Choices || Calum Hood

Sincerely Yours

"Now this broken shell of a girl falls to pieces with no choice. At the sound of his voice she falls apart..." 

The next time I wake up is because my bed feels like it's shaking under the noise of my phone's 'Marimba' ringtone. I almost tumble out of the bed as my hand reaches out to my bedside table, frantically patting around for my cell. I don't bother looking at the caller ID, I just tap the accept button, press it onto my ear and rudely say "What?" to my sleep interrupter.

"SUMMYYY" I hear, instantly recognizing it as a sluggish and slightly incoherent version of Calum's voice, some hardcore rap song playing in the background. My cheeks heat. "Where are you? I can't find you anywhere?" He whines.

"I'm at my house and I was trying to get some sleep so..."

A few seconds pass before I hear him speaking again. "I was just, like, like I wanted to tell you" he took a breath before he screamed out " I LOVE YOU SUMMER FELICITY DANES." He starts laughing while my insides are swirling around like a tornado just erupted from the pits of my stomach. This boy will be the death of me. Angry tears threaten to spill out of me, because I know he doesn't mean this.

"That's great Calum but." I pause, trying to catch my breath. "you need to get some sl-".

"You don't understand Sum" he interrupts "I like, love you".

My heart feels like its just been smashed against my bones.

"Ever since I saw you help that blind kid cross Ms. Johnson's- hiccup- street every morning in seventh grade, and when you let me-hiccup- sit next to you on the first day of school even though I was that-hiccup- weird new kid that cried when saying bye to his mommy, an-and-hiccup- especially that time when you ate all the tuna from my salad that time my mum- hiccup- forced me to finish the whole thing, even though you hate tuna and puked afterwards."

He went silent, and I almost got down on my knees and started praying that he would stop.

"I want to tell you this in person! Yeah. I'm going to come find you and tell you why I love you."

Panic sirens start going off in my head as I begin sprinting down the stairs. "Nononononono" I combine into a word, "You stay there Calum, I'll come to you, okay?" He takes a second before replying with a strange sound which I decide to take as an okay.

I find my dad lying down on the couch and realize I haven't seen him in a while. He has the habit of disappearing for a few day, sometimes weeks, before randomly reappearing again and being uncomfortably present. I quickly but a blanket over him and ran out of the house.

Hailing a cab was as easy as usually, perks of living in New York I guess, and I reached the beach house. I paid the exceedingly cranky,cab driver the only cash I managed to grab before facing the beach house.

Trash litters the entire yard and my eyes start to search for Calum, which doesn't take long. Hes stumbling around their black SUV, that was tucked in between their Bentley and white Range Rover attempting to unlock the door with a plastic fork.

I sprint towards him as he falls to the ground. As I come into his line of vision his eyes shoot open, his head whipping around wildly.

"Cal.." I say as I let my hand caress the back of his head, down to his neck. A smile seems to creep along his face as he registers who I am.

"Summy" he says as he throws his arms around me, pulling me towards the ground.

"Hey, hey, hey" I say as I stabilize us by sitting down next to him. "Be careful, you crazy child."

He lifts his head from where it was tucked into the curve of my neck and put his hands on either sides of my face. "Oh Summy" he slurs, while shaking my head a little, "You don't even know how much I love you, do you?" He rubs his nose along my neck before giggling.

I do my best to control the overwhelming sadness that is dying to take over my body. Part of my loves this. Part of me has wished for this since I first met him, but the other part of me hates it. It hates him and myself for being this pathetic.

"Do you love me Summy?" He questions, and because I know he won't remember a thing I take a little bit of pleasure knowing I can get my feelings off my chest.

"Yes, I love you very much. You make all the bad days in my life worth it by just a moment with you."

"Come on Cal.." I say after a few moments as I drape his arm around my shoulders. "Lets see if you remember what you said tomorrow, shall we." I mumble as I do my best to help him inside. By this time we already started walking out of the garage door, and down the front lawn. He had a nonchalant smile on his face, his eyelids calmly closed, his head bobbing around as he stumbled on red solo cups that were carelessly left on the floor.

We trudged up the stairs, while Cal mumbles some incoherent words, occasionally laughing at himself and I manage to remain with my head down, avoiding any unwanted attention. It was only when I kicked open the door images of the brunet girl clung on top of Cal, doing things he would never want me to do to him invade my mind.

Jealously starts bubbling all the way down from my toes to the ceiling of my skull, as I tuck him into bed. I was turning around, ready to leave his room when he grabbed my hand. "Please don't leave Summer," he whispered, his voice a depth of sadness I've never heard before.

With his hand gripping my wrist i can only think of the way they gripped that girls waist. I have no energy left as I let the tears flow and as I lay in bed next to him. Silently I cry as the boy I love most in this world sleeps next to me.