Reckless || c.t.h.

22 - The Boy With The Tattoos

22 - The Boy With The Tattoos

{Arabella's point of view}

I don't know why I took Calum to my space. It was mine. As soon as we arrived I was regretting it. The memories of everything came flooding to my brain and I had to push the urge to cry to the back of my head. Not in front of Calum.

He was being unusually nice to me. Granted, I had taken him here but it was only a stop off point. His arm wrapped around me made the regret trickle away. I didn't understand the sudden urge to be around the obnoxious boy, I hadn't ever wanted to be around someone before, let alone Calum.

I let my mind wander as we say there, in comfortable silence and I realised something. Since the incident I had told myself I didn't need people, that I wasn't a people person, I didn't need anyone to make me feel good about myself - still true - and I didn't need anyone to make me happy - a lie. I did need people. Three people in specific. Two I couldn't have. One I could. And I was going to make sure it was going to stay that way.

Calum lit something up inside of me no one since I was a child has. Competition. Challenge. Excitement. I didn't know what would come next when I was around him. Everyone else was so fucking predictable it made me sick. But not him. One minute we would be rivals, spitting insults and sarcastic comments at each other, and the next his arm would be wrapped around me, comforting me for a reason he doesn't even know. The boy with the tattoos next to me was almost impossible to figure out.

I shrugged my shoulder and Calum's arm whipped away from me, as if my skin was fire to him.

"What's the time?" He asked me. I looked at my watch, the watch they gave me as a going away present; I never took it off anymore. It was one of the last things they gave to me from their travels. I hadn't lied to Calum, my parents did always go on vacations, they were never home, always leaving me for some new kind of project their work had them doing, never inviting me anywhere after I proved I could cook my own meals - poorly but enough for them. But that was then. The last time I saw them was when I was angry because they were leaving again. What I didn't know was that they weren't ever going to return to me. I regretted everything and that's what this place was full of. My empty forgotten regret. Regret I didn't want to feel anymore; I left it here to rot and be forgotten, not seen by anyone but me. It gave it the atmosphere that relaxed me. I was able to free my mind and fill the space in front of me.

"7:02." I read. My eyes widened as I double checked the clock on my wrist. We had been sat together for longer than j expected.

"Did we have somewhere we needed to be?" he questioned, his voice soft and void of any sarcasm, something that was new to me. Calum Hood, the boy of surprises. I let my eyes wander to his tattoos before I answered.

"I did but we're late, there's no point anymore." It was the truth, something I couldn't help but tell when I was around the idiot in front of me.

"You can't blame me, it was you that decided to stop on an uncomfortable rock for an hour," he replied. I sighed, a small laugh escaping at the same time. The ink on his forearm constricted with his muscles, veins pushing their way up to make an appearance. He was angry?

"Sorry Hulk, calm down I wasn't blaming anyone, I was stating a fact. Now can you calm down, your green is showing," I joked. I heard him scoff as he quickly turned his head and pulled his arms out of my sight.

Breaking us out of the mood we were both getting us into, was The Hills. I loved The Weeknd but the sudden outburst into song shocked me, making me jump up into a standing position. Calum chuckled at me but then realised what the noise meant. His phone was ringing.

"Are you going to get that?" I asked him as the song neared the chorus, surely his phone would stop ringing soon?

"Oh yeah!" he exclaimed, as if the thought had not crossed his simple mind. In one smooth movement he pulled the phone out of his large black pocket and swiped the screen to answer. "Speak to me." Was all he said to the person on the other end of the phone line, he didn't need to know who it was, they would all probably want the same thing; to give gossip or to receive gossip. The purpose being to gain brownie points in the Calum Hood book. If you gave him gossip you went up in his ranking, something apparently a lot of people wanted. I would never know why.

I watched as his eyebrows furrowed and then relaxed, his mouth pouting and then falling into a frown. He hung up.

"I need to go."