Sweaters || Malum

~Final Update~

I missed this book so I came back for one final chapter. There are a couple of Malum moments because I feel like the book missed them. I also go a little bit more in depth in certain parts or just add completely new ones. Also, should I make a new cover or do you like the present one?

Song for the Chapter: Still Worth Fighting For by My Darkest Days

--

"I didn't know that y-you wrote." Michael told me, his head on my lap as he scrolled through my stories that I never showed anybody. 

All the times I poured my heart out to a blank page instead of a blade was respectable, at least for me. "They're not very good." I told Michael honestly, running my hand through his coloured hair.

Michael looks up at me with his innocent green eyes. "They're w-well written they're j-just s-sad." He tells me with a frown. "Why are they s-sad?" He asks me. 

I had to think for a moment. I thought about the rope in the dresser, the cuts on my arms. I sighed and responded, "Because not all endings are happy. They're painful and full of despair because that is life and it is more realistic. The twisted thoughts of a writer is expressed through page and it will end in sorrow one way or another." 

"Y-You're not t-twisted." Michael attempts to take the words I just said and reverse them-an attempt to make them less true.

I wasn't twisted, but my thoughts were.

--

He had a large grin on his face and I roll my eyes at his innocence. "You're worth being murdered for." I jokingly respond. He just nods and I felt the awkwardness between the both of us. It was a nice awkwardness though. "Also, Ashton doesn't scare me. I have a feeling that he is a squishy teddy bear." I say dramatically, hand gestures and everything.

Michael gives me a smile, one of innocence and joy. As he looks to my arms, the smile goes away and I felt self-conscious. I lean down slightly and place a kiss on the top of his head. "It will all be okay in the end." I promised hollowly. I knew my future, but nobody else did. 

"C-Can we go to your r-room?" Michael asks.

"I think the relationship is moving too fast, just have gotten together two minutes ago." I told him.

He gave me a light slap in the stomach and I laughed at the fact his face was bright red with embarrassment. "N-Not like that, p-pervert. J-Just to hang out on the f-first night of u-us getting together." Michael explains more thoroughly, even though I knew his intentions from the beginning.

I nodded, grabbing his hand lightly as we made our way to my bedroom. I closed the door, silently thanking everything that nobody was home. "Y-You and I n-need to have an in d-depth conversation about the s-self-harm." Michael tells me, sitting down criss-cross on my bed. 

I sighed, knowing the conversation would come one day. "Not today." I told him, sitting down next to him. He leaned his head onto my shoulder, wishing this moment would never end.

--

I had lost Michael. The talent show was tomorrow so I had to remind myself I needed to make an exit. A final leave. I never thought I would lose Michael. I lost Luke already, I know I did. He chose his abusive boyfriend over the friend that had been there for years.

I understood it though. Who was I to judge somebody? He was going to be losing me anyway so I was happy that he already moved on from me. But as I sat in my room, I reminded myself that I did not need to cut. Not tonight. I opened up the drawer, pulling out the rope and the bar I was going to hook to the ceiling tomorrow. I was going to kill myself and I felt good about that, surprisingly I felt good. 

I heard a knock on my bedroom door and the slurs of a drunken father. I closed my eyes as the door opened. This was the last time. I was going to make sure this was the last time. I hid the items underneath my dresser as he stumbles forward, immediately hitting me.

--

Alternative Ending:

*Michael's Point of View*

"U-Up here." I yell, looking up at my boyfriend's body.

I see a fallen chair and I quickly grab it and stand on it. I begin shaking the bar and I see paramedics running into the room with a gurney. I couldn't untie the rope with his body weight tightening it. I continue shaking the bar and I see a screw fall out and the bar rips out of the ceiling and I hear a bang.

Through my tears I watch as the paramedics surround Calum's body. They take the rope off from around his neck and put their fingers on his neck.

"He's still breathing." One of them say, as they begin wrapping his arms and hook up an oxygen mask. I stumble down onto the ground. He was alive, and I was the one who saved him.

Later that day, I sat in the hospital as an unconscious Calum was breathing quietly. He was hooked up to a machine, and the doctors say that he just fell unconscious from lack of oxygen; nothing severe. If I had been a minute later, he would either died or been brain dead.

They had gave him medication to allow him to sleep, but something about me was that I couldn't. I glanced at the clock, 3:17 am. The light was on in his room as I watched him sleep peacefully. That was until his eyes slowly peeled themselves open. "Oh m-my gosh C-Cal." I gasped, his brown eyes looking warmly to me.

"What happened?" He asks me, holding his head.

"Y-You did s-something bad but everything i-is okay now. Y-You are o-okay now." I told him, tears falling from my eyes.

><><

"Calum Thomas Hood had a mask, one that held the demons back and prevented their escape. But a mask could only be viable for so long until somebody finds out, and then it shatters. And Calum's mask shattered, and his demons erupted forcefully and it almost ended his life.

I actually went on to college. I was never very intelligent, but I had a calling for helping people. So I went on to work with kids from abusive homes, always having Calum in mind. 

But how easy is a happy ending? You can wrap everything up with a happy ever after; but how do you end a sad book? Where people die and nothing is left but that one minor character, leaning over a grave reminiscing about the better times when he was carefree. But Calum Hood's story would never have a happy ending.

He lived, he survived his days at his high school and married me. But one year into our marriage, Calum fell ill. It only took a month for a Stage 4 cancerous brain tumor would take his life. Because some people were not meant to live. There was a natural order, and Calum attempted to defy it that one faithful day. 

But I would never took my life, not that I didn't think about it. I found it hard to move on, but I never stopped trying. Luke and Ashton would eventually get married, too. Ashton would end up beating Luke into a coma and Ashton went off to jail. I am not sure of their endings, but I am sure of mine.

I will carry on Calum's memory. I even set up a foundation in his name. It was a hospital that people helped me fund, specifically for people going through self-harm recovery and suicidal idealization and attempts.

My name is Michael Gordon Clifford,

                                                                         And this was my story."