𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐘 | callum turner

21, bygones

MESSY
21, bygones

" HOW MANY OF US ARE THERE COMING?" Callum hums, his arm tracing up and down the length of my arm as we lie on his sofa. My eyes tired and concious slowly drifting in and out of sleep.

" fifteen." I grumble, resting my head in a deeper crook of his neck. The annual Cornwall bash looming after insisting to Florence that I was more happy with celebrating my birthday with a dinner.

That she didn't need to go through the effort as she did every year — booking the house on the coast, wrangling our friends from their busy schedules in different countries for a weekend away.

Olympia bashes originated when one of our friends was filming in Cornwall and surprised us with a beach house on a weekend that managed to fall on my birthday. We packed up from the city and swapped it for the sea for an entire 72 hours. And it just kind of stuck.

We'd send places back and forth on our groupchat for a few weeks before — we'd book it, make sure whatever gigs we had lined up we had booked off that weekend and pack up and drive down to the coast.

Florence would cook for us all, and being the kids we allowed ourselves to be there we'd all sit at the kitchen island watching her. We'd swim a lot, morning, night, sunrise, sunset. Laughter would fill the halls and the garden. The only time we were in the same place, not different cities or countries and in different time zones. It was a place we weren't celebrities, merely a group of normal best friends on a weekend away.

It became a thing. Like a minuscule and very much less funded met gala — people liked coming to the annual weekend away, we've had co-stars and romances treck down with us some years. Some stick and some don't.

Florence using the excuse that we hadn't had an Olly bash in the last couple years ( due to circumstances that I now hold on the sofa). Yet, It wasn't quite true. once Drew got hold of the tradition he rented out a small house in Carolina for my birthday. It was him and me and a few of his cast mates — it was sweet and I enjoyed the weekend.

The water was warm unlike in Cornwall, but it wasn't the same — half of my friendship group weren't speaking to me and Florence was filming in some other part of the world so couldn't make it.

He dressed up my heartache in ice cream cake and pina coladas on the beach, but it just hurt more. The idea I'd never have that this again, I'd never have the people I've had for the eight years of my life. That I'd never be able to return to the happiest parts of my life again.

I hear a soft gasp exit his mouth " fifteen! when did you become so popular?" he hums as I shake my head.

I reel my face from his neck and look at him with a soft yet tired smile " what can I say? the people love me." I hum.

He nods his head, the muscles of his mouth tightening as he smiles " yeah, it's probably the easiest thing in the world to do."

I exhale, turning so my eyes look at the ceiling " I need to go home." I tell him, " I still haven't packed and we leave early tomorrow."

He nods his head, " I could drop you off early tomorrow morning, and you could stay here tonight?"

As much as that idea sounds like music to my ears, I shake my head " I didn't bring anything with me." Knowing that our meeting was off the cuff when I texted him that I missed him and he sent back an order confirming an Uber from my house from his.

" you can sleep in my clothes." he follows my suit of sitting up, his fingers pushing down the strap of my top as his lips gently kiss my sun kissed skin.