human ↦ calum hood {au}

twelve: grief

CHAPTER TWELVE:

| calum’s pov |

“Why’d you stay?” Her hand reaches out to touch the side of my face while her head stay put on the pillow. 

“I don’t know,” I respond, truthfully. I let myself do the same, running my hand through her hair then to caress her cheek.

“I’m glad you did,” she told me, smiling.

“Me too.”

I tensed up at such a question. It was just another one of her three harmless words, but it struck me like an arrow. 

It was just an innocent question.

“Stay?”

She nodded. “Why’d you stay in the hospital for so long?”

Why would she ask a question like that? It wasn’t like she could remember that day, right? She couldn’t anymore. She can’t. 

“I don’t know,” I murmured, hoping she wouldn’t hear it.

There was a long pause, and I thought she really didn’t hear me.

“I’m glad you did.” She placed her hand on mine, and a reenactment like this never made my heart ache as much as I anticipated it would be.

Grief– I felt grief, in just a split second. 

“Me… too.”

That smile on her face was just the same as the one before. It was so real that I felt weak. But if I could stop this moment and just stay here forever, I would. 

But she was a different person.

We were back to square one. 

“No, stop that, Calum,” I scolded myself for falling so easily. Why was it that I still had a soft spot for her? Why do I keep forgetting how she tore me apart?

I hold her hand, the thoughts I had about starting anew with her dispersing. It can’t happen again. I had to stop being so frail from these memories.

They were in the past.

The past should stay in the past.