To love you | Malum

Ch. 21 - Dance With Me + City Lights

Michael + Ch. 21 - Dance With Me + City Lights

It was a couple of hours after when I was released from the hospital. There wasn't a single sign that Calum had come back, and I tried to rid that gulp from my throat as soon as Daryl's hands made their way to the handlebars on my wheelchair. He wanted to go home, but I didn't want to go back there, simply because it felt wrong. This was the first place that made me feel like I actually belong here, because everyone is just like me. I serve a purpose in this old hospital bed, and it's like slipping into the chalky white sheets makes me warm and feel loved, in a way that Calum Hood simply cannot. I thought he forgot about me, because that's what made sense at the time. But upon arriving in a place that smelled like old takeout food and thawed out vegetables, a knock appeared. Daryl would tell me to go to the bathroom to wash up, but he and I both know that I'd stare into the mirror until I can't recognize myself anymore. I'd assume that's what everyone does, but that's probably just a made up story that everyone tells. The walls around me kept tumbling down as I wheeled myself away from the sound, and I could hear this voice subsidizing from the living room, and I knew it in the same way that I know the back of my hand, and I found myself wheeling back to it out of impulse.

Calum stood in the front of the door with a bruised eye, and I knew that I had to say something in order to find out if he's okay, but nothing was coming out of my mouth. Nothing. He was looking at me like the world just ran away from him and he needed to find a source to get back to it. I didn't know what to do, so I just sat there and acted as if I didn't exist, sort of in the same way that everyone that I've ever met does. Aside from two people, I'm practically invisible, so why would it matter if I said anything?

He looked broken. Absolutely, terrifyingly broken, and I wanted to hold his hand and make all of the pain go away. Daryl invited him in immediately and offered Calum a cup of tea that would have to be warmed up in the microwave rather than boiled on the stove, and he said that he didn't think he could drink anything without feeling like he was going to break. But he already did, and he was reaching out with these ropes in his hands, and he couldn't possibly make it through the night without seeing another star in the sky. He said that was me, but I couldn't believe it, and I couldn't believe him for using me as somebody who could just make him forget all about it for a while.

"Are you okay?"

He couldn't even nod, and I grabbed his hand as swiftly as I possibly could, and we got away for a while. His hands would grip the back of my chair, and we'd go on a stroll through my neighborhood. There weren't friendly faces anywhere, but we just ignored them most of the time. If they weren't going to at least have the decency to smile at somebody who could use it, then I certainly didn't have to waste my time on giving them attention that they didn't deserve to have. Calum didn't deserve to have my attention either, but I still gave all of it to him, because that's what you do when you're in love. You give someone everything because you know that it will make them happy, but it's often that you don't get anything back. And I'm still trying to figure out whether I'm okay with that or not.

"Look Michael, I'm really sorry for running off yesterday," Calum mumbled while holding his breath, and I wanted to be the one to help him release it. I didn't miss the way he let go of my handlebars, and kissed his knuckles because he was panicking and hiding something that could easily kill him if he told anybody. I didn't miss the way he was wrecking himself to pieces, then putting on the darkest smile he could because gluing them back together wasn't enough. I didn't miss the way he stopped wheeling me completely, walked around as if he didn't have a good enough view of what he was looking at and grabbed my hand. But I did miss the way that dark smile faded to dust as soon as fire met with water. I was so in love with this boy that it was almost impossible to miss everything he does. Almost. It's the little things that I can't seem to keep track of.