To love you | Malum

Ch. 19 - Break Me Apart, I'll Still Love You + Heartache

Michael + Ch. 19 - Break Me Apart, I'll Still Love you + Heartache

Vulnerability was one of the worst things in the world. People just didn't understand what it was like to wheel themselves out of a house without support from a parent or a friend. They didn't understand what it was like to always have something going on outside in the neighborhood, but that isn't the point. The area was flooding with chaotic chatter because a business woman couldn't get to her meeting on time, and a bank owner needed to go get a donut and some coffee because he was exhausted as hell and I needed to go to school. Of course I dreaded going to Pleine, but it was my senior year, meaning that if I don't graduate, I'll be stuck there all over again. I can't let that happen. Anyway, vulnerability – that's what I was talking about, right? I'm vulnerable.

Maybe that's why it's easy for people to crack into my shell and destroy me. They find it less complicated to pick at the strings of my brain and my heart and my literal vessel of life than to crash a car, and crashing a car is pretty easy. Don't do it though, god don't do it. Then there was Calum. He was the best at plucking the strings and making sure they'd break before he'd try to put them back together again with minimum effort. Sometimes, I'd like to think he loves me, but I know he doesn't. He just says he does because he wants to fool me into thinking that I'm worthy of being loved, that I'm special, that I'm this epitome of perfection, when in fact, I'm the opposite. I wish he could love me in the way I love him, but you can't force somebody to love you. To love you. I can't seem to be happy. Maybe I'm not trying to be.

I made it to school five minutes before the bell rang, and I wasn't all that surprised when I saw Calum leaning against my locker. I didn't miss the way he had a cigarette dangling in between his lips, but it wasn't lit because "you can't smoke in school, you'll get expelled." I didn't miss the way he had a paper pocketed inside of his sweaty palms that were just ruining the material of it, but he obviously didn't care. Calum was a careless one. I didn't miss the way he looked around the building as if he was waiting for me, and when his eyes met with mine, it was like he saw an angel for the first time. But I did miss the way he looked back down at his feet seconds after, because he felt guilty over the things he's said and the things he's done and I didn't care because I just wanted to get away, but I also wanted to hold him. I wanted to envelop him like he was the bars to a prison cell and the only thing I could grab onto for dear life. I wanted him. I wanted to love him with all of my being, but I'm just Michael Clifford, and nobody will allow me to love them. But I guess it makes sense. A little birdie in a book told me that we accept the love we think we deserve, and maybe that's why Calum is with Luke. Maybe he thinks he deserves all of the bad things, because he's a "bad person" but really, I see it differently. Calum Hood could break my heart into pieces, and I'll still find a way to put all of them back into his hand. I want him to know that someone loves him, even if I can't be loved back. It's as simple as that.

"Uh hey," I mumbled, feeling anxious all of a sudden. This was my locker – nobody ever came here, nobody ever cared. Calum seemed to be the only one, and he was close to being a friend. He was close to being something more, but I missed my chance. I let him slip right through my fingers and it's my goddamn fault. All of it.

"Look, I - I don't really have much to say to you after what happened yesterday, it's just really hard to tell you how I feel verbally without sounding mean. . so I um, wrote you this note. Please read it, or don't. . But I'd really like you to. I need you to know how I feel."

I just nodded. I reached out to grab the note out of his hand, but he just interlocked our fingers again. My breath hitched. It seemed to do this a lot, it seemed as if it didn't like me very much. Nothing likes me very much. "Can you - can you please let go of my hand? You have a boyfriend and I don't feel like getting beat up again."