Mr Hood (Calum Hood AU)

Part 49 - An Understanding...

Hey guys! Thanks for holding out for the update again.

The italics are the flashback. That is all.

The next update should be pretty soon. I am off work just now. Depression got me bad so I am trying to get back into writing so I have a reason to keep going in life.

Thank you for waiting. Love you guys!x

                  

I had a few more days off after I got out of the hospital before I had to go back to school.  I was going to have to get a lot of help in school and out of it if I wanted to pass my classes.  The school board had offered for me to just wait and resit the full of the year next term.  I was thinking about it but I really just wanted it all over with as soon as possible so that I could leave.  I wasn't going to university or anything but I just wanted to be free to do whatever I want. 

When we got home I must have been asleep because when I woke up I was in my bed.  Calum or Spencer must have carried me in from the car.  It was strange to be back here.  It has been so long and it smells like home.  My candles in my room, the untouched guitar in the corner of the room, my camera sitting on the side of my dresser with my picture wall behind it.  It was weird that after everything that had happened in 8 months, my room was still the exact same. 

After I woke up I walked slowly down the stairs, just taking in the place I call home and found the three boys sitting in the main lounge talking.  I couldn't hear what it was exactly, but I guessed it was about me.  "Hey Sleeping Beauty."  Spencer grinned as I walked in the room.  I gave him a small smile.  "Hi."  I replied quietly.  "Are you hungry?  We were just about to order Chinese."  Luke says to me.  I nod at him.  I really was starving.  I felt like I hadn't eaten in a week, even though it was probably just a few hours since I had breakfast at the hospital.

I sat down next to Calum while Luke ordered the Chinese, Spencer telling him what I usually get.  "You alright?"  Calum asked quietly from my side.  "Yeah.  I am just tired.  It is weird to be back in my house again."  I tell him just as lowly as he had spoken to me.  "I guess it must be weird.  But it is home."  He says and I nod.  "It's just, I had called the mansion 'home' for so long that it doesn't feel right to be here now."  I admit.  I can see the slight frown on Calum's face but he covers it quickly.  "I can understand that.  It would be strange."  He says, even though I can tell that he isn't really understanding of what I had said.  At least he is trying though, I guess. 

The Chinese arrives and when I open up my food it just brings back a flurry of memories from Elijah's.  The most prominent was the time when we had a deep conversation about him. 

We were sitting at the table eating our food.  He had ordered me some sweet and sour chicken noodles, my usual.  We were eating quietly.  "So how was your day?"  I asked him, genuinely interested in how he was.  "It was stressful.  My father was getting on at me for the way I handle business.  He was telling me that I was a disappointment, that if it was up to him, then I would have nothing to do with him."  He tells me honestly, his face downturned.  I could tell he was upset about it.  "That isn't nice of him.  From what I can see, you do your work well and you take it very seriously from all the meetings you have.  He obviously can't see how much you do.  It isn't fair."  I say to him as I stop eating, focussing my attention on him. 

Elijah looks up at me with a small smile on his face.  "He has always been like this.  Ever since I was a child.  I was always pushed around and put down whenever things weren't done exactly as he had wanted.  My father is a cruel man.  I hate him.  But he is still my blood.  What he says affects me.  It isn't like I am proud of what I do all the time, but I do what has to be done for my guys' safety.  If I hadn't been pushed into the business then things might have turned out differently."  He admits.  "Well if you weren't in the business, what you be doing?"  I asked him, trying to find out more about him and his dreams.  He lets out a little chuckle.  "Well, I guess I would probably be a writer, or something that would allow me to travel a lot.  I love seeing the world and learning about other people.  I used to love writing.  I even had a journal when I was younger, I recorded everything I did and all of my thoughts and stuff."  He says with a smile on his face, obviously thinking about what his life could have been.  I smiled over at him, showing that I had enjoyed hearing about him.  "What were you like as a teenager?  Were you one of the quiet ones?  Or were you a popular guy?"  I asked with a little smirk.  "I was a weird kid.  I didn't have friends.  People never liked me.  I definitely wasn't popular.  I was one of the freaks that stuck by themselves, wrote about everything and I used to climb the trees in the forest to look at things from a different perspective.  I used to get really high, I fell down a few times."  He tells me as he lets out a little laugh.  "One time I fell from really high, near the top of a massive oak tree.  I broke my collarbone and I got cuts like everywhere.  I still have a scar on my eyebrow from where my head hit the tree roots."  He says pointing to the little scar above his eyebrow.  He looked happy explaining his younger years.