Midnight , Cashton

8.5

(Just Calum)

Jul. 23, 12:05

Age: 18

It was dark, and late, so late that Calum was beginning to question if this had been a good idea, but it was too late to turn back now. He used the flash light on his phone to cast a faint glow on the tomb stones in the grave yard, trying to make out names. He had never been to his father's grave but luckily he had known which cemetery they buried him in. Now he was here, desperately searching for a man he hadn't seen in years and would never see again.

Calum was starting to loose hope, his common sense slowly coming back to him, and was nearly about to turn around and go back when his flashlight shone upon a thick gray slab of concrete with a name he hadn't heard in a while on it.

"Found you," he whispered quietly, "Took me long enough."

Calum quickly clicked off his flashlight, leaving him in the dark of night. He stood above the stone and stared down at it with an indescribable emotion. It was anger, sorrow, regret, fear, and hatred all in one. He could not directly pinpoint which of these emotions was most prominent, but that didn't matter. He had a more important reason to be here and he would not waste his time fighting over emotions anymore.

"I'm sure you're wondering why I'm here," he began, speaking quietly and slowly, as if scared, "It's a long story so I might as well get to it. There's a lot of things that I need to...let out. I guess I should start with Ashton.

"Ashton is the love of my life, Dad. Always has been and always will be. I don't think I could ever find anyone who could compare to him. Because there is no other him. I sound so incredibly romantic, almost sickly so, but it's because he makes me this way. He gives life to all those romantic comedies, he makes me understand the words that books have been saying about love for decades, he gives meaning to the song lyrics I listen to, and most importantly: he makes me realize true happiness. Even though things aren't really happy right now, I have no doubt that he'll still manage to make me happy in some way. He always does. So, yes Dad, I am gay. And yes, I love Ashton. And I am not ashamed to say either of those things anymore.

"Okay, next I need to say that I've done a lot of accessing and thought very deeply about these next words. I've tried again and again to craft them into the perfect sentence, make them flawless and beautiful. But that seemed impossible so I will simply say them how they first came to me. Dad, I hate you. That sounds horrible to say at first, even I was taken back by it, but I think it's appropriate. Plenty of people have told me, 'you can't hate your father,' and I always ask them why. There answer is normally, 'because he's your dad!' This is true. Technically, by law and biology, you are my birth father. But you were never really my dad.

"You didn't do anything with me, only used me when you needed to beat out your own fucked up issues or when you needed someone to get money from. Hell, you didn't even talk to me apart from when you derided me with ugly comments. Do you remember those? All the things you said to me, all the things you put me through, did you remember those when you died? Was I even in your thoughts at those time? Was mom? Or were we just forgotten artifacts in your never ending battle? It's hard to tell now that you're dead.

"That sounds weird to say. I mean, it's not like I didn't think of your death. Multiple times I even wished for it. But mainly I just thought of it more for preparation. What to do if you died, and how it would effect me and such. Though in none of those thoughts did I ever envision myself actually crying over you. I was quite shocked to see how much I wept over a useless man like you. But I guess that's because I'm not completely heartless.

"That brings me to point three. I have a lot of questions to ask you. Did you ever care about me? Did you ever care about mom? Why did you have a kid you didn't want? Why didn't you just let me leave when I wanted to instead of holding onto me? Why didn't you love me?" Calum paused for a second, taking a deep breath, letting the last question ring in the air for a moment. A warm summer breeze blew and he could feel it hugging his body. He wondered if this was some sort of sign, some omen from above, but he blew it off.

" I have so many question I want to ask you. And the most aggravating thing is that I can't ask you them. Because you're dead, and the dead can't speak, which means I'm left answer-less. And that is very frustrating, you see. I used to convince myself that I didn't want to know the who, what, why's of the situation, that I would be fine without answers, but now that I can't ask the questions I find that I was wrong. Now I want to know every little detail to all the questions I have. Unfortunately, I've asked too late and now I have to figure out the puzzle myself. The puzzle will always have gaps though. There will never be pieces that can fill it in and that's very unsettling. I don't know how I will cope with it, but I will. I always got over things quickly. Or at least pretended to.

"That's another thing I'm here for: pretending. I've been pretending a lot. Pretending to be happy about going to college. Pretending to be fine with leaving Ashton. Pretending to not be bothered by your death. Pretending to be happy. Pretending, pretending, pretending. So much God damn pretending. It's tiresome. It's very irritating as well. And I can't suppress my feelings anymore. Which leads me to the last point of why I'm here, because I finally had enough pretending and it boiled over and I lashed out.

"I didn't mean to yell, I didn't mean to say such rude things to Ashton-things that make my stomach lurch and my head sear- but I did. I don't mean any of it. But it's been said and now I have to fix it. The only problem is, I don't know how. I don't know how to fix this, or how to get it all together again, or how to be who I was again. I'm not me anymore and it's scary. I want it all to be back to how it was. But it's not that simple. Why is it not that simple? Why is it so hard, Dad? Why is life so fucking hard?"

Calum felt his throat starting to swell, aching with tears he was fighting back. His hands balled up into fists against his sides as he closed his eyes and took in a shaking breath. After recollecting himself, Calum began to speak again.

"So much is going out of plan. In fact, everything is going out of plan. This was not how I expected life to go. I mean, I didn't expect it to be easy either, but I was not prepared for this. And maybe that's my fault. Maybe I'm wrong for not preparing for all this shit, but can you really blame me? How was I supposed to know that so much could happen in such a short span of time? How was I to know that life could do a complete 180 from the point which I was at? I was so happy, and now look at me. I'm not happy and I want it to stop. I want life to be how I thought it would be. I want it all to go according to plan again. I want it to stop. I want it to stop." Calum finally collapsed to the ground, silent sobs racking through his body.

He sat on his knees, hunched over with his face nearly touching the cool stone of the grave. His whole body shook as he cried and he couldn't contain the undeniably loud gasps and sobs that parted from his mouth. But he made no effort to move. Calum just stayed there, bent over, weeping, and wishing that his life would fix itself sooner.

***
Special dedication to malum-cuddles because she's my main bitch and her malum and muke stories are amazing.

I told you it you would be dealt with later and it (sort of) has been.

It's been awhile, sorry. I've had a lot going on. But I hope this heart wrenching chapter makes up for it. I actually cried writing this.

How are you guys? What's up? Hope you're all well. （－：

Stay Lovely. XXX-Hayley