and then you left // cth

chapter 35: photographs

alexis

The rest of my night with Calum felt too much like the times we used to have together: The times in which we were the type of boyfriend and girlfriend you wish you had. We laughed, and talked over each other with an overwhelming sense of excitement. We had so much to say, so much to catch up on. He'd done so much in the past months, after moving away from me. So much that I was eager to hear about.

We had music to listen to, to recommend to each other. Calum insisted on thumbing through his updated record collection with me by his side because, "things just sound better on vinyl,"

I believe that there was a mutual, unspoken agreement between the two of us. An agreement in which we allowed ourselves one night. We had one night to catch up, one night to laugh and just be happy and grateful to be in each other's presence. One night to pretend nothing was wrong.

But as the moon lowered closer to the horizon, I remembered what had brought us here, and what was surely to come.

Eventually, we ended up laying on his futon under a pile of too many blankets, drinking cheap coffee and watching a random episode of the third season of American Horror Story at 2 in the morning. The room smelt of the burnt coffee, and Calum's cologne, and I'd fallen asleep with a contentless in my bones that I hadn't felt in much too long.

Somehow his arm had found its way around me, and I snuggled close to him, feeling the warmth of his body against mine. He planted a kiss on the top of my head, and we laid there without moving an inch for the duration of the entire one hour episode.

I awoke to the ending credits and Calum sitting up and taking my empty mug, announcing that he would go refill our caffeine addiction.

While Calum was making the coffee, I'd snuck off in attempt to find his bathroom, or at least that's what I'd told myself as I roamed through his hallway. But instead, I found my feet walking past the bathroom and into his bedroom.

Now, I peer inside from the doorway, noticing the resemblance between this new and unfamiliar room, and the Calum I used to know.

It is messy in such a way that did not signal laziness, but rather a larger issue at hand. The queen sized bed looks like it hasn't been made in months, and the navy blue comforter is draped across it with a crookedness that is painful to look at. Several of his dark wood dresser drawers are left open halfway as is the door to his closet. Clothes are scattered around the room in piles that I don't dare eye too closely.

Despite the overwhelming mess in the rest of the room, his bass sits proudly in the corner, on a stand that is cleared of clutter. It stands out amongst all of the mess in the rest of the room. It seems different, important.

I walk over to it and pick it up, careful not to smudge it. I run my fingers along the strings gingerly, remembering the day that Calum got it. He'd wanted it for so long, and he just kept saving and saving his money, until he finally called me one morning with a smile I could hear through the phone.

"Today's the day, Lex," he'd practically sung in my ear. "Today is the day I'm getting my bass." He'd made a day out of it, and took me for lunch in the city before we'd headed over to the music store. He spent hours in there, browsing carefully through the assortment of instruments. But he knew which one he wanted from the moment we walked into the store, he had for months.

He was so damn excited, and I was so proud of him. The look on his face when he'd finally bought it was priceless. It was nothing that all of a child's Christmases and birthdays combined could ever compare to.

I remember him looking at me as we left the music store, telling me that this bass would change things for both of us, that this would be his big break. It would only be a matter of time before his career took off from there. He would buy us a house and all the music and books I could ever dream of. Though I'd taken his dreamy words with a grain of salt, I'd known that he was serious.

Absentmindedly, I set the bass down beside me on the bed and switch my gaze to his nightstand. It was painfully bare and sad, cluttered with overdue bills and junk mail. Back at home, he'd covered his nightstand in pictures of us, and a stack of CD's. I wonder if he still has them.

I wonder did he's hidden every evidence he had of our relationship, as I did. It was too hard to wake up every morning and see his picture on my phone, on my desk. I'd had to hide everything away, in places so inconvenient to get to that I knew I'd only search for them if I really missed him that day.

I open the drawer to his nightstand quietly, careful not to make a sound. As soon as I open it, I see stack of printed photographs, all shiny and high quality. He must've gotten them printed at a real place, not at some pharmacy like I used to do, before phones took over the world.

Each picture in the stack is either of me or of the both of us, and there's a decent variety. My heart aches as I find candids he used to take of me, when I least expected it. He always told me he loved those pictures the most because they weren't fake; I wasn't posing for the press or whatever. That my emotions were real, and raw and beautiful.

My heart stops as I thumb over a picture that means even more to me than the others. It's one of me, one that Calum had taken the time we stayed with his grandparents for a weekend last year. He'd snapped it as we ran around in the backyard that he had nearly grown up in, playing on the swings like we were still children. I remember telling myself that Calum was the one, as he chased me around the yard. That was the day I decided I loved him. That was the day everything changed, for the both of us.

That was the day that we both realized how much we meant to each other, and how real and valid our feelings were.

But it was also the day we decided that nothing else mattered, which was the first problem with our relationship, one that started out small but grew with each day that passed us by.

"That was a good day, wasn't it?" Calum's voice rings suddenly, and I drop the picture out of surprise. I look up to see him leaning his shoulder in the doorway, his tall frame slumped against the doorframe. I wonder how long he'd been there.

"Yeah, it was." I reminisce, reaching to pick the picture off the ground.

Calum walls over and sits next to me on the bed. I lean my head on his shoulder and he reaches for the picture, and he grabs it gently, but I don't let go of it. And so we look at it together, as one.

"That was the day I knew I loved you," I whisper, not even knowing if I meant to say the words out loud. "That was the day everything changed."

He leans his head against mine, and puts his arm around me, holding me tightly. The clock above his head ticks loudly, and is the only sound in the room aside from our breathing and rapid heart rates. I can see the moon through his window, all white and lit up. This night is seeming to last forever, dragging on as more and more emotions are brought up.

"Do you still love me?" Calum breaks the silence and exhales after his words, as if relieving some kind of pressure from his mind.

I wish I had to think about his question, but I simply don't.

"I never stopped," I breathe, and he moves his head to look at me.

"I love you, Lex." He says, and I know that this night of ignorance is coming to an end before I even respond.

"I love you Calum."

As the words left my mouth, I knew that this was the end of an era. This was the end to seven months of nothing but absolute pain and torture. Tomorrow, things will change. And though I am entirely unsure of what is to come, I can only hope that they change for the better.

...

the end.

jk dhakdjsksk i'm SORRY
all will be revealed in the next chapter hehe
i'm sorry if the plot seems slow but really it's just that the chapters are relatively short.
i love writing lex and calum scenes they make my heart all happy <33

this was kind of a filler chapter to show where they're at with each other rn you feel

do you like calum & lex or luke & lex better??

thank you sm for reading i love you
i see 5sos in two days
insane.