A Letter Before I Go ; malum

2

IT WAS DAY THREE. The grief had set in, and Calum was trying so hard to pull himself together. Luke had already cried twice, and Ashton cried because of him, but the Maori still remained strong. The sadness was balanced with the guilt.

He snapped over the simplest things, ready to break at any moment, and then he found it;

The lighter Michael gave to him. It had never held that much meaning until now, and the conversation behind it stuck in his head.

"Now, whenever you smoke, you'll think of me."

He started sobbing in the middle of the kitchen, halfway through spreading some butter on his toast as the lighter just laid innocently on the counter. He dropped the knife and tried so hard to wipe his tears. Ashton, without even blinking, got up and wrapped his arms around his best friend.

"It's all my fault," he sobbed, drool and snot getting on Ashton's favourite jumper, "I – I could've stopped him. I heard him get up and – and . . ."

Ashton shut him up, soothing him just like he did to Luke, saying that it wasn't his fault, and that Michael would be back, and that he never said he wouldn't be.

Calum wanted to scoff at his optimism, but it caught in the back of his throat.

"I miss him so much."

"Me too." Ashton whispered. "But he's going to come back. It's been three days. He has to turn up."

Calum stood up straight, wiping the snot off of his top lip with his sleeve. "I j-just hope he's okay."

Ashton smiled half-heartedly, sitting him down on the couch to watch a kids' show they both knew nothing about. Luke was asleep next to them.

Calum moved around, uncomfortable with the fact that his phone was in his back pocket. He didn't want to touch it. He didn't want to turn it on and see that there were no messages from Michael. He didn't want to go into Twitter and see #findmikey was trending.

He got up and walked over to the kitchen table to grab his smokes. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion when he saw that they weren't there. He was sure he left them there. He never left them anywhere else apart from his pocket.

"Hey, Ash, you seen my smokes?"

Ashton looked over his shoulder, bags under his tired eyes as he answered quietly, "You've been smoking like a chimney, Calum. I didn't think you needed anymore."

"Since when was I not allowed to make decisions for myself?"

"Since your brain went fucking haywire." Ashton snapped, ending the conversation just like that.

Calum looked at his feet, frowning. "Sorry."

"We all miss him, Calum," he sighed. "Every one of us wants him back. I understand that you might've taken it a little worse, but we're all feeling it to some degree, you know?"

The Maori's bottom lip quivered a little as he talked, but he tried to ignore it. "I keep sleeping on his side of the bed."

Ashton got up, unsure of what to do, so he just looked at his best friend who was trying so hard not to cry again. "Don't do this to yourself, Calum. Michael will come back."

"I could've stopped him."

The long-haired boy tied his hair up as he tried to think of something to say. "You didn't, though. There's nothing you can do to change that. So, are you going to spend your days crying about it, or are you going to look for Michael?"

Those words sparked something in Calum. Told him that he wasn't doing anything. He was just sitting there whining rather than even bothering to help find him. He pulled his phone out of his pocket.

He went on to Twitter, tweeting, please keep looking before getting off of it and calling their personal assistant. He asked her to get them somebody who was good at tracing people. She knew exactly what he was on about, and asked for someone to track him from the police station.

Unfortunately, Michael was smarter than they expected, and had turned his phone off for quite some time. The last cell tower his phone connected with was one in Belgium. What the fuck was Michael doing in Belgium? They'd checked his credit card, and he hadn't even bought a plane ticket.

So, this led to Belgian police trawling Brussels, looking for a redheaded kid named Michael Clifford. They couldn't find him, but promised to keep looking.

Michael please

Calum changed the channel on the TV, sinking back into his seat. An English reporter came on, sitting with a monotone news-reporter look they always had.

"This marks the third day of famous boyband's guitarist Michael Clifford has been missing. The band and fans are distraught, sending messages of love to the guitarist, hoping he will return home." She said, and it flashed it to tweets, one being is our technology so behind that we can't even find a celebrity – a well-known person who is constantly online?

Anybody can disappear. Calum found himself thinking. Anybody. No matter what social status.

Michael was practically trained into not letting people know where he was. Being a celebrity to a band that had such a following required him to do that. So, of course, he hadn't left the location on, or texted back. He knew that he would get found out.

Looking over to see the two boys asleep on the couch, Calum pulled the note Michael had left him out of his pocket.

He just wanted some time to be by himself.

Why?

Why did he need to be by himself?

Was it . . . was it Calum? Did he do something?

There were so many unanswered questions. So many things he needed to say to Michael – needed to ask.

He sat and played with his lighter, wondering if he should just burn the note and get it over with. But, Calum couldn't bring himself to do it. What if this was the last piece of Michael he had left?

He knew he was being stupid, and just over-reacting, but he was worried for Michael. He was so worried, because, he hadn't even been using his credit card. How was he getting food? Was he getting any at all?

He knew that it had only been three days, and that Michael was coming back, but Calum was the type of guy to text Michael five minutes after he'd left the door. He depended on Michael like the fool he was.

He was such an idiot for that. 

so, questionsss:

what do you think of ashton trying to be the strong one?

what about calum smoking? Do you think it'll get worse? 

Calum/Luke blaming himself/themselves for Michael running away? 

sorry if this is too sad for you guys, but it gets kinda better over the next couple of chapters.

ALSO I GOT TICKETS TO SEE TOP FUCKKKKK