War ⇔ Cashton ✓

With Me

Warning: mentions sensitive topics that may be triggering.

+++ very short chapter & it's the last one. I'll have a lil thank you note at the end, & some explanations :) thank you in advance.

CALUM

Sometimes I think the world is completely, absolutely brainwashed.

Soulless people wander the streets, grey blood oozing from their bleak skin with their lips sewn shut, eyes always watching but never noticing. Their feet drag across the dusty ground, unable to bend their knees without falling. Grey bodies, all grey bodies, without feeling. A bloodless muscle with empty vessels sitting like a stone in the center of their chest.

Ashton and I stand in the center of this void world as red bodies, dancing freely around the earth with vivid blood dribbling down our chins. We paint the world with color, struggling to make the bleak world a bit more bright, a little less grey. We can't paint the dead out of their minds, but we can at least make the world a little prettier with our bleeding love.

Of course, now it's just me.

Ashton's been gone for almost three weeks, and there is some sort of black void following me around like a dark storm cloud. It seeps into my skin like acid, making everything I see looks like it's drowning it black paint. There is something so indescribably different in desperately waiting for a letter in the mail, and having that sure certainty that he isn't coming back.

I've resorted to making a permanent home on the couch in my living room, staring blankly at the television with glazed eyes. Mali has been struggling to comfort me in the best way that she can, rubbing my back and coaxing me with her soft voice, but it can't brush away the agonizing emptiness in my chest.

Mali has applied for university now that she knows I'm safe from my parents. She'll be leaving soon, eager to start a new beginning for herself despite how much she doesn't want to leave me. I know she feels even worse now that Ashton is cold and still under the dirt, no longer warm and close by my side. It aches.

The only person who has even been able to compare to what I'm feeling at the moment is Luke. I never got to know him extremely well before Ashton's death, but now that we are in the same boat, we've been together nearly every moment of the day. Sometimes it's just drinking ourselves drunk in my small apartment bathroom and letting the tiny room echo our drowning voices, and sometimes it's eating a calming dinner with Luke's family. Either way, he's there, all flesh and blood with a living heart, and that's all I need right now.

Today, we are going out to lunch at a busy restaurant. We don't like small cafes. They're too quiet. Too much room to think.

I arrive at the restaurant at 1:40, five minutes earlier than we had planned on meeting, but it's not like I have anywhere else to go. The hostess leads me to a table and I sit down, leaving the menu and water right where the server had placed it.

I let the busy atmosphere sink into my skin, trying to focus my attention to other people's conversations instead of being trapped inside my own. Two woman are talking about politics, and a group of businessmen are talking about the latest basketball game. They are all dressed up, wearing stiff suits with the ties loosened. They're on their lunch break, I note.

My observations are interrupted by Luke pulling back the chair in front of me, sitting down ungracefully in the seat. I turn to look at him, his lips dry, eyes slightly red. I don't predict that I look any better. I wouldn't know. I took down all the mirrors in the house after Ashton's funeral. I didn't want to look at the ghost he left behind.

"Hey, how have you been?" Luke asks as he settles into the chair, propping his elbows against the table. I only saw him maybe two hours ago, but I appreciate the question anyway.