all mine | ft. michael clifford

twenty-eight;

Dedicated to Erin who's been reading, commenting, being rad since forever.

Special POV: Michael Clifford

Tour was beginning to feel more like a job and less like a tour. I don't mean the shows. The shows made me feel good, like they always did; the shows pumped blood through my veins and a fresh motivation through my bones. The shows were worth everything. It was all the other things that were draining me. I was sick of everyone tip toeing around Mali Cross, around Charlotte. I was sick of everyone avoiding her, trying not to mention her, pretending she didn't exist and never did. Because she did exist. She existed on the other side of the planet and while that was the most frustrating thing to ever happen to me, at least she did exist.

"Mikey, we're going for pizza," Mel told me, knocking on the door to my hotel room after she'd opened it. "You coming?"

I shook my head, eyes on the screen of my phone. "I'm good."

The door didn't shut and I could feel her lingering still, staring at me like she'd been doing a lot lately. I was sure that they all thought I was going to self-destruct at any moment, as though I was full of flammable fuel and they were all waiting for me to strike a match. To tell the absolute truth, I wasn't completely sure that I wasn't going to.

All I knew was that I would forget about Charlotte.

I just needed time.

"Are you going to leave the hotel sometime throughout this whole tour?" Mel pressed. "Because you're acting really pathetic and this was supposed to be a cool holiday with friends."

I stared at her, phone momentarily losing all of its grandeur and interest. Was she for real?

"Are you okay?" I asked her.

It wasn't like Mel to be so, well, bitchy – at least not for no reason.

"No, actually," she told me and her voice was firm. "Because for the last month, you've been living life inside hotel rooms and ignoring all your friends. Michael, she's one girl."

One girl. Maybe to Melissa she was. Maybe to all of them she was just one girl. But Mali Cross – Charlotte – had meant more to me than that. She'd been this shell of wonderful and bright and hopeful things. She'd been this person, amongst all people, whom I'd actually found interesting enough to want a relationship with. I'd wanted all of her. And she'd left my life just as quickly as she'd entered it.

I was dealing with some major whiplash. I was tired. I was touring. And I had a right to my own space.

"Don't wanna hear this right now," I told her, unlocking my phone yet again and clicking into Twitter.

Call me obsessive, or even plain stupid, but I was looking for her. It seemed like she either didn't know how to work social media accounts or she just didn't want them. She'd told me her parents were rich so I knew she had access to a phone and probably her own laptop and wifi.

She'd told me about her parents. She'd let me into that part of her life. She'd trusted me. Why hadn't I remembered that when I was telling Adam that she'd lied about her name to get a passport? That part of her life was something she'd left behind when she'd come to LA. And she'd been forced to go back to that plastic family of hers that she told me didn't feel real.

I shut my phone, my thoughts frustrating me. Myself frustrating me. God, I was an idiot. Right?

"You don't wanna hear it now because it's true," Melissa continued. "You know, I get that you loved her but this is bullshit, Michael."