we just keep it to ourselves for the most part.”

“Are you guys…?” Mikaela’s voice trailed off slightly, giving Cal an odd look. He quickly realized what she meant, shaking his head.

“No, god no, nothing like that,” he promised her. “We’re friends. We’re just really close.”

“Hey, I thought I’d ask,” Mikaela shrugged, looking slightly relieved. “It’s funny. I’m just scratching the surface of who Cal Bennett is. I’m finding things I didn’t expect to see.”

“Like?”

“I’m not going to talk about you with you,” she smirked. “It would only inflate your ego even more.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, you know a lot more about me than I know about you,” Cal pointed out.

“I doubt that,” she said. “Unless you live under a rock, you’ve heard all about me.”

“I’ve heard about you, yeah,” Cal shrugged. “I’ve lots of things. Tons and tons of stories. But I’ve only heard them from other people. Never from you. It makes me wonder if any of it is true.”

“It is.”

“I have to see it to believe it. So far, I haven’t seen it.”

Mikaela seemed startled by what he said, going silent and turning in her seat to face forward in the car. She stayed quiet for a little bit, then turned to look at him again.

“I feel like I owe you something for the jackets,” she said. “I want to give them back so you don’t ask for any stupid favors later. Besides, you want to get out of the empty parking lot anyways.”

“I told you, they’re yours,” Cal groaned, rolling his eyes. “We’ve been over this before.”

“Cal, I really want to give them back, so drive me home so I can give them back,” she repeated.

“We discussed it-”

“Calvin,” she interrupted, frustrated. “Take a fucking hint.”

He blinked a few times and just stared at her while she waited for him to get it, annoyed, then lit up in realization.

“This is your way of asking me over without actually using those words,” he said slowly, “So I can’t go off and tell people that you asked me to come over.”

She rolled her eyes, grumbling something about Cal ruining the mystery of it. “Just fucking drive, Cal.”

This time, he didn’t protest, starting the car. Mikaela seemed uncomfortable and concerned at first as they neared her house, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she was beginning to regret everything. He’d found talking to her like a human instead of someone he hated to be pretty pleasant, but he couldn’t expect her to feel the same in return, so he just shut up before he ruined it like he ruined everything else. It seemed like it was working together to put those douchebags in jail that made Mikaela not despise him.

By the time they’d pulled into her driveway, she was practically frozen, eyes flitting from left to right as if looking for someone. The house was dark and there were no cars around it, so Cal quickly realized that no one was home. Still, Mikaela looked cautious. She didn’t say anything as she got out and walked to the front door, Cal strolling behind her casually with his hands in his pockets. He’d dropped Mikaela off several times, but he’d never seen the inside of her house. It wasn’t what he expected at all.

The house was a typical suburban home, like all of the others, but there was something cold about the inside. He realized that there were no pictures, unlike most homes. At Cal’s house, there was a large portrait of his family hanging in the hallway that Cal absolutely hated, because they all looked like absolute pricks, dressed in their best and smiling at the camera as if they all liked each other. Everyone who visited loved that photo, but they didn’t know that right after the picture was taken, Jessa and Shirley got in an argument that led to Shirley ripping out some of Jessa’s extensions, their father leaving right away to make a business call, their mother leaving and telling Annie to deal with it, and Cal just helplessly caught in the middle of the cat fight. He always thought it was sad, but not as sad as a dark house with absolutely no pictures. Mikaela quickly walked ahead of Cal to turn on some lights, though he found that she tended to look in the empty room first as if someone was going to be in there before entering. While she did, he hung back, still looking around. He really had to search before he finally found a framed picture sort of hidden away, left dusty. He wiped the dust off with his sleeve and saw a first or second grade school picture of Mikaela smiling back at him with some missing teeth that put a smile on his face, too. He wiped the dust off and left the picture upright and visible on the table again, where it had been pushed back. He then followed Mikaela as she opened the door to what must've been her room, laying her stuff down on the bed and turning to face Cal again as he closed the door behind him.

"Are you going to turn these lights on?" he asked.

"No," she shrugged. "I like to think that if someone doesn't see something happening, it never happened. That includes the people doing it."

"I don't think it works like that," he smirked. "But if you say so, Princess."

"Are you in any form of relationship with Sadie?" Mikaela asked suddenly.

"Not even close."

"Okay, good."

Then she pulled him down and kissed him.



Cal found his schedule packed dawn until dusk after saving Garrett's ass. School took up most of the day, where he was forced to hide what super cool and amazing things he was doing from Brett and Leon, pretending like his life was just average and uneventful. That, and pretending like he and Mikaela were still distant and cold, when they'd actually been very close and very warm under her covers just the night before. That was what confused Cal the most. As much as he didn't like Mikaela, he liked spending time with her. And the more they met every day to practice at the elementary school, the more he decided he was sure of that, making him wonder why he disliked Mikaela at the first place.

Between practicing and school, Cal still worked on a daily basis, managing the animal shelter as best he could with so much less free time. He found that the other employees had noticed, and were helping him a little with the business part of the shelter, assuming that he was busy with school. The truth was that Cal didn't remember the last time he'd done homework, but he didn't tell them. He didn't mind them taking over things like scheduling everyone at the start of the month. He actually found him focusing most of his attention on the abused pitbull that had been brought in earlier.

The pitbull had bitten another employee at the shelter, and it seemed like most people were afraid of her, spending as little time in her corner as they could. She didn't even have a name yet. Cal, however, wasn't going to give up on her so easily. He spent a lot of time slowly getting closer and closer, trying to gain the dog's trust as best he could. It took a while, but he finally found that she would let him get close and leave her food.

Cal stepped back as she trotted over to eat from the bowl he'd just filled and set down. He waited until she looked comfortable before slowly kneeling down to her level, holding a treat in his hand. She tended and stepped back slightly when he got too close, but stopped when she saw the biscuit in his hand. He held it out for her, keeping his stance as non-aggressive as possible as she slowly stepped towards him. He moved towards her slightly and she suddenly tensed and growled at him until he went back to where he started, still holding out the treat. She paused, then slowly came towards him again.

"Are you going to let me pet you?" Cal said softly.

She took the treat, munching on it. For the first time, Cal saw her tail wag happily. He kept his hand outstretched, slowly reaching over and touching the top of her head. She growled at him again, but stopped when he gently petted her. Her good eye stared at him at he got a little bolder, petting her. He scratched behind her ear and she got a bit excited, tail wagging.

"There you go," he laughed. "That's the spot, isn't it?"

Suddenly she drew away from him, running away and curling up in the corner. Cal sighed and dropped his hand, standing up.

"That's okay. We'll try again tomorrow."