To love you | Malum

Ch. 22 - Training + Cheers To A Life Without Happiness

Michael + Ch. 22 - Training + Cheers To A Life Without Happiness

I always knew what it meant to feel like the world is supposed to be a blur, and it was, but I felt like I could see clearer when Calum was around. He could keep me moving in a straight line, even when I'm perfectly capable of wheeling myself down a sidewalk. He takes me out of the dark as if he's a flashlight, and blinds me with the brightness, and I fall beneath the gravel and I always feel like he will be there to pick me right back up. But then he suddenly flips, and he's like this magnetic force that comes back to me whenever he feels like he has to be attached to something, and it makes me feel used. I am used, because Calum Hood doesn't want to be with a loser like me. He'll say he loves you until you believe him, and as soon as you say it back, he doesn't mean it anymore. That's the truth to it all, really. All of it. And I can try to write it down in attempt to explain how it really feels to experience this, but nobody will ever get it. It's hard waiting for something that you know will never come, and here I am, waiting for Calum to sweep me off my feet and change his ways while he's still trying to figure Luke out. The one person who wouldn't do anything for him. I'm not sure if that's the worst part about loving him yet. Maybe loving Calum Hood in general is the worst part.

I had my first Metatarsal Fracture Therapy training today with a woman named Aurelia, and she wasn't like any other. She actually cared about me, and talked to me as if I was normal rather than some guy in a wheelchair who just wants to get better. Aurelia asked me about my hobbies, my favorite things, and the last thing I'd want to witness before I'd die, and I told her that if I died before I could ever really get the chance to truly live again, I'd want to spend those last minutes with Calum. And it was stupid, it was so stupid because she could see right through me, and she could tell that he was hurting me and that I am in love, but I don't want to be. I feel like I'm in love with the wrong person, and the right person is waiting for me somewhere. Calum can't be it, because Luke is the one he's meant for. That's how it feels to me.

Aurelia didn't judge me for anything that I told her, and she told me about her life, and how she has a son with autism and a daughter who's blind, and I understood without actually fully understanding, and it was a very beautiful thing to hear something from another point of view. She welcomed me into her life in the same way that she welcomed everyone else, and she was very easy-going with me, and it was almost downright impossible getting out of the wheelchair, but she helped me. And we did two trainings that made it possible for me to move my foot, but not possible enough to walk yet. Yet. I knew that I still had a chance to live a happy life again, I knew that I did. But that thought soon faded away when a knock echoed through the empty room we were in, and I hated that I knew who it was instantly, because he always knew how to find me, even when I tried to push him away.

"May I come in?"

He looked like he had been crying again, and I just wanted to find an escape from it all. I knew it probably had to do with Luke, or his career, or maybe even his parents because maybe they're not so perfect after all, and god, I wanted to push him away more than anything, but he looked like one of those constellations in the night sky, and I wanted to look at him forever and admire him and tell him he's beautiful and that there is hope. But it was hard to move my lips, and I couldn't even think of a single thing to say as he kneeled down and gave me a smile, despite the fact that he was dying inside. He was on the edge of the cliff, and one little thing could easily push him off. I didn't want to be that little thing. I couldn't be.

"How is the training going?"

"Well," said Aurelia, "Michael could use some improvement, but it's only his first day. I'm proud of him, and you should be too."