To love you | Malum

Ch. 10 - Bake Sale + Feelings

Michael + Ch. 10 - Bake Sale + Feelings

As my breath grew colder, my heart felt warmer. I know it's a weird thing to say, but it feels as if there's something blossoming inside of me, as if it's more than just my mind hinting to me that I feel less suffocated for a reason. There has to be one, because everything that happened so far has had a reason, if I wasn't aware of it. Maybe I just wasn't thinking straight, because my thoughts were clouted with CalumCalumCalum and his cute little laugh, or maybe I genuinely could sense that something was up, and it wasn't a good thing, either.

It was around a month into senior year when we had a new student join my music class. I enjoyed this subject more than I enjoyed the thought of death, simply because it made me feel like I could live without being judged, without knowing that there was some sort of harm coming my way. I played the guitar, which I have to admit, has been awfully difficult for me lately, but one of the female students always helps me out of my wheelchair and into a regular one so I can hold the instrument properly. Her name is Ashley. We aren't friends, and probably never will be, but she seems like she cares a lot for people that don't care about her. Kind of like me. Except she isn't boring.

The 'new' student disrupted the entire class from their chatter, leaving the teacher to grin because she never expected the star player on the football team to be interested in joining her band class. Calum Fucking Hood. This now meant that I had more than one class with him, which was gym, and being able to spend more time with him, where Luke wasn't around, meant everything to me, even if I didn't show it. I didn't want to show it, because showing emotions wasn't something I, Michael Clifford, did. Not when I'm numb to everything around me.

"There's an empty seat next to Michael, go ahead and sit there." Of course. I politely asked Ashley to help me move the chair over a bit so he has more leg room, to which she winked and pushed my chair closer to his, causing me to bump into Calum once he sat down. "Sorry, Calum. That wasn't supposed to happen."

"It's fine," Calum smiled warmly, his brown eyes gazing into mine as he leaned into the chair, but he broke eye contact soon after five seconds passed, and began searching around the room for something, anything, an instrument. "Do you guys, um, have any guitars left?"

"Actually, according to Mrs. Preciado, we have too many guitar players. There's one more space for a bass player, though."

"Bass?" Calum's face churned at the sound, his stomach as well, just thinking about picking up an instrument that he wasn't used to. But he recently switched into this class because he didn't like having an off period since it made him feel dirty, so he came here. "I don't play the bass."

"It's never too late to learn," Ashley chimed in with a laugh just before returning to her headphones that were plugged into the miniature piano on her lap. She was actually incredibly good at playing, but I could never admit that to her, myself, or anybody else. I didn't like admitting my true feelings. But they really showed around Calum, and he knows I'm falling for him, and it hurts that he hasn't acted upon those feelings yet, and it's probably because of Luke.

"I guess she's right," Calum pouted, standing up to grab the bass from the back of the room, just before returning to his seat and tuning it to get the right sound. "You play guitar?"

I felt my cheeks heating up. "Yeah, but it's kind of hard to play in a wheelchair, you know? Because there's the arms, and it elevates itself when I'm sitting in it, so I have to ask Ashley to help me out of it and put me into a normal chair like this so I can feel comfortable with playing the strings," I mumbled under my breath, not once making eye contact with him, but I could see that he was staring at me out of the corner of his eye. I didn't miss the way his fingers molded into the bass as he let out a sigh of relief. I didn't miss the way his lips curved into a smile as he began thinking of something, anything, and I could only hope it was about me, but I knew it was about Luke. I didn't miss the way he began strumming as if he was used to this kind of thing. But I did miss the way he started singing silently to himself a song about heartbreak. Why he was sad was something I could never fully put together on my own.