I'll Be The Anchor - Michael Clifford

Nothing To No One But Me

It'd been almost two weeks on the Take Me Home Tour, I was exhausted and we'd worked our way down half of the east coast. It'd be a fun two weeks, I felt extremely close to the guys and they really made things easy on me. Ashton helped me keep things in control while Calum and Luke provided comic relief. Of course Michael was my rock, helping support me every time Harry showed his face with some new plea for forgiveness.

I even got brave enough to help Michael tell his ex to leave him alone.

Things were brighter than they'd been in a while, yet somehow my self hatred loomed on strong.

It was something I didn't talk about with anyone. The dark nights when I'd sit and overthink. A product of a bully centric society in middle and high school years. I'd done my best to keep everyone away from that side of me. Part of me also knew that Michael held that certain sadness too. I'd find him gaming away in his bunk at 3AM sometimes, I'd try to tell him to sleep and he'd say okay but I knew he'd be up longer.

He seemed to withdraw sometimes, much like me. I wasn't worried about him, I just wished he didn't have to go through what he was going through. He spoke of struggling with who was there for him for fame, and who was actually there for him for him. I tried to tell him that he had his boys, he had his family, and he did have friends too. It just seemed to only be enough to get him to say okay.

On our next day off most of the boys decided to stay in and hang around the pool with the One Direction. When Michael declined the invitation I took the chance to get him out for a while.

"Hey Michael, I'm not really up for swimming either, wanna go explore?" I called back to the media area from the kitchen.

"What?" He asked, I assume just takin out his headphones. I walked back towards him.

"Do you want to go explore?" I asked. We were in a North Carolina city I'd visited before.

"Uh, what time is it?" He asked.

"Nearly one, I'm hungry. Come with me?" I asked, looking at him.

"Yeah yeah sure, let me change?"

"Of course, no real rush."

I sat down in the kitchen area with my laptop and continued to plan out the next days activities for about ten minutes when Michael emerged ready to go.

"Where to?" He asked.

"I figured we'd walk around downtown?" I asked.

"Sure." He said, nodding and following me about. "How are you?" He asked after a minute or so of walking in silence out of the hotel parking lot.

"I'm great. You?" I asked.

"I'm okay. I'm really tired." He said.

"Yeah I've noticed you're always up." I said.

"Thinking too much." He said.

"What's been going on?" I asked.

"Nothing really just haven't felt happy lately."

"I understand that feeling. Today lets have fun, yeah?"

He offered me a big smile, "of course."

We walked together bantering about some ridiculous stunt Calum pulled in the showers last night. Something with naked pull ups and busting his arse and then trying to get up and busting it again. I couldn't stop myself from laughing as Michael told it with such an animated tone.

"Sorry to interrupt Michael, but I see an Italian deli... So I'm thinking lunch." I said, grabbing his hand a pulling him eagerly towards the wooden doors of the little bistro.