To love you | Malum

Ch. 5 - Pool Parties + Hiccups

Michael + Ch. 5 - Pool Parties + Hiccups

The night that Calum wheeled me inside of my house for the second time within a week, was the night I made the assumption that everything would genuinely be alright again. I used to understand the feeling of being cared for, but it's faded away into the distance, just like my confidence. All I'm left and drained with is insecurities, and insecurities could be compared to sloppy seconds, and nobody wants sloppy seconds. I had this sort of predicament that maybe Calum would leave Luke for me because he realized that I could give him everything I had in my possession, but now all that I can think of is that he'd never want it to happen. He'd rather live his life, knowing that the person he's with has two walking feet and a spine that can arch whenever he's being pleasured. That sort of thing can't happen with me. Not as easily, anyway.

I was in gym class again, my fingers circulating around the wooden pencil in my hand as I gazed down at the ripped, white piece of paper, attached to a clipboard that rested gently on my thighs. One reason why I should excuse you from physical activity for the day. That question was ignorant enough to make me roll my eyes. The teacher didn't understand what it was like to have the inability of participating in things you wish you could do. If I could run ten miles around a track field, I would. If I could play a round of football and score a touchdown just like I used to, I would. But unfortunately for me, I wasn't meant to be talented at anything other than strumming a couple of chords on my guitar and singing in hopes that I'd make it big one day.

But then again, if I couldn't be a football player, then I definitely couldn't be a musician that sat on stage with a microphone concealing my shaky, pale hands that nobody had the audacity to look at. I'd rather be out there, on a television screen where everyone recognizes me by the color of my hair or the number on my jersey. But as Michael Clifford, a guy with one foot branching free, one foot concealed with a neon green cast and a spine that has yet to heal, I am not gifted or granted with such power. In my world, at a time and place like this, power doesn't exist. Only limitations and demons, and fighting them off can be harder than trying to walk, knowing that I'm just going to end up falling flat on my face anyway.

I was alone for a huge portion of the period, but Calum never failed to notice me in the distance as sweat rang from his hair and a smile bled from his lips. He was beautiful, even when he was drenched with stains and colors of grey. He made everything around me blossom, and I suddenly no longer felt the need to run away from him anymore. Calum was there, looking at me, with his big doe eyes, and peering away from what I could call art was nearly impossible. He was like a painting that I could stare at until time froze, because he held such poetry in his eyes. It made me want to write about him until my hands broke as well.

"Hi."

Two hands on the handlebars of my wheelchair, lips twirling in all sorts of motions with one head pounding, one mind begging to be read, a pair of lips aching to be touched and welcomed by someone new, and a feeling that I had to tug away again, despite knowing that I wanted to kiss him like I'd never be able to kiss him again. I'd prefer his lips over oxygen, any day. Though I'd require both in order to feel some sort of satisfaction.

"Hey."

His voice was soothing. The kind of soothing that reminded me of deep blue oceans twirling with the touch of the wind, bringing me to the thought of my mother, a smile casting on her lips in a photograph of her and Daryl sitting inside of a canoe, life vests strapped onto them as they held onto their paddles, eyes revealing a pattern of fondness that I wanted to desperately feel. Would I ever receive it if I gave it? Probably not.