APRIL FOOLS ≠ calum hood

w e d n e s d a y , a p r i l 2 1 s t

AFTER
IRIS

So, after Calum's outburst, I may have freaked out. And I may still be freaking out.

I haven't left my house since I got home on Sunday, not even for school. I've faked being sick and asked my dad to call me out. Now that my brother was out in the day, it meant I didn't have to lie in bed and sniffle all day.

But after missing two days, I knew I had to go back to school. So here I was, up extra early because I couldn't sleep. It was only seven now and I'd been completely ready for about half an hour. After five, falling back asleep just wasn't going to happen so I gave up.

The thought of going to school made me feel a little sick. I didn't want to run into Calum, but I knew we had classes together. He couldn't have meant what he said. It must've been an attempt to get me to forgive him, or maybe I misheard him.

Maybe he just said that he loved me. Like as a friend. Not that he was in love with me. That has to be it.

But I know I heard him correctly.

Which is what's terrifying me. I've ran a hundred different scenarios in my head and replayed that moment so many times. Every time, those words get to me. I don't know what it is, but the look on his face and his tone told me he meant it. Or at least he thought he did.

"I think I'm in love with you." Each time I replay those stupid words in my head they burn. They tingle. Not just in my heart, but all over. From the inside out. It feels like he lit me on fire, and it scares me. Every time it burns, every time it leaves me feeling scarred and confused. It feels like there's an absence or something.

So I was doing my best to not repeat those words back in my head. I was doing my best to forget that he said them. And I was doing my best not to see his stupid flannel in the back of my mind too. So many things reminded me of him.

It made me dizzy. The way he was everywhere and nowhere at once. And, yeah, I'll admit that I missed him.

Over the course of that stupid month we got close. It was almost as if we could tell one another anything. With us there was no judgement it seemed. That made it much easier to get close faster than most people do, and much easier to get attached. So of course I missed him; he was the person I was closest to. And I thought that we were good friends. But apparently not as close as I thought we were. If you can stop yourself from being hurt by someone more than you already have, then I believe you should.

Cutting myself off from Calum was the only logical escape from pain my mind could come up with. I've never dealt with pain very well. Or my abandonment and trust issues. So I isolated myself, but thing we're different with him.

We could stay up all night talking to each other. I'd spent a few nights at his house, and most nights that's what we did.

Words just kept spilling my mouth. It was like a flood of all my bottled up emotions. And it seemed the same for him. And whenever I saw the sun rise, I realized I had just been voicing my thoughts to him- something I've never been able to do with anyone. This happened every time we were together at night or Facetiming instead of sleeping (and that happened way more often than it should've).

Calum would talk about how his parents had just gotten into his fight or what his friends had done when I wasn't around and I would talk about the things my brother said to me or not wanting to go to school tomorrow; until we would just talk about anything in general.

Honesty is one of the hardest things you can get from a person, but somehow as the nights passed we found it in each other.

I've never wanted to open myself up to anyone. People had told me that I was mysterious or that bottling things up inside of me wasn't good. And I was never used to anyone being straight up honest with me until Calum came along.