all mine | ft. michael clifford

nine;

Dedicated to someone who's been a great encouragement from pretty much the beginning. x

SPECIAL POV: MICHAEL CLIFFORD

"I think I just panicked or something."

Her words in the bathroom swam through my head non-stop. I'd seen people panic before. Shit, I'd panicked so many times while on tour that I'd lost count. People panic every day, all the time. It's normal and natural. But she, she panicked like everyone she'd ever loved had just disappeared. She panicked like she'd just found out that she was about to die. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before. Her face and skin pretty much went translucent and her eyes became hollow as hell.

Something had happened inside her head. Something that must have terrified her. And I wanted to know what it was.

But she didn't trust me. And I knew that whatever it was that went wrong in those few minutes, it was personal and unless she willingly came right out with it, I wasn't about to ask.

I had no idea what it was about her, but she interested me. Not in the quick-fling way. Not in the sappy-lovey-dovey romantic way either. I just genuinely wanted to know how she ticked.

"Mikey."

I snapped out of my internal daydream, feeling like a moron when I saw Melissa and Calum staring at me.

I'd sat myself down on a recliner off to the side of the sofa; this was my chair. I don't know exactly how I'd claimed it as mine but I did so a couple of years ago when our band first decided to buy this apartment to use while we were stuck in Los Angeles between tours and Australia. The recliner was made of worn leather and reminded me of our house back home. I missed my family a lot. LA wasn't where I was supposed to be but right now it was where 5 Seconds of Summer had to be. I was just itching to get on that plane back to Ausland.

"Is she okay?" Melissa asked and I knew she was talking about Mali.

She still hadn't come out of my room and I'd left just over ten minutes ago.

I shrugged because I honestly had no idea if she was okay or not. I used her words because I didn't know what else to tell them. "She just panicked or something."

Calum looked confused and I understood why. There was nothing to panic about here. Everything and everyone was safe. There was literally nothing unsafe about us and I was sure she knew it.

"Why?" Melissa asked.

I shrugged again, hating that I honestly couldn't tell them what the hell had happened because I didn't even know myself. "I don't know, I didn't ask."

"She's probably still freaked about Carlos," Calum guessed. "He's one fucked up dude."

"Yeah probably," I replied but I wasn't entirely convinced.

"Is she actually coming back out?" Luke asked, piping into the conversation.

"I don't know," I admitted, standing up. "Better check."

"And tell her Liv's crashing here tonight so she's welcome to as well," Ashton added as I strolled back towards the hallway.

"And me," Mel interjected. "I'm staying too."

"Got it," I called back to them, wandering down to my room.

I knocked on my door, leaning my head in close to the white wood, listening. I couldn't hear anything apart from my own breathing.

I knocked again. "Mali?"

Nothing.

Fuck it.