Out of reach (Michael Clifford)

Chapter 14

Michaels POV

I woke up the next day, finding myself in a dark and small room. My eyes widened and a smile grew across my face. Lilac. It was Lilac. I took a step forward, as I did a door opened, bringing Lilacs attention to that. I walked in. Me, but as another person. It was like a memory, but it only unfolded into a nightmare.. it was what was happening between them that made my jaw drop.

They were shouting, screaming at each other. He had his hands tugging at his (or my) hair, and she was crying into her hands. I couldn't hear what they were arguing about, but I wanted it to stop. It was tearing me apart.

I tried to shout at them to stop, but nothing came from my mouth. Before I knew it I watched myself storm out the house, slamming the door and Lilac continued to cry. It was truly hurting my heart, to see her cry. I wanted her to stop and know that none of this would ever happen between us, but she was out of reach.

I tried to touch her shoulder, but my hand moved through her, like I was some sort of ghost. My eyes then saw something unexplainable as the room grew darker. She was hurting herself.

I screamed, watching the blood from her arm drip to the floor. I covered my eyes, held my head, anything to get the image out my mind.

Just wake up. Just wake up.

-

I woke up, sweating and crying. Luke burst into my room as I started panting for breathe, tugging onto his shirt. "Michael, Michael calm down. It's gonna be okay, buddy." He wound his arms around me to calm me down.

"L-Luke, she was there. A-And I was." I stuttered, rubbing my red eyes.

"In your dream?" He asked, and I nodded.

"We were.. We were s-screaming at each other and-and" my eyes welled up. "She harmed herself, Luke, she did it because of me." I said, before feeling the tears rush down my cheeks again, where I was pulled into another hug.

"No, it was just a silly dream. Don't believe what you saw. None of it's true, Michael. Please, believe me." He reassured me, rubbing my back as I cried into his shoulder.

"I just want her to be okay." I said into his arm, wetting his shirt. He'd only send me cry once, and it wasn't about something like this.

"I know you do. So do we." He said with a small whisper, rubbing my arm protectively.

~

Later that day, we were trying to get our minds off things, by practicing. Unfortunately we were still signed to be working with Ryan, another girl about our age took Lilac's place.

I was still furious with Ryan, and he could tell from my glares at him as we practiced. Luke nudge me a few times and told me to ignore it, and I gave up and did, but still continued to narrow my eyes at him whenever he looked my way.

The new girl I found myself to hate instantly, but the other three boys seemed to like her. As if they forgot about Lilac already.

Ashton dragged me over to their little 'group' after we finished practicing English Love Affair. "This is Jade. Say hi, Michael." Calum said, sitting besides her quite closely as if he took a liking to her.

I scoffed, accidentally, well.. maybe not a little bit..

Luke shot me a look as if to 'keep it cool' and Jade caught my attention while she spoke to Calum. "It was a shame what happened to the last girl. When she first arrived here we were like best friends."

"What happened?" Ashton asked, intrigued as I was.

"Well," She began, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. I wanted to vomit, she was probably just messing with us and didn't know anything about Lilac.

"I heard crying one night when I was walking out of the studios, and I went across the road because it seemed it was coming from an alley down there. I went down and saw Lilac lying on the floor, with some guy, he seemed drunk, towering over her."

"Steve." I muttered, gripping my fists.

"No, Steve was still at work when I had left." Jade said, before continuing. I furrowed my eyebrows, dismissing my thoughts in attempt to listen to her.

"Yeah and I was like 'oh my god get away from her!' because she was like crying and stuff, and it looked like she was in pain too. Then the guy, who really was drunk, was like stumbling everywhere and kept saying this word over and over again."

I had a bad feeling in my stomach.

"What was he saying?" Asked Calum.

I gulped. "Something like.. Charlotte. Or maybe Chalko?" I pushed my way past them and stumbled out the door, Luke calling for me to come back as I ran out with tears dropping from my cheek.

I only glanced across the road before running across too, and I stopped at the alley she was talking about. I leant against the wall, letting my tears be washed away by the rain falling down.

It was me. It was me.